10 SITUATION
STARTERS
TO BEAT
WRITER’S BLOCK
Writer’s Digest
10 Situation Starters to
Beat Writer’s Block
By Fred White, author of
The Writer’s Idea Thesaurus
Jourmey: In Search of One’s Destiny
You want to write be you find you’ve been cursed with a terrible case of
writer’s block. It’s frustrating and keeps you from doing the thing you love to
do. That’s why we’re here to help.
Here are 10 story starters designed to break you out of your writing funk
and spark your creative muse. They all focus on following a journey, which is
the backbone of many stories. You are challenged to take each idea and give it
your own spin. Plus, who knows: Maybe one of these will off you a launching
pad into an idea for a full-blown novel.
Although we often long for a glimpse of what the future holds, we also dread
looking ahead. We regard our destiny as unknowable one moment, and then we
make a strong effort to shape it the next. The following story situations draw from
both impulses.
Situation 1:
After a brother and sister escape from the orphanage where they’ve been
living unhappily, they stumble upon information regarding their parents, who
were supposedly dead—but not according to one of the documents.
Situation 2:
An adopted child wonders why her birth parents had given her up for adoption. The deeper she probes, the greater the mystery becomes—there’s some
indication that one or both of her birth parents were criminals. The closer she
gets to solving the mystery, the more resistance she encounters.
Situation 3:
A pauper stumbles upon clues that her father was of royal blood and had been
exiled. After gathering sufficient evidence to demand restitution from the
crown, she is threatened with her life.
Situation 4:
When an amusement park fortune-teller tells the protagonist to travel to a
city she’s never visited before, she searches for clues about how the city may
be related to her past but she cannot find any. Finally, she visits the city and
discovers a dark secret about her family.
Situation 5:
According to family lore, the narrator’s grandfather died in a tractor accident,
but when she visits her ancestral farm (still owned by an uncle), something
feels off. She decides to dig deeper (since she has training in forensic investigation), and the death begins to look like foul play.
Situation 6:
Desiring to know if his preparations for success will bear fruit, an inventor uses
his latest machine to journey ten years into the future. Disappointed by what
he sees, he returns to undo everything—but is restrained by one who had
ventured into the future for the same reason.
Situation 7:
Attempting to escape what many consider to be his inescapable destiny as the
inheritor of his father’s business, a young man dissatisfied with his life visits
sacred sites around the world in search of his soul.
Situation 8:
Before tying the knot, the overcautious groom-to-be journeys five years into
the future to see if it will be a happy marriage. But when he discovers that
certain things he wanted to happen did not occur, he returns to the present to
confront his fiancée about certain demands—hers as well as his.
Situation 9:
While she is asleep, an inventor is transported by an angel into the future and
shown the social impact her invention of a habit-forming virtual reality program will trigger. When she awakens, she decides to destroy her invention—
but someone has stolen it.
Situation 10:
Refusing to believe that biology is destiny, the daughter of schizophrenic
parents journeys far and wide to meet with psychologists and geneticists, and
anyone else who can prevent her from falling into the prison of severe mental
illness.
Want More?
Need an idea for a short story or a novel? Look
no further than The Writer’s Thesaurus. You’l
find a vast treasury of story ideas inside, organized by subject, theme and situation categories.
Download it now by clicking here >>