How Do I Write If I don't Have A Story To Tell?

If you feel the urge to write, then write about wanting to write. Write about anything that's happening in the world that's caught your interest. Write about something that's irked you in real life (neighbors, solicitors, whatever, the price of coffee). Write about not writing.

Just let words flow (it's called "free writing") and just do that daily. It stirs things up on both the conscious and unconscious levels. I have many friends who do this 20-30 minutes every morning and it helps them find inspiration on present problems with their books, gel future inspirations for stories, etc.

Just because you don't have much social interactions at present doesn't mean you don't have opinions on the world, life, etc. When you have a strong opinion (belief, observation, etc.), it's something you can build a story around.

Good luck.

You said you've only finished "shorts" - I'm assuming you mean short stories. So write short stories. Write flash fiction. It doesn't have to be profound - write something silly. Write something ridiculous. You don't have to write what you know, either - write what you like, and research what you don't know.

You are the "writer's block". You're the one telling yourself you can't write, that you have to write something important or profound, that you have to do something you're not interested in, none of which is true. Give yourself permission to write whatever and however you want.

Certainly, if you don't leave the house you don't get much input for your subconscious (or muse) to chew on and generate story ideas from. You could try going on a day trip to a museum or nature center or something, see if ideas pop up. I don't go out too much myself, so I get a lot of my ideas sparked while watching anime or movies, and I also am always on the lookout for exercises to remind me of what I felt strongly about in the past and haven't yet written something about; exercises to go fishing in my subconscious, because there is story material lurking in there, but it just lays there in the mud unless you stir up the pond. Blueprint Your Bestseller and Holly Lisle's HTTS #2 - Sweet Spot Map are two such exercises. Some people like to contemplate tarot cards, some like to go to the bookstore, find books vaguely similar to what they want to write but not quite how they would have done it, and imagine how they would improve on the books by changing the setting, changing a plot element, changing the main character, mixing two books together, etc.

Cheer up Immortal, you're username makes me think of someone with a mighty story to tell... but maybe it just hasn't been sparked yet. Try a writing exercise.

Write a word, connect that word to another word, don't even think about it. Just type.

Jar, pickles, aunt jemimah (spelling?), syrup, brownie, orangetan... Maybe I can create a scene where an orangetan raided my kitchen? Anywho, it's slightly off-topic to the isoltaion you feel, and my condolensces because I've been there many times and sort of am still. We all are... sometimes writers make sacrifices to be writers.

Anyhow good luck to you and stick around AW, it makes us all feel a little less lonely =D

Immortal said:

How Do I Write If I don't Have A Story To Tell?

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I'm not sure I understand. If you don't have a story to tell, then what and why do you want to write?

I've never really wanted to write for writing's sake. I want to write to get down the story in my head. If I had no characters talking or stories to tell . . . there's no reason to write, and further, nothing to write down.

Maybe I'm looking at the question all wrong?

ETA: I think I see what you mean now. Sometimes I'm thick. Stop trying to find the perfect idea. Grab something and spin a story around it. Use word prompts or something. You know: Shoelaces, the color red, a school bus--write a story that includes those. GO!

If you're waiting for pure, organic inspiration (and I don't even know what that is), no wonder you can't write anything. If I had to wait for that, I'd never get anything done. Dean Wesley Smith recently said he tries not to make every book an event, but thinks of it as practice. That keeps him from getting stuck. He's written almost a hundred of them, so he knows what he's talking about. Take the pressure off a bit and just have fun.

shadowwalker said:

You said you've only finished "shorts" - I'm assuming you mean short stories. So write short stories. Write flash fiction. It doesn't have to be profound - write something silly. Write something ridiculous. You don't have to write what you know, either - write what you like, and research what you don't know.

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This. I did a lot of writing out of the conversations I would have in my head. All those "If someone wants to know my opinion on X, I would respond with . . ." Write that conversation out and--guess what?--you've written dialog. Provide some details about the surroundings, and--guess what?--you've written a story.

Writing takes practice, and I'm still learning even though I've toyed with it since I was a kid and the last seven years or so I've been going at it pretty hard.

And if you write short stories, then write short stories. I seem to do best between 1500 and 3000 words, although I'm pretty happy with some flash fiction I've written too.

I get a kick out of writing prompts. You can find tons of them on the internet. Maybe they give you a random title, and you write on that. Or three objects you have to mention somewhere in the piece. And it doesn't have to be good. Just get writing and you'll have written something.

shelleyo said:

I'm not sure I understand. If you don't have a story to tell, then what and why do you want to write?

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Not the OP, but for me I often have characters and a general situation but no real plot events to go with them.

If you have characters or a scene in your head or something, then you do have the beginnings of a story to tell. You just have to start writing something down.

Immortal said:

Long story short, I get frustrated and stuck when it comes to my own ideas, but when it has an outside source I can actually do things with it.

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You need to play the "what if" game. It's the best way to wake up and
caffeinate your creativity. With the "what if" game, you start asking questions.

These questions will "force" your brain into searching for answers. Those answers,
right there, are your story. You just need to keep asking. Never stop asking.

shelleyo said:

If you have characters or a scene in your head or something, then you do have the beginnings of a story to tell. You just have to start writing something down.

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The beginnings of a story aren't a story. That's like confusing a word with a sentence. If you write the beginning down, it's either just set-up with no initial incicent, or there's one event, maybe some reaction, then... you don't have anything else to write. No destination to write toward.

My ideas don't come to me fully formed. I spend a lot of time noodling around with an idea, testing out characters, scenarios, playing what ifs, writing lists of things I want to happen and then writing the opposite of it happening, mind maps and making novel bibles.

