I was talking with other writers about story ideas, and we decided that we all needed to relearn how to be as imaginative as children. Young brains can combine random elements into any story, and by golly most of the time it works. That creativity gets beaten out of us because as adults we have to make the plot hang together, or there’s a deadline threatening, or the editor wants major changes to match a target demographic’s taste.
The group tossed out ideas to reclaim our imaginations, and it struck me that an early Tri-Valley Writers program might be useful. The speaker had five of us stand up, assigned us a genre, and started a story. Everyone in line had to continue that story in his or her genre. As I recall, the first person was assigned Westerns. The story was hilarious, especially when the spy thriller person had to take over from the science fiction person.
Another way to retrain the creativity center of your brain is to find a group of people for regular brainstorming sessions. I was in such a group. We wrote skits about quilts, so our weekly sessions started with the collection of quilts we were going to use for the next performance. After a while, we got pretty good at coming up with story ideas.
Writers always start with what if. What if I set Wuthering Heights on Mars? What if my protagonist is a hamster? What if I don’t give my characters a happy ending? Try creating your own What If game, and let the story ideas flow.