Ready to spark your imagination? In this article, we’ll explore effective strategies for brainstorming compelling story ideas, complete with examples. Keep reading to discover how to develop a captivating storyline that resonates with your audience!
Brainstorming story ideas is a rigorous procedure that requires special effort and a clear-thinking process. You might find many ideas, but deciding if they are worth exploring is another challenge. At first, it might seem a magical process due to the motivation you currently have to craft a banger story that actually intrigues the readers. But, as the process continues, it becomes a hot mess.
We have compiled some strategies to help you craft a perfect story by following a certain process of finding ideas, fleshing them out, and finalising something magnificent. So, without making you hang around, let’s begin the journey.
What is Meant by Brainstorming Story Ideas?
As defined by The Empire State University, “Brainstorming, like freewriting, is a prewriting technique designed to bring subconscious ideas into consciousness. It’s a good technique to use when you know a general subject, you’re interested in writing about but don’t exactly know what aspect of the subject you want to pursue.”
In simple words, brainstorming is a conscious approach where all ideas are rapidly recorded and equally accepted, with the goal of exploring as many ideas as possible related to the subject.
10 Tips for Brainstorming Ideas for Stories
Brainstorming realistic and worth-exploring story ideas can be a challenging task, especially when you are facing writer’s block or busy with your writing tasks. That is why we have compiled this guide to ease the process of finding new ideas for stories that sell. If you still find it challenging to bring new ideas to your papers, getting help with your assignments from senior writers can be a viable solution in this regard.
1. Write What You Know
As we know, brainstorming story ideas involves the process of bringing thoughts of your unconscious mind into consciousness. To help the process, you should write everything that comes to your subconscious mind. Anything that you are knowledgeable of or interested in will be worth writing down. Think of what you have grown up doing or something interesting about your family business. Do you have some favourite place where the plot of the storyline can start flourishing?
Something you have experienced in your life in recent or forbidden past that remained in your subconsciousness can surface within the brainstorming process. This can help you determine the topic or theme of the story you will be working on. You can also observe an old trope or cliché and start digging into opposite directions to what can be expected as an outcome. This way, you can find a solid base on which your storyline and plot can lie.
2. Use Writing Prompts
Didn’t find an intriguing topic within things you know about? It’s time to explore some areas far from your interest or comfort zone. Exploring something like science, fiction, or fantasy can awaken intriguing ideas for your storyline. Maybe you have never thought about writing a book on the theme of evil monarchy or about a war going on under the water.
Utilising different writing exercises and brainstorming techniques, you can improve your range of thinking, find interesting areas, and enhance the quantity and quality of the ideas. You would also be able to find multiple stories for plot twists and subplots.
3. Try Freewriting
Freewriting is a technique for brainstorming story ideas and clearing thoughts before crafting a storyline. During this process, the writer starts writing continuously without stopping for a certain amount of time. This way, the author conveys all the thoughts on his mind in a paper.
This technique has two benefits: the first is that you will be able to make room for new ideas to flow, and the second is that you will be able to review the ideas you have jotted down on paper.
No matter what you write, it must be without deep thinking, just from your subconscious mind. With this exercise, your mind will take you to those unexpected areas you never thought were in your mind.
However, if you are still not able to find a suitable storyline, this exercise gives you clarity of mind by pouring out every thought in your mind. Plus, you will also be able to determine what you do not want to write about. This is equally useful as finding the area to write upon.
4. Create a Mind Map
Building connections between different areas and thoughts and using visuals to support the process is usually referred to as a mind map. During this process, the author tries to draw relations to find out which ideas are closely related to each other. This technique is more useful as the use of charts and images can help you better understand the connections between different thoughts than just the text.
To implement this method, you can use different mind-mapping tools available online. But if you are not really tech-savvy, you can use a normal pen and paper to draw connections and utilise argumentation techniques. The professional tools available for this technique are Miro, MindMup, and Canva. Using these tools, you will be able to create a perfect mind map, leading you to find a clear and complete storyline.