Then I do something completely unrelated to writing. I go for walks, I exercise, I do the dishes (I swear, if I could bottle the 'inspiration' I get when I submerge my hands in soapy warm water, I'd make a mint of money) or do chores. The moment I'm away from the pressure to write and to create, my brain yaks on forever with all kinds of ideas that I can now sort through then take back to my noodling to further refine it.

After several iterations, I start to have a small inkling of a story idea.

Once the characters start to exist they get into situations and then I write it down. Sometimes nothing comes but I play through the scenes already written and even rewrite them until my characters point out what they want to do. Then I get something down and then try to put it into more readable form. I find it helps if you know who you are writing about then it becomes clear what they'd do in any situation even if it varies according to the personalities of the other characters involved. Start with inventing a couple or more characters. Give them a family history, so you know what they were good at school, their interests and hobbies and then throw the characters into a scene. Let them meet and converse and you'll find you have a story.

Just drop a great character into an interesting situation in the first chapter. The story is how he works himself out of that situation.

I don't think anyone ends up with what they started out with. That's why there's so many drafts. First drafts are daft outlines, second, scrapings of details. The third looks like it might well hold more than grammatical errors and typos...
You get the idea Just keep going.

sunandshadow said:

The beginnings of a story aren't a story. That's like confusing a word with a sentence. If you write the beginning down, it's either just set-up with no initial incicent, or there's one event, maybe some reaction, then... you don't have anything else to write. No destination to write toward.

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That's assuming that once you (general you) start writing, no other ideas will come. Writing the beginning down can prime the pump for the rest. Or writing down what you do know even in notes or an outline or whatever can spark ideas for other events to add to an outline-in-progress if a writer feels the need to have a fully-formed one before starting the prose.

Or the lack of a perfectly formed idea can be used as a reason not to write at all. I never choose that, but each writer has to choose for himself.

hmmm

smoke a jay and it will flow through you...you wont even have to think about it

I'm a little baffled how you can have an urge to write but not have anything come to mind. My urge to write comes from having something on my mind that needs to be put on paper.

But you've been given some good ways to practice writing. For several years I sat down and just a page of nonsense. It would often start with, "On The news today, I heard a story about..." And then I'd just write about that, my thoughts and feelings. Sometimes it came out as a pretty decent opinion piece. Other times I'd just describe things. Go to the mall and describe the people. Maybe while describing them their story might pop up, so go with that.

Anything is fair game to be written about. A snippet of conversation. Describe your fireplace. Whatever, just so you get used to writing. The more crap you write the easier it will be to write. You're training your imagination here.

If you have the urge to write, there must be something inside wanting to get out.

azadg7 said:

smoke a jay and it will flow through you...you wont even have to think about it

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I've thought about that approach myself; my fear is that it would train me to only have ideas while high.

Shadow_Ferret said:

I'm a little baffled how you can have an urge to write but not have anything come to mind. My urge to write comes from having something on my mind that needs to be put on paper.

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You might easily have something in your mind wanting out that isn't a proper story. Many people have an idea for a character first. You can't just write a character down - writing a description of a character doesn't accomplish anything, and no one wants to read that.

Or, you might just be agonizingly bored and thinking, "Argh, I have free time now, why can't I use it to write something and alleviate my boredom at the same time?"

Immortal said:

Yet I feel the urge to write? Does anyone else have this conundrum? I stare at a blank screen and nothing comes to mind, but I feel as though I need to write. And if I force myself to write then I end up getting bored with it and never returning to it again. It must be pure, the idea has to be organic. And even then, I still end up trashing it. The only stories I have ever finished were shorts.

I truly feel as though I just don't have something to say. Maybe I just don't have a voice. I have nothing profound nor important to state and I think my brain recognizes this. But, my ambition to write clouds the fact I just don't have any ideas worth caring for. They say "write from what you know". Well, what if I know nothing? I don't leave the house. i don't have a job, or school, or any social activities. Is this my problem? Is loneliness drowning my creativity?

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Consider hitting off-screen events in your WiP, from the point of view of a character who's in an important place in the story, but who doesn't get much screen-time. That's generated some good stand-alone material for me, as well as shored up characters and events in the WiP who/which felt kind of flat.

sunandshadow said:

The beginnings of a story aren't a story. That's like confusing a word with a sentence. If you write the beginning down, it's either just set-up with no initial incicent, or there's one event, maybe some reaction, then... you don't have anything else to write. No destination to write toward.

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I swear sometimes that you and I are the same person. That, or that we're somehow quantumly-entangled, because most everything you say, I can so relate to. I don't know how many times I've written a 15,000 word beginning that is just what you described - set-up or just an event that doesn't really have any sweeping effects, doesn't carry me naturally into the rest of the story, doesn't suggest any further story at all - which sucks because I've no idea how to get past it.

I do need something to "click" for me before I write it. That doesn't mean I have to know the details, but the core/essence of the story and characters need to be there.

I spent a few weeks brainstorming in the car about what to write for that kidlit contest a while back. I had several ideas running around my head but they'd never quite congeal... til one day they did.

That freed me to outline, draft, and eventually write the story.

But yeah -- for me, there has to be that initial click in my head that goes "yeah, this is the story you want to write. Now figure out how to tell it."

Fortunately I've got a list of "stories that you need to write" in a word file somewhere, so if I get bored of whatever I'm working on I can swap.

But I do find that once something "clicks" for me I don't get bored of it or give up. It has become a story that I want to tell, so even if I take a lot of breaks from it I have always come back.