- What's up my friend, Abby here and welcome back to Writerslife Wednesdays. Today, we are talking about coming up with an actual story idea. Yep, the most basic fundamental beginnings of a story.
I'm talking about this because quite a few of you have been dropping me emails and comments and direct messages asking for a video on this topic saying that you really want to write a story, you just don't know what to write a story about. This is a very real struggle that a lot of writers face and I tend to overlook it sometimes because I have so many freaking plot bunnies at this point in my life that I've kind of forgotten what it feels like to have no idea what to write a story about. So that's the topic that we're gonna take down today.
How to actually come up with a story idea, out of thin air. So this is gonna be a super fun five step process that will help you to discover and uncover your brilliant story idea that you are passionate about you just don't know it yet. Plus three bonus tips that personally helped me so much.
So grab a notebook and let's get started. (upbeat music) Step one, choose your genre. I like to start with genre because it feels like the easiest thing to figure out.
What genre do you gravitate towards reading? That's probably the genre that you should write in. Chances are, this is the genre that you've already been thinking about writing in, but not always.
I know that for myself the book ideas that develop the quickest and easiest are contemporary in the contemporary genre because that's mostly what I read. Not that I can't write other genres, not that you can't write other genres but it's best to stick with what you know and what you're comfortable with especially if you're new to storytelling. The cool thing about choosing a genre is that automatically narrows your options way down.
Let's say, you know you wanna write a contemporary romance. Well, knowing that is really helpful because it keeps you away from writing a psychological thriller or a fantasy and vice versa. So once you've got your genre let's move on to step two.
Find your theme. We talked about theme in depth, super in depth last week check out that video if you haven't seen it already but in a nutshell, theme can be defined as the truth you wanna scream from the rooftops. And for me, it's always the first question I ask myself about a story idea.
What is the theme? Because without a theme, your story doesn't really matter. And if your story doesn't really matter what's the point in writing it.
But I know that you have a passion for a truth burning inside of you and that's part of the reason why you even wanna jump into this whole crazy storytelling thing to begin with. Because something's calling you to pick up a pen and connect with the human heart. There is a theme that you're passionate about writing into your story, whether you know what it is yet or not.
So ask yourself, what is the truth I wanna scream from the rooftops? What is the truth that my protagonist is going to learn over the course of their internal journey in the story and inadvertently teach the audience? Step three, meet your protagonist and their baggage.
Characters are the most important part of storytelling. Why? Because story isn't about what happens, it's about how it happens, affects and transforms the characters.
I can never say that enough. If you can make your reader fall in love with your characters and relate to them, they will want to read everything that happens to these characters, whether it's a trip to Starbucks or a voyage across the galaxy. And that's why before you start doing anything with your plot, you need to meet your protagonist.
This is just gonna be a rough outline so you don't need to dive too deep into developing your protagonist yet, but you should figure out a few basic things that will hugely impact the story. One, their desire, the thing they want and think will make them happy. Two their fear, the thing stopping them from going after the thing that will make them happy.
And three, their misbelief. The thing they mistakenly believe is true about the world which is the exact opposite of your theme. So, flip your truthful theme on its head and make it alive, boom, that's your protagonist's misbelief.
These are always the first three things that I sketch from my protagonist when I start plotting a novel. And it's amazing what this process does. It takes an otherwise two dimensional character and makes them this incredibly dynamic conflicted person that you want to be a part of their life.
See, this is the thing that your reader's brain is subconsciously searching for. In internal journey, leading to an aha moment, which will put to death a misbelief that your protagonist has held onto their whole life. Creating characters is the biggest and most important part of storytelling.
So definitely take your time here, don't rush and also check out my character creation videos. So now we know three major things about your story, the genre, the theme and your main character and their baggage. That's a lot going on, but let's take it one step further.
Step four, describe your vibe. Choose three words that describe the vibe of the story you want to write. Mysterious, thrilling, suspenseful, cute, sad, happy, bad-ass, heartwarming, dreamy, et cetera.
I love doing this because it helps me get a basic idea of how I want it to feel writing this story. What is the mood, the emotion that you want your readers to feel while they're reading this story. Remember, you can keep it super vague.
So write down your three words or you can do more than three if you want. And let's move on to the last step. Step five, pick a location.
This kind of circles back to step one when we talked about genre, obviously if you picked a genre like science fiction or fantasy, you'll be setting your story in a fictional location. If you picked contemporary or any kind of story that exists in the real world, then you'll want to figure out what part of the world best suits the vibe that you just described a minute ago. Or you can always just throw a dart at a map whatever works.
