Something Original

I wanted a brand new story idea for my latest MA assignment and was drawing a blank. I couldn’t think of anything meaty enough to write about. In the past I’d seen a Facebook ad for Story Engine so decided to check it out.

Story Engine provides cards for characters, motivations, locations and different attributes you can select and build prompts from.  I was a bit on the fence about how useful they’d be and didn’t want  to waste too much money so decided to buy a couple of their PDF versions you print at home. Obviously they’re nowhere near as pretty or tactile as buying the physical cards but they’re cheap and you get them instantly.  Spent about 20 minutes printing and cutting them up and then got to work!

I created two different starter prompts. The first was “a petty wanderer wants to prevent a war from being started by a mask that grants the power to speak to the dead but it will take them somewhere they never wanted to go”.

I did like the idea of something that allowed speaking to the dead but otherwise it didn’t really spark any excitement so I went a second time. This time I got “a mutated criminal wants to claim the hidden artifact of an invisible skull but it will cost them the world they know”.

I loved this one!  Had lots there that sparked interest especially having a criminal as a protagonist so I could explore the morally grey area of a character. I decided to take the second prompt but merge it with the ability to speak to the dead resulting in my final starter prompt of:

“a mutated criminal wants to find the invisible skull that grants the power to speak to the dead but it will cost them the world they know”

Amazing! But what next? How to go from that to something I could start writing? I went with a typical mind map and started fleshing out the various elements of the prompt. I started with a male protagonist but changed it to female while exploring elements. The mutation became a curse caused by a witch and the loss of the ‘world they know’ became the exposure of their curse to their friends.

And with that I had enough to start writing. I’m loving where this prompt is taking me and how I can play with writing a criminal as the main character. The assignment has been completed and submitted.  Once I get the results back I’ll share what I wrote. It’s just one scene in what would be a novel. I’ll continue writing for this story but will definitely use the Story Engine cards for more starter prompts when I need to.

How do you come up with new story ideas? Share any tips or tools you use I’d love to learn of other ways!