Brainstorming story ideas
Authors often take the time to brainstorm and generate ideas before beginning to draft a story. Below are a few strategies that authors, and YOU, can use to generate some story ideas for your personal narrative! By using these strategies, hopefully you will be able to find a memory/moment that is meaningful enough to share with others and to write about.
strategies for generating story ideas...
Think about...
- People who are important to you
- Places that are important to you
- Objects that are important to you
- Life-changing moments or turning points in your life
- Challenges that you've overcome
- Moments when you've learned something important
- Moments of strong emotion (For example: happiness, sadness, jealousy, pride, shame, regret, etc.)
- "First time" moments
- "Last time" moments
- Defining moments (Moments that show readers something important about you
Also think about memories connected to particularly strong emotions. These often make a vivid narratives.
Some strong emotions are:
Some strong emotions are:
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Once you have a few moments in mind, choose one and begin to "write off" of it. Write everything that you can remember about that moment. You can even include a reflection about how you feel about that moment now. Repeat this with a few of your story ideas so that you can later have a menu of options to choose from when you choose which one you'd like to further develop.