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Ever wished you had more writing inspiration? Has your creative brain been wiped clean by all the work, homework, housework and other responsibilities you have? Worry not, I’m going to give you my best story ideas, writing prompts and other writing tips and tricks that will get you writing in no time.
Where to find the best book plot ideas
Often people look for plot generators when they want new story ideas, but how could a generator that someone else created give you a story idea that you love and that sounds like you? You’re better off using your own wonderful brain to mine for writing inspiration and unique story ideas.
I wanted to solve this problem so I created a free workbook for finding your best story ideas and you can get it completely for free:
You’ll get a Google Docs workbook with questions that help you uncover a story idea that you’re going to love and not just something that someone else has come up with. Sure, I could give you 5000000 writing prompts, but if you want to write stories, you need to rely on your own brain, too.
Do you have vibes but no plot? No problem!
Maybe you have some kind of an inkling of a story, perhaps a vibe or an aesthetic you want to include, but nothing concrete yet. Frustrating, right?
Fortunately for you, I created a process for turning your vibes into a plot. Hundreds of writers have already used the blog post and the workbook to turn their vaguest ideas into stories they can actually start working on, so I’m pretty confident you’ll find it useful.
And why shouldn’t you start writing a story just based on vibes? You definitely could do a quick writing exercise that way or even write a short story, but a full novel is going to need a lot more meat on it. (I feel so gross talking about meat that way. What if I want tofu on my story?)
Is your story idea unique?
Something that new writers often agonize over if trying to find unique story ideas. I mean, who wants to read the same old stuff anyway?
The problem is, all stories are based on a few archetypes, so when you look at the bare bones of all stories, there’s nothing unique there. Oh no! Wait, that’s actually good news. It’s not the story idea that makes your story unique, it’s something else entirely, and it’s not uniqueness that people necessarily gravitate towards. Whew.
Unique story ideas for different genres
Save the Cat! Writes a Novel is one of the most popular books that get people into structuring their stories. In the book, you can also find 10 different genres that are a little different from the ones you know, based on character journeys rather than the tone of the story.
If that sounded confusing, you could read the book for yourself or you could check out my post where I give you different story ideas for those genres. There you can see how stories can be similar in essence but still unique in practice. What new ideas could you come up with? How could you have a unique spin on a familiar theme or idea?
Plot questions that help you write your story
Sometimes a story can do with some fattening up, especially when it comes to the stuff that actually counts and not just the weird repetitive and irrelevant stuff that we find in first drafts and promptly delete.
These plot questions will help you find more “stuff” from the story elements you already have and these story structure questions will make it easy to craft your protagonist’s journey.
It’s great if you have a story idea that excites you, but that initial idea might not carry you all the way through a full plot. Even if you’ve got all your major plot events, that skeleton will need more material if your first draft ends up way under 60K words. Those questions will help with that.
Listen to my podcast for writing inspiration
I wanted to get inside your ears and that’s why I started a podcast where I could explore different ideas and help you find writing inspiration everywhere. At the time of writing this, there are only six episodes, but new ones come out every Friday and I’d love to hear your ideas and requests for future episodes.
Perhaps you’re interested in historical fiction or maybe you’d like to write a fresh love story, but whatever you’d like to write about, there’s a cool new writing prompt at the end of every episode that you want to keep your ears open for.
Story ideas for different seasons
Getting the exact vibe of a season is not always easy and you need to know why a reader would pick up a specific book. Are they looking for a cozy book about autumn because they’re looking for something comfortable to read or do they want gloomy gothic fiction? Is someone looking for a light summer romance to read on the beach or something extra steamy to enjoy at the privacy of their bedroom?
I’ve been meaning to do this for all seasons but for now there’s only a post on summer story ideas and a post on summery romance stories. (More romance later on in this post.)
If you want writing prompts and tips for other seasons, check out my tips on writing different seasons – there are prompts for each season so just scroll to the one you want.
Scene writing prompts for your stories
Sometimes you already have your overall story idea but you could use some writing inspiration for scenes in that story or maybe you’re looking for short story ideas. I’ve got you covered.
In this post, you’re going to find meaningful scene ideas. That means they’re not just ideas for throwaway fluff scenes that do nothing but fill pages, they actually help you advance the plot and reveal your characters.
And you know what your story absolutely needs? Conflict. You can check out this post for conflict ideas so that your characters will never run out of problems.
If you want even more scene ideas, you should check out the many writing prompt collections in my Etsy shop. Many of them come with ideas specifically for scenes in different genres and you can check out the listing images for samples of the writing prompts.
Romance novel ideas you can use
Romance novels have been popular since forever, and even if you weren’t writing a romance novel per se, you might have a romantic arc in your story. Romantic relationships are a natural part of life so it’s quite normal to include them in our stories, too.
I really should write more about writing romance in this blog, but I do have the post on writing a summery love story. You’ll find some general romance tips there as well as cute writing prompts.
Perhaps “from enemies to lovers” is your favourite trope. It definitely is mine. If that’s the case, you should read this post on how to do it properly. You’re also going to find writing prompts there as well as tips.
Oh, you want even more romance writing prompts? You should check out my Etsy shop for my best romantic writing prompt collections.
Inspiration for book titles and character names
Names are important, right? But not that important that it’s worth getting stuck figuring out what to call your novel or your protagonist’s childhood sweetheart.
You can read this post for tips and ideas for naming your story. Here’s a caveat, though: you need to write your story first. There’s no point wasting time wondering what to call a story that doesn’t even exist yet. Of course, you CAN have a name for your story before you write it but it’s by no means a necessity and you shouldn’t spend time on it prematurely.
Character names can sometimes be tricky, too, and that’s why this post gives you things you need to consider when naming your imaginary people. If you’d just like a simple list of fun and interesting names, you can check out this post for character name ideas.
I hope you’ve found the posts and resources listed here helpful and inspirational. I’ll add new stuff as I create them, and in the meantime, I’d love to hear if you have any requests.
Protagonist Crafts is a blog about writing fiction, written by a published author and creative writing teacher. You can find more writing tips and inspiration in the blog and you can get the best author tools at Writer Lifestyle on Etsy.
