write an idea a day here

catian · Feb 21, 2012

I thought maybe this could be a thread for a pool of ideas to use to write story.
This could be a come together as a forum team to share and pass on ideas in order to reinforce the art of writing.
Anyone can use these ideas to write a short/long story.
This is something similarish to write a story a day/a week/a month.
Let's see what we could come up with!!

gettingby · Feb 21, 2012

Hmm... I'm not sure about sharing ideas. See the good ones I want to keep for myself. A unique story idea can be the difference between a good story and a great one. I feel like this is kind of asking everyone to show their cards. Maybe other people will feel differently about sharing story ideas.

catian · Feb 21, 2012

I do not mind at all.
My first idea is this:
A golden boat is found laying empty along the banks of the Nile in Egypt.
A lucky archeologist and his team discovered the boat whilst they on their daily outings.
Much to be discovered about it will lead this group of professionals on a trip of a lifetime.

jaksen · Feb 21, 2012

No, I shall not. Good ideas for me = $

Okay, okay, so nobody wants them but me. Just the same ...

catian · Feb 21, 2012

jaksen said:
No, I shall not. Good ideas for me = $

Okay, okay, so nobody wants them but me. Just the same ...

LOL no one will take your idea, we will just use it to practice.

Jamesaritchie · Feb 21, 2012

I don't work that way. I don't look for ideas until and unless I need one, and then the idea is nothing more than a title. For me, that's it.

I don't care who uses one of my "ideas", but I simply don't form ideas that can be written down as anything other than a title that means nothing on it's own. I have no clue what the idea of a story is until after I write the story.

catian · Feb 22, 2012

a spy story with a twist.
a spy is on a mission to find important clues to a document given to him a by a secret agent.
The story develops into an intriguing journey where the spy discovers he is actually spying on/about himself.

Marya · Feb 22, 2012

This thread baffles me.

Catlan, are you trying to inspire yourself? The spy story sounds like a plot hole to me, the key concept (how the spy comes to spy on himself) is absent.

There's a good post by Neil Gaiman in which he talks about the relative unimportance of ideas.

'The Ideas aren't the hard bit. They're a small component of the whole. Creating believable people who do more or less what you tell them to is much harder. And hardest by far is the process of simply sitting down and putting one word after another to construct whatever it is you're trying to build: making it interesting, making it new.'

http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/Cool_Stuff/Essays/Essays_By_Neil/Where_do_you_get_your_ideas?

catian · Feb 22, 2012

Marya said:
This thread baffles me.

Catlan, are you trying to inspire yourself? The spy story sounds like a plot hole to me, the key concept (how the spy comes to spy on himself) is absent.

There's a good post by Neil Gaiman in which he talks about the relative unimportance of ideas.

'The Ideas aren't the hard bit. They're a small component of the whole. Creating believable people who do more or less what you tell them to is much harder. And hardest by far is the process of simply sitting down and putting one word after another to construct whatever it is you're trying to build: making it interesting, making it new.'

http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/Cool_Stuff/Essays/Essays_By_Neil/Where_do_you_get_your_ideas?

Hey thanks Marya. I am working on it right now.
It is possibly done if you think hard about it.
The spy does not know who he really is. He gets to find out whilst spying on a case.
It is not difficult just something new to think about.

FOTSGreg · Feb 22, 2012

I throw out ideas all the time down in the Horror forum. The whole idea of a "first line game" is throwing ideas out there. I keep an entire notebook at home simply for writing down ideas in and keep a digital recorder with me at all times for the same purpose.

I honestly believe that if a writer doesn't have 3 good ideas by lunch time they're not trying hard enough.

But that's also the reason for the notebook, the recorder, and posting here at AW. I forget many of those ideas unless I write them down.

Jamesaritchie · Feb 22, 2012

FOTSGreg said:
But that's also the reason for the notebook, the recorder, and posting here at AW. I forget many of those ideas unless I write them down.

I think the best thing a writer can do is to forget every idea possible. If you have to write down an idea in order to remember it, it's probably not a great idea.

It's the ideas you can't forget, even when you try, that are worth writing about.

Silver-Midnight · Feb 22, 2012

You can try looking at the old(or new for that matter) Flash Fiction prompts in the AW Writing Lab section, and see if anything jumps out at you. I heard doing a Flash Fiction Prompt helps some people come up with ideas for short stories(and beyond). You probably even try searching for some Flash Fiction prompts, but I would guess the ones on here are more....reliable somehow maybe? I don't know. Anyway, just a suggestion.

catian · Feb 23, 2012

My next idea is this
A writer living in this millenia discovers that his story and all his character are actually very similar if not exact to a story he found by a writer who lived in the 60s.
This leaves him intrigued and so engages in founding out about this particular writer.

catian · Feb 23, 2012

Silver-Midnight said:
You can try looking at the old(or new for that matter) Flash Fiction prompts in the AW Writing Lab section, and see if anything jumps out at you. I heard doing a Flash Fiction Prompt helps some people come up with ideas for short stories(and beyond). You probably even try searching for some Flash Fiction prompts, but I would guess the ones on here are more....reliable somehow maybe? I don't know. Anyway, just a suggestion.

Hey thanks for that. I shall

blacbird · Feb 23, 2012

Write stories. Think ideas.

caw

write an idea a day here

catian

gettingby

catian

jaksen

Caped Codder

catian

Jamesaritchie

catian

Marya

In search of distractions

catian

FOTSGreg

Today is your last day.

Jamesaritchie

Silver-Midnight

catian

catian

blacbird