Ideas for plots or stories can be found in unusual places such as newspaper articles, watching people in a doctor's office, or from a book of prompts.
One such book is The Writer's Book of Matches - 1001 prompts to ignite your fiction by the staff of fresh boiled peanuts, a literary journal.
In an online writing conference (The Muse 2007 Online Writers Conference), Linda Barnett-Johnson gave some examples and initiated some exercises which helped develop ideas.
A helpful hint is to keep a small notebook to jot down ideas.
I participated in that conference and in Linda's exercises.
I would like to share some ideas her suggestions triggered in my mind and the results of the exercises.
First some ideas for stories/plots, which I wrote on my own after reading those given by Linda: 1.
A SWAT team assaults a building where a multiple killer supposedly hides.
What if the "tip" is a trap? 2.
A man, after the death of his wife, decides to clean the attic of the house where they lived for over fifty years.
He discovers a small trunk in a far corner, under a pile of boxes.
3.
"How could you? How could you do ...
" Exercise 1: We randomly opened a dictionary and, and without looking, pointed to a word.
We were told to list the word with Village behind it and do a rough outline for a story.
I pointed to "leap"; therefore, my subject became Leap Village.
My outline was as follows: A.
Population varies.
Full-time residents range from 400-500.
Population with "leapers" hovers around 10,000.
B.
Activities: Permanent inhabitants make temporary leapers comfortable and try to calm fears.
C.
Main characters include Terry, a newcomer, and Dr.
Ross, a permanent villager.
D.
Location: Who knows? Exercise 2: We were to write a hook for a story, one we were working on or one we make up.
A hook grabs and keeps a reader's attention, and one is required for good writing.
Since I had the outline for Exercise 1, I decided to try a hook for that story idea.
The result follows: Terry opened her eyes but closed them quickly when a sharp brightness blinded her.
When she sensed, through closed eyelids, the light fading, she peeked.
The azure sky above her filled her vision, not a cloud to be seen.
She rolled from her back and used shaky arms to push her tingling body upright.
In the distance, a cluster of buildings broke the span of flat, empty plains.
"Where am I?" She frowned at her uttered comment.
Very original, Terry, she thought as she tried to remember the immediate past, or for that matter - any past.
Those two exercises provided me with the start of my first science fiction story.
I hope they will help you, too.