Finding Story Ideas in Everyday Life

I love hearing about how famous authors came up with the idea for their Best Seller. I thought it would be fun to talk about how I come up with a few of my story ideas.

1. Literal Everyday life

Funny story, I actually came up with the idea for my latest WIP in Walmart. Haha!

Inspiration is everywhere you just have to train yourself to look for it. We have those thoughts all the time, but we don’t always take them seriously and never realize we may have a best-seller on our hands. Sometimes the idea will just hit you and other times you may have to dig for it a bit.

What I do when I’m looking for ideas in ordinary situations is I take whatever is going on and “dramatize” it. Just think what if. What if that person sitting alone in the coffee shop is really a government spy sent to observe the cashier.

And remember, Suzanne Collins got the idea for the hunger games while flipping through TV channels.

2. Movies and Books

I once had an irresistible urge to write about elves after watching a show that had to do with an elf. It wasn’t a very good show, and I don’t think I got through the first episode but I was really inspired by it.

It’s the small things in books and movies that inspire me to write. Like a character’s name, or the genre, or maybe something so insignificant to the story you wouldn’t even guess it inspired me.

3. Photos, Artwork, and Music

This kind of lines up with the last one.

One of my favorite things to do is look at people’s photos and artwork on Pinterest. I get the best ideas from just a simple selfy and character sketch. I have tons of Pinterest boards devoted to this kind of stuff.

Music is a powerful form of inspiration for pretty much everything; whether it’s the rhythm or the lyrics I can always find inspiration in music.

4. Dreams

This is kind of a strange one to mention, and I don’t know if everyone can relate, but I have found that my weird dreams make excellent story ideas.

Just remember to write them down after you wake up.

I know I didn’t cover every possible way of getting inspiration for a story. Who knows, maybe I’ll make a part two a few months from now(but don’t count on it).

Thanks a bunch,

— Nerd