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Prompts > Tips on Finding Ideas

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message 1: by Veronica, Bigfoot makes an excellent character (new)

Veronica (v_a_b) | 727 comments Mod
Okay, so you don't find any of the prompt discussions helpful, or you feel as if you are mooching off of others for ideas. Well, you can still find ideas on your own, if with some tips.

Here's the first one:
Your best inanimate friend is the question 'what if?' You are now also friends with Who, When, Where, How, and Why. You would be friends with what, but you must find what (aka, the story) by using your other friends.


message 2: by Veronica, Bigfoot makes an excellent character (new)

Veronica (v_a_b) | 727 comments Mod
Spot a person that you can keep an eye on. Memorize what they look like. Then, decide who they are. Give them an imaginary personality. (you may want to write these things down). Now, do the same thing with somebody else.
After you do that, find a picture, any picture. What is happening? Where is it? When is it? Create a situation.

Now, take those two people, and shove them into that situation. Watch what happens.


message 3: by Veronica, Bigfoot makes an excellent character (new)

Veronica (v_a_b) | 727 comments Mod
You can also split that up, and just do people watching, or just do staring at a picture and creating a setting/scene from it.

And you can think about your dreams. If your dreams make no sense, then take one aspect of that dream, maybe a person, maybe a place, maybe an event, and expand on it.


Kjersti but you can call me Captain | 250 comments People watching is awesome. I find that this works really well in mall food courts. ^_^ That's where I practice my drawing, but it works well with writing too.


message 5: by Lela (new)

Lela | 47 comments The interesting paragraph game on writing passionates was a great way to get ideas! so inspiring!


message 6: by Veronica, Bigfoot makes an excellent character (new)

Veronica (v_a_b) | 727 comments Mod
see Write a Paragraph topic under prompts. :P

Going to a place on goodreads to get ideas isn't really a tip, I'm talking about things you can do that isn't online.


message 7: by Lela (last edited Jan 01, 2009 06:29PM) (new)

Lela | 47 comments oh, sorry. oops. *blushes, embarrassed*


message 8: by Veronica, Bigfoot makes an excellent character (new)

Veronica (v_a_b) | 727 comments Mod
s'okay. I think I'm the only one that's written a paragraph in this group so far, actually.


message 9: by Lela (new)

Lela | 47 comments yeah, you are.


message 10: by Sella (new)

Sella Malin If you have any old calendars, the kind with pictures of places on every month, then rip out all the pictures. Shuffle them, and place them in a pile, face-down. Close your eyes and choose one at random. That is the setting for your story. Stare and stare at the picture, and ask yourself these questions- what is going on in this picture? What is happening? Are there any people or creatures there? If so, what kind, and what are they doing? Before you know it, you'll be writing.


message 11: by Breezy (new)

Breezy | 116 comments Play cupid with the veggies and fruits in your fridge...or write what would happen from the produce's point of view if a tomato fell in love with YOUR face after watching it pop in and out of the fridge.

*another thing: get a recipe from somewhere and give every ingredient a personality, then write a story with them.

Neither of these are the best STORY ideas, but they're definitely great for loosening the ol' noggin if you feel blocked...


message 12: by Veronica, Bigfoot makes an excellent character (new)

Veronica (v_a_b) | 727 comments Mod
Wow! That sounds like fun! I ought to do that sometime...


message 13: by Paige (new)

Paige Miller | 4362 comments Watch something, even on TV. Watch what could've happened and what DID happen.

Now, using your best friend What If, imagine a way that scenario could have turned out differently!


message 14: by [deleted user] (new)

yepper skepper!


message 15: by Dee, Fan of the "Young Prose Society" (new)

Dee Marie (dee_marie) | 3382 comments Mod
Use your nose...so many writers forget about smell.



message 16: by Sella (new)

Sella Malin Oooh yes! Good one! :D


message 17: by Paige (new)

Paige Miller | 4362 comments perfect. :D


message 18: by T.O.L.I. (new)

T.O.L.I. (taleoflostink) | 1367 comments I have a good one...open up word on your computer then type random letters, them stare at the letters and the first word that pops out at you in the random letters should give you a random idea and flesh it out from there


message 19: by Paige (new)

Paige Miller | 4362 comments wow, that was a lot of randoms.... but a cool idea.


message 20: by T.O.L.I. (new)

T.O.L.I. (taleoflostink) | 1367 comments i know...yupers


message 21: by Paige (new)

Paige Miller | 4362 comments *laughs*


message 22: by T.O.L.I. (new)

T.O.L.I. (taleoflostink) | 1367 comments meepa


message 23: by Paige (new)

Paige Miller | 4362 comments eep


message 24: by T.O.L.I. (new)

T.O.L.I. (taleoflostink) | 1367 comments leprechans


message 25: by Veronica, Bigfoot makes an excellent character (new)

Veronica (v_a_b) | 727 comments Mod
(you missed a u!)

AND GUESS WHAT??? I'M LEARNING ABOUT DESIGNING WEB PAGES!!! :D :D :D :D :D YAY FOR HTML!!!


message 26: by Elaine (new)

Elaine (caladhiel) | 1020 comments Cool!!! =D I'd love to learn how to design web pages!


message 27: by [deleted user] (new)

I'm gonna learn that next year . . . i think!


message 28: by Veronica, Bigfoot makes an excellent character (new)

Veronica (v_a_b) | 727 comments Mod
Well, in some ways it's easier for me, and some ways it's more difficult. Easier because my brother is a good teacher and it's not like he's teaching a whole class, just me. Harder because we can get through more stuff and there isn't anything specific that we have to stop at so it is almost an overload of information.


message 29: by Paige (new)

Paige Miller | 4362 comments lolz


message 30: by Anne (new)

Anne (mekone) | 225 comments One thing I do to jump start my imagination is to almost cover my eyes with my hands, so that I only see very little of my surroundings. I then very quickley pick three or four objects or people (depending on where I am) and put them into a scene. The weirder the better! The fun is to try to work out backwards how they came to be there, and what will happen next.

(Example: tomato, waitress, spoon could be a scene where a waitress drops a tomato on the floor, and when she stoops to pick it up, she notices a spoon wired to something that looks like a bomb under the kitchen counter, and so on.)


message 31: by Elaine (new)

Elaine (caladhiel) | 1020 comments Cool!


message 32: by [deleted user] (new)

COOLIO I AGREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


message 33: by [deleted user] (new)

Sometimes I listen to a song with lyrics and make up what it was written about or the story around it. I've written a story of what I thought the song 'disappear' by hoobastank was about.


message 34: by [deleted user] (new)

coolio. I wrote a story about one word.

Dreamer.



message 35: by Veronica, Bigfoot makes an excellent character (new)

Veronica (v_a_b) | 727 comments Mod
we wrote a story about fear in CWC. We took a moment when we were REALLY scared, and wrote about it.

But that can work with any emotion. And to make it into a story, you could... exaggerate it a bit. Give the character a name.


message 36: by Veronica, Bigfoot makes an excellent character (new)

Veronica (v_a_b) | 727 comments Mod
we wrote a story about fear in CWC. We took a moment when we were REALLY scared, and wrote about it.

But that can work with any emotion. And to make it into a story, you could... exaggerate it a bit. Give the character a name.


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