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Beginning a New Story

There are few things more exciting for a writer than embarking upon a new project, but it’s a much easier prospect when you at least have a story idea. Trying to start a story without having an idea is like trying to build a house with absolutely no direction, instruction, or guidelines. Where would you even start?

Choose Your Genre

The very first thing you need to decide is what kind of story you’re writing. Do you want to write a sci-fi story? A medieval fantasy? A contemporary romance? Choose a genre that inspires you, and preferably one you’re somewhat familiar with. It’s easier to come up with ideas for a fantasy if you’ve consumed a lot of fantasy books, TV shows, and movies. If you want to jump into a genre you’re not that familiar with, do a little research and do some reading/viewing of stories in that genre, too.

Choose Your Setting

Now that you know your genre and what kind of story you want to write, it’s a good idea to think about where your story will take place. Some stories have fairly simple settings, like your character’s small town, home, and high school. Others have very elaborate settings, like a fantasy continent made up of several unique kingdoms. The bigger and more expansive your setting, the more “world building” you’ll need to do to flesh your setting out. But you won’t worry about that until later. Right now you just have to think about your story’s overall setting. For a medieval fantasy, it might be set in a fictional kingdom.

Conflict & Protagonist

Good stories revolve around conflict… internal conflict for character-driven stories (a problem in the character’s self), external conflict for plot-driven stories (a problem in the character’s world), and both for stories that are both character-driven and plot-driven. If you want to write a plot-driven story (external conflict), you may want to choose your conflict first, then decide who your protagonist will be. But if you want to write a character-driven story (internal conflict), you will need to choose your protagonist first.

Choose Your Conflict

Conflict causes a major upheaval in your character’s normal life, which forces them to pursue a goal that will resolve or help resolve the conflict. If you’re choosing the conflict first, you might look to the setting to give you ideas. In a medieval fantasy, external conflicts could be based on the monarch (such as a usurped throne), revolution (fighting against a corrupt monarch), something to do with magic or magical beings… there are lots of possibilities. If you figure out the conflict, your story idea will star to come into focus. If you’re choosing your conflict second and have already chosen your protagonist, you will need to think about who your protagonist is and what problem of self they’re facing. What is it about themselves or their life that isn’t quite right? What do they need to fix and why?

Choose Your Protagonist

The protagonist is the character primarily responsible for driving the events of the story and resolving the story’s conflicts. They’re a character who has a lot at stake if the conflict isn’t resolved. Most stories have a single protagonist, even if it’s an ensemble cast with multiple characters driving the events of the story. In really big ensembles, you might have a few characters that serve as the protagonist for their part of the story. If you’re writing a medieval fantasy, there would be lots of options for the protagonist. They could be the monarch or child of the monarch, a courtier or servant, a knight or a random villager.

Choose Your Motivation

Now that you know who your protagonist is and what’s turned their life upside down, it’s time to think about exactly how the conflict affects your character. What are the reasons they’re motivated to resolve the conflict? Let’s say in our medieval fantasy (genre) kingdom (setting), the monarch died and a usurper stole the throne and drove the rightful heir from the kingdom (external conflict.) How would the protagonist (a villager) be affected by this situation? Perhaps the monarch is terrible and the protagonist’s father has been wrongfully imprisoned under the usurper’s cruel laws. That would be a pretty good reason for your protagonist to want the usurper out of there…

Choose Your Protagonist’s Goal (and Role)

When you know the conflict and why the protagonist is motivated to resolve it, you can figure out what would resolve the problem (goal) and the protagonist’s specific role in achieving that goal. The goal is important because it’s what carries your protagonist (and the reader) through the story from beginning to end. The bulk of the story is about your character’s struggle to achieve their goal. In our example story, we know the protagonist wants to get rid of the usurper in order to rescue their father from false imprisonment. So, maybe their goal is to restore the rightful heir to the throne. Are they going to accomplish this alone? As part of a secret rebellion? What tasks will they specifically have to accomplish in order to achieve the goal?

Choose Your Antagonistic Force and Obstacles

Just as every story has a protagonist, every story has an antagonistic force. Your character drives the events of the story, the antagonistic force opposes their forward motion by placing obstacles between them and the tasks they need to complete in order to achieve their goal. The antagonistic force can be one thing like the evil usurper, a group of things (like the usurper, their evil sorcerer, and their army), a creature (the usurper’s dragon), or a force (the wrath of nature, disease, bad luck…) While some stories can have multiple antagonists, there should be one unifying antagonistic force. We sometimes call these “henchmen” as they’re usually agents of the overall antagonist/antagonistic force. Once you know your antagonistic force, you can think about what kinds of obstacles they might place in the protagonist’s path. It’s sometimes helpful to plot out the protagonist’s path toward their goal–the specific tasks they need to achieve–then think about how the antagonistic force could thwart the more important tasks.

Bring it All Together

Now that you have all of this figured out, you can start fine-tuning things. You can figure out the smaller details and begin to create a sort of “road map” from just before the inciting incident, through the inciting incident, through the rising action (things are happening, your character is tackling each challenge as it comes their way), to the climax (the big showdown), the falling action (the aftermath of the big showdown), and finally the end.

Finding Inspiration

There are lots of great ways to find inspiration as you go through this process. Pictures and music are a big go-to for me. History, myths, and fairy tales are another great source of inspiration. Sometimes, all it takes is to combine a few ideas from a few myths or fairy tales, and you can come up with something entirely new. Another idea is to jot down a list of your favorite stories in that genre. Then, for each one, write down your five favorite things about it. Then, go through and circle all the ones that stand out the most from each story. Try combining those into a new story. Story prompts are another great way to get ideas flowing.

One Last Thing to Keep in Mind

Sometimes story ideas pop magically into your head out of nowhere, but when they don’t, the biggest mistake you can make is trying to force it. When you’re starting a story from absolute scratch, it’s going to take some time to sort out all the nuts and bolts and figure out how to put them all together. Be patient. Give yourself lots of time to brainstorm and let ideas stew. Do things to fill up your creative well, like consuming other stories (reading, watching movies and TV, going places, doing things), and try not to get frustrated. It may take days or even weeks for a plot to form. Give it the time it needs and don’t be afraid to follow weird threads. Be patient and open, and before you know it you’ll have a new story to work on.

Good luck!