5. Borrow From Other Artists
You should be careful while using this technique, as it might steal your thoughts out of your procrastination. However, to ignite your brainstorming story ideas sessions, you can get inspiration from existing plot ideas, characters, and familiar settings.
You can brainstorm new ideas based on existing plots and storylines. This technique is called borrowing ideas because you will have to return them after your brainstorming sessions; you can not use them as they are in your plot.
Example:
You might think about what will happen if you give a new plot twist to an old fairy-tale. Or what would “Game of Thrones” look like if it happened in the recent world? You can think about what can be another perspective induced in “Hamlet” by Shakespeare.
6. Try People Watching
Everyone around us is a walking story, you just need to observe them effectively. You can go out in a public place and watch people for better ideas generation. You will find fascinating characters, unique dialogues, and their delivery. Remember, everyone is the main character of their life, and observing them can help you bag some interesting characters and storylines home.
This method of brainstorming story ideas can help you avoid writer’s block and other situations like this where you are unable to explore interesting and realistic ideas. People watching can help you craft characters that are closer to reality, and readers will be able to connect more closely. When you observe real people interacting with the real world, with their families, and their behaviours when they are alone, you will be able to craft more realistic characters.
7. Follow a Thread
Following a thread of thoughts can help you track where the story goes in your mind. How do the events happen, and track which directions your ideas transform? If you think your initial ideas are not worth giving them a try, you can follow each idea and see where your mind takes you.
Example:
For example, if an idea comes to your mind, but you think it’s familiar with one of the existing ideas, instead of giving up on that idea, you can build upon that and see how the events unfold for the time being.
8. Start With Genre
Genre is the base of our writing and should be the first thing to decide on. Having an idea of what you basically want to write about can narrow down the areas you think about. Once you think about a specific genre, you can decide the rest of the story more easily. Whether you are thinking of exploring the world of fantasy or real-life issues are your thing, that will change the way you brainstorm ideas.
For example, if you are looking to write about a fantasy world, you should read existing fantasy stories and try to build ideas upon them. However, if you want a realistic story to which readers can feel connected, observing the people can be a good strategy.
9. Start With Character
If you are a writer who is fascinated by strong characters and likes to build your story along, you should start by crafting an impressive character personality. You might be a writer who likes to build a story based on the life of the characters, who they are, and what they do. Getting to know your characters can help you find a jumping point for your next big idea.
To get to know the characters better, you can explore their past and the events that made them who they are now. However, if you already know about their past events, you can think about their habits, fears, attributes, and flaws they possess. This way, you can craft a realistic character successfully.
10. Start With GMC
Goal, Motivation, and Conflict are the themes you can locate in a story to determine whether you want to continue the story or flash out the idea. These are the foundational elements to enhance or plan a storyline. Your characters must have some motivations, goals in life, or conflicts going on between them to connect them with one another.
One thing that needs to be addressed is that if you are exploring story ideas for your academic purposes, expert assignment writing companies in the UK can help you craft one efficiently. If you need ideas for your book, we all know that we need to write about what we are most excited about. Otherwise, the stories will be a burden on our hard drives, sitting unfinished there instead of enlightening people’s minds and filling their shelves.
Folding the Carpet of Brainstorming Story Ideas
To wrap up the discussion, we can say that finding the ideal ideas for crafting an interesting story is not possible. You need to implement techniques like following the throat and creating mind maps to enhance the main themes.
Or you can craft the characters first and build the storyline around the events that happen in their life over the period. Those characters can have certain motivations, insecurities, or conflicts in their life on which basis you can keep the story flowing.
In this article, we have outlined some strategies to brainstorm story ideas for your next masterpiece. By implementing these strategies, you can craft stories that will have the fuel to make them onto the shelves of the readers. At this point, we will wish you the best of luck with your next banger.
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