How to Create New Stories

How do you create new stories? Sometimes the ideas just come to you, but what do you do if they don't? Try a few of these ideas for a more systematic approach.

What's in the news?

This is a good source for new stories that is mined by television shows all the time. For a twist that will get the story read, though, take a real life issue that is in the news and approach it from a different perspective. Take the story of a businessman who profiteers after a hurricane, for example, and find a way to make him the good guy.

What is important to you?

Take any principle that you consider to be important, and find a story in it. If honesty is important, create a story populated with characters that are defined by how honest or dishonest they are, and show the consequences of this trait. If a political principle is important to you, imagine new stories that show what happens when this principle is followed, or when it isn't.

What stories do you like?

Take a story you really like, and think about how you would have told it, or how it could be told. then do it. Romeo and Juliet has been told a hundred ways, right? Why not find a formula that has been proven to work and that you like, and do your own updated version?

What do you understand?

More specifically, what do you understand that other people don't seem to understand? What do you wish they knew? How can you demonstrate this truth in a story? Wrap adventure, drama and the elements they want in a story around a truth that is important to you, and show why it is important. Showing is always more powerful than just telling, and a fictional story shows.

What poems do you like?

Many poems are written in such a way that they convey a feeling or picture. Others, however, have a story to tell. But of course...

Continues here... How to Create New Stories - Part Two