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Story Ideas – 25 Story Starters
By Deb Gallardo
From my new best friend blogger at fictionway.com, come six categories under which she lists 25 free story starters, and an example of each Be sure to read the whole post on her blog. (Link below)
Innocent Bystander
You overhear a conversation at work. It’s strange, curious but nonsense. Unfortunately, what you’ve heard is a plot to control the stock market and now you’re considered a threat. You’re fired, discredited and assaulted. The only way you can clear your name is to unravel the plot.
Reluctant Hero
You stop a woman being assaulted by a man. You become romantically involved with her and later learn the man has been killed. She changes before your eyes and you start to worry about your own safety.
Life After Death
You receive an organ transplant, along with the donor’s (memories / traits / abilities) which lead you to discover more about your donor’s life and death.
Apocalyptic Themes
A plague sweeps across the world as carriers unknowingly infect people on every continent. The few survivors remain in a lawless state and must fight to restore their way of life.
Modern Day Horror Stories
Your child is abducted. The police believe he is dead, but you continue to search.
Too Good to Be True
You embark on a treasure hunt to find (religious artifacts / pirate gold / sunken treasure / Mayan gold) and you must overcome obstacles along the way. This would be good fish out of water story: you’re an intellectual with the “map” but you need brawn on your side to succeed.
Read 25 Absolutely Free Story Starters (Opens in new window)
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5 Comments »
January 11th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
[...] * Story Ideas – 25 Story Starters [...]
December 27th, 2010 at 11:26 pm
arent all of these jst movie themes that someone has written as book ideas. all of these hav been made into a movie….
December 28th, 2010 at 2:32 am
Thank you for commenting.
You’re absolutely right, of course. And that’s the point.
An idea can be used and re-used any number of ways. It’s been theorized that there are only about 25 story ideas — master story ideas, in fact — and all other stories derive from them. What makes the difference is setting, characterization, time period, genre and other details that make one story different from another.
A perfect example is the story Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. This 16th century tale was actually based on a much older poem, which bears striking resemblance to other epic and tragic love stories like Tristan and Isolde. The Capulets and Montagues were rival families, which sets up the inevitable tragedy when a young person from each family falls in love with the other.
In 1950, Leonard Bernstein collaborated with Arthur Laurent on the musical “West Side Story, using rival gangs in New York City instead of rival families.” Disney’s movie “High School Musical” used rival cliques for the story’s young lovers, although this version of the story has a happy ending, unlike “Romeo and Juliet” and “West Side Story.”
A good story idea can be the inspiration for derivative stories, for adaptations, and even the creation of another art-form. Going on 30 operas have been written using these star-crossed lovers. Symphonic works and ballets have been composed based on the “Romeo and Juliet” theme.
You’re making the same mistake many beginning writers make, by dismissing a work that has already “been done.” In November of 2010, a fan review page for the TV series “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” speculated that the writers were setting up a rival clan scenario for yet another star-crossed lovers story.
The truth is, there is nothing new under the sun, as King Solomon the Wise once lamented. And that was millenia ago. But writers can take an old tale and make it new with some imagination.
Here’s another example: the story of Cinderella. Besides the many variations on this tale that are easily recognized in other cultures’ versions of the “original story,” clever authors have concocted new stories that only someone analyzing the underlying story would notice was actually the basic Cinderella story. Shaw wrote”Pygmalion,” which was later developed into the musical “My Fair Lady.”
These examples serve to prove once again that a good underlying story comes from a whole body of work (There are 500 variations in Europe alone). Only naivete would cause you to say that with so many versions out there, that the story has already been told, movies made, books written. By some quick character substitution, setting tweaks and time period adjustments, can create a tale that resembles none other. Why not try it yourself.
January 24th, 2011 at 7:29 pm
These have all already been made into books in the United States! I think that people who are complaining about this should take this great ideas, and tweak them to make them their own.
December 12th, 2011 at 10:10 am
The ideas are good, that’s why they are made into books, incoperated into movies, dramas and much more. Some games are even developed based on this basic ideas. It’s like a first law in fundamental theory of story something comparable to Einstein’s fundamental theoretical physics.