Ten Story Starters

Ten Story Starters

1. How many different causes of heartbreak are there? Create two distinct characters, both suffering from heartbreaks - but for very different reasons - and tell us how their stories intertwine and how they impact each other.

2. Your character answers the phone. It's a wrong number, someone calling from jail, and this one phone call is their only hope to do what? Get bailed out? Undo an injustice? Save a life? And what does your character do? How desperate is the problem your character is asked to fix and what danger does it bring?

3. You are helping someone celebrate their 100th birthday. It could be a relative, a neighbor, local celebrity - you decide. Your job for the big party is to create a "Display of Decades," like a giant birthday card that gives the highlights of each decade in that birthday person's life. Create the decades (10 yrs. old, 20 yrs. old, etc.) or pick one decade in particular and go into more detail. What years does this person's life span?

4. A deep-cover agent for a terrorist organization has spent his/her whole life in the United States and identifies as an American. And now he/she is called upon to perform an act of horror of such great magnitude that it will destablize the American government. What act of terror could that be and what conflict does this character feel and who does he/she love who will be destroyed if they carry it through? And why can't they just say no?

5. You work for the President of the United States in a capacity that puts you in his presence every day. You can see that he is becoming increasingly mentally unstable. You can also see that others around him are using his increasing disability to some evil advantage. You are just a worker bee without any influence and power. How do you save the President and the country?

6. Your very eccentric next-door neighbor grows the largest and most beautiful roses you have ever seen in your life. What is your neighbor's secret?

7. You are slowly coming to realize that you are an alien from outer space living on Earth amongst humans. Why have you NOT always known this? And what are the signs that you are an alien that you are discovering and how does it affect your mental attitude as you begin to learn the truth? What consequences await you and the humans you have come to care for?

8. You are minding your own business having a cup of coffee at Denny's when you overhear the people in the next booth make their plans to rob the place. How do you alert the employees without also alerting the robbers? You know they have guns.

9. A TV Reporter goes around "creating news" by committing crimes like arson, etc. So far, no one is seriously hurt. And now a mystery figure of evil has learned the Reporter's secret. What are they able to force the Reporter to do? Or does the Reporter refuse and what are the consequences?

10. A precocious child on a long train ride makes a game of observing people and inventing stories about them. What if the child discovers one of his/her stories is a little too close to the truth? What danger ensues?