How to Get Ideas for Short Stories

Edgar Allan Poe was a master at developing ideas for short stories.

One of the hardest parts of becoming a successful fiction writer is coming up with ideas for your stories. Short stories are especially difficult because you have less time to tell your story than if you were writing a novel or novella. Yet, there are myriad sources of inspiration that can be tapped to help one develop ideas for short stories.

Instructions

1. Look at a photograph or painting. This is a way to create viable, tangible details for your story in a relatively simple way.

2. Begin the story with one common household object and go from there. Some writers begin a story by fixating on one simple detail and elaborating on it.

3. Leaf through a history book. History is full of ideas that can be mined for short stories and can jump-start your imagination as to character, plot, setting or time period.

4. Begin with your ending. Come up with the last sentence, or even the last few words, of your story and then start writing the beginning.

5. Look to other authors for inspiration. Reading the words of a writer you admire might trigger something to get you started.

6. Ask others for ideas. You'll be surprised how many people around you--friends, family--have an idea for a movie, book, or short story, but aren't interested in writing or don't have the talent required to make their vision come to life.

Tips & Warnings

• Always carry a notebook, tape recorder, or some other means of recording story ideas. Nothing is more frustrating than having a great idea for a short story come to you while you're out of the house and unable to write, then forgetting that idea before you can bring it to fruition.

• Don't give up on an idea just because it seems, at the beginning, to be too large or small for a short story. Start writing, and let the story take its own natural shape. Don't worry about length or any aspect other than remaining true to your own artistic vision.