Last Updated on July 8, 2023 by Admin
As an aspiring writer, you might be wondering about how to brainstorm a story idea. No matter what genre you are writing, it could be fiction, fantasy, or self-help – whatever it is, you could get stuck at the most basic fundamental beginning of your story.
The following tips will help you uncover and discover a brilliant story idea that you could be passionate about – but you just don’t know yet.
Read on to learn more!
Select Your Genre
You will want to initiate the entire book-writing process by choosing a genre first. Believe us – choosing the genre is one of the easiest things to figure out for your book. Subsequently, you will be planning everything around that genre.
Suppose you have decided to write a fantasy book; you will find it easier to choose the story’s backdrop and its main idea. Once you decide on the genre, everything will start to fall into place, including the ideas for the book cover and title.
But – of course – for your first book, we recommend hiring one of the best fantasy illustrators to design the inside and outside of your book. Nonetheless, you have countless genres to choose from, and ideally, you should choose one that you gravitate towards for reading.
The thing is that if you aspire to become a writer, then you must certainly be an avid reader yourself. So, what genre do you like the most? Which authors and which works of theirs impress you the most? If you have the answers to this, then that is probably the genre you want to write in.
Chances are that there is already a genre that you have been thinking about writing in – but not always. It is not that you cannot write other genres, but it is always safe to stick with what you know and what you are comfortable with – especially if you are new to storytelling.
The best thing about selecting a genre is that it automatically narrows down your options. For instance, if you want to write fantasy, this knowledge will be very helpful because now you will know that you don’t want to write a psychological thriller.
Brainstorm Your Theme
Now that you have settled for a genre, it is time to find your theme. Simply put – the theme of your story is the truth – your truth – that you will want to scream from the rooftops. For the ultimate story idea, you will want to ask yourself the question – what is the theme of your story?
The thing is that without a theme, your story will have no value. Or – let us say that your story won’t matter without a theme. And if your story won’t matter, then what will be the point of writing it anyway?
As an aspiring writer, you already know that you have the passion for your truth that is burning inside of you, and that truth is also the entire reason that you want to jump onto the bandwagon of writers. You have the passion that all writers share – you have a truth that you want to share with your world.
The inner truth you are carrying within you is your call and driving force to pick up your pen and connect with the human heart. Of course, there will be a theme that you are passionate about writing into your story – whether you know it yet or not.
So, here is what you will want to do – you will want to ask yourself the question. You will want to ask yourself what is the truth that you want to scream from the rooftops. You will also want to ask yourself – what is the truth that your protagonist will learn (and share with the readers) throughout their journey in the story?
You will also want to choose at least three words to describe your story’s vibe. What is the vibe of your story? Will it be mysterious, cute, sad, thrilling, happy, melancholic, heartwarming, suspenseful, etc.?
The three words will help you understand how you want to feel while writing the story. This way, you will set the mood and the emotion that you want your readers to feel when they read the story.
Who is Your Protagonist?
The next step to brainstorming your story idea is to meet your protagonist and their struggles. Characters are the most crucial aspect of storytelling. As an avid reader, you already know that a good story isn’t about what happens – but – it is about how it happens and affects and eventually transforms the characters.
As an aspiring author, you will want your readers to fall in love with your characters and make them relate to your characters. If you successfully do this, you will make your readers want to read everything that happens to these characters.
With that said, before you start doing anything to your story plot, you will want to determine who the protagonist is. Of course, you will start with a rough outline using a mind map. At this point, you don’t have to dive too deep into developing your main character yet.
Nonetheless, you will want to figure out a few basic things that will greatly impact your story. Initially, you will want to outline their inner desire – the thing that they believe will make them happy. You will also want to outline their inner fear, which is the thing that is actually stopping them from going after their desire.
You will also want to outline their misconception about the world, which is the thing that they mistakenly believe about the world, which is, however, not true. By going through the mind of your protagonist, you can turn a two-dimensional character into an incredibly dynamic and essentially conflicted person.
You will want to draw a protagonist that your readers are subconsciously searching for. As mentioned before, creating characters is the most crucial part of storytelling, so you will want to nail this right by starting with the protagonist.
You will want to take your tie with the protagonist. There is no time to rush through this process.
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