Picking a location will not only help you to zone in on what your characters world is like, but it will also help you to understand how the location is going to affect your character's internal journey. Of course your character conflict can adapt to any environment, for example, you're power hungry protagonists could be queen of a fantasy land or she could be CEO of a major corporation in the real world, but it's good to know your genre and location from the outset or else, you won't really know what kind of story you're telling. So, boom, that's the five step process, but I'm not done yet.
I have a few bonus tips that will 10X your inspiration but first I just wanna say, you don't have to do all five of these things from the start. Three out of five, two out of five even is fine. For example, let's say we know we want to write a psychological thriller about the dangers of isolation and loneliness.
Great. That's our genre and our theme. Or let's say we know we wanna write about a character who lost honor and desires power and respect because he believes that leads to happiness.
And the story is suspenseful, thoughtful and a little creepy. Great. That's our protagonist conflict and the vibe.
Or let's say we know that we want to write a cute contemporary with fun summer vibes and a theme of getting back up when life knocks you down. That's a weight, that's 100 days of sunlight shameless plug. Okay, but this seriously, you don't need all five.
Three out of five, two out of five is great. Just remember that the more questions you answer, the closer you get to having a clear idea of the story you want to write. Now, time for bonus tips.
Bonus tip number one, make an aesthetic board. If you've been around here for a while you might know I'm obsessed with making aesthetic boards for my books on Pinterest. It's actually one of the first things I do after I get a new story idea.
Drp everything and immediately start building an aesthetic board and it just makes me want to write the story so much more. This is a lot like figuring out your vibe. In fact, you can use those vibe words that you chose a little while ago when you're building your aesthetic board.
Search them in Pinterest and put the word aesthetic after it guaranteed, you will find so many visuals that will inspire you for your story. Also, you can search your theme keywords like happiness, loneliness, power, et cetera and put the word quotes after it, boom, you have all kinds of inspirational words to drive home the point of your theme mixed in with your aesthetic photos. Oh my gosh, it's just so much fun.
I could literally do this all day. So if you're anything like me, don't get carried away with this. Bonus tip number two, make a playlist.
This is another thing that I do pretty much immediately after getting a new story idea. That genre and vibe of my story will have a big influence on what music reminds me of this story plus the message of certain songs might align with my theme. Basically, any songs, any music that reminds me of my book goes on its own curated playlist.
I'm totally obsessed with music. Not just because it's awesome in general, but because it plays on your emotions and makes you feel. And this emotion can really fill in the gaps of your story idea.
It's not even like something I can explain but when I listened to music that reminds me of my book and I just imagine the characters in the story. And I just experience the emotions that they're feeling and let the music touch my soul. It's just like, it's a visceral experience I can't even describe.
Also, it's awesome to listen to instrumentals that you can sort of just like make the soundtrack. Mentally imagine it to be the soundtrack of certain scenes in your book. I do that all the time.
And those go on a separate playlist of course, that is like the soundtrack. Sorry, I still have my soundtrack from everybody else's soundtracks. It's awesome.
Bonus tip number three, give it a working title. Don't just go around referencing your story idea as my story idea, it makes it sound so illegitimate and it just like an idea. It's more than that.
I mean, you're excited about it. You're passionate about it. You're going to write it.
So treat it like it's already a book give it a working title and it will feel more real to you even if it's nowhere near what the book is actually gonna be called. Even if it's something really lame like the first name of the main character. I always used to do that with my stories up until like a few years ago.
But seriously a working title just makes me so much more excited to write a story and make my idea a reality. So, boom, that's it. How to come up with a story idea out of thin air.
Let's recap that five step process from before. Step one, choose your genre. What genre do you read the most?
Stay in your element. Step two, find your theme. What is the truth you want to scream from the rooftops?
Step three, meet your protagonist. What is their desire, fear and misbelief? Step four, describe your vibe.
Three words that sum up the mood of your story. And step five, pick a location. Your characters world affects your characters and vice versa.
And the bonus points: Number one, making aesthetic board to better see your story. Number two, make a playlist to better feel and hear your story. And number three, give it a working title so it feels more real to you.
And finally, if none of this works for you, just ask yourself this question, what is the story that if you want to read? Go write it. Don't overthink it, just write.
You'll be surprised by the magic that happens. Comment below and tell me, how do you come up with story ideas? Do you have no idea what to write a story about and did this video help you?
I hope it did. If it did, smash that like button to let me know and be sure to subscribe to this channel if you haven't already, because I post writing videos and publishing videos every single Wednesday and I would love to have you here in the community. Also be sure to check out my Patreon because that's where we go beyond videos and take storytelling to the next level.
The Patreon community is not only the best way to support I'm doing here on YouTube, but also connect personally with me and get better guidance on your story. So go to patreon. com/AbbyEmmons and check out all the awesome extra content that I've made for you.
Until next week my friend, rock on Tshew!
