Where to find story ideas when your mind is blank

Waiting for inspiration rarely works. Professional writers go looking for ideas. Here are six places to find them.

1. Ask “what if?”

What if your shadow stopped following you? What if your best friend could read your diary? Twist something ordinary and a story appears.

2. Overheard conversations

One line you hear on a bus or in a queue can start a whole story. Write it down.

3. Old photographs

Who is the person at the edge of the photo? What happened just after it was taken?

4. Your own small moments

The day you got lost, the friendship that ended, the time you were wrongly blamed. Real feelings make powerful fiction.

5. News headlines

Choose a strange headline and write about one ordinary person caught up in it.

6. Objects

A key, a ticket, a single glove. Ask where it came from and who lost it.

Try it: spin the Plot Wheel or roll the Story Dice in our Play zone, and write the first paragraph of the story they give you.