Where can you get inspiration? From whom?
Well, let me give you an example of one of my inspiration sources.
My story Greywater was inspired by a chapter in the Bible. Specifically, Matthew chapter 7.
One day at our home fellowship, we were reading that chapter and one of the verses jumped out at me.
In Matthew 7:6, it says: “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and rend you.”
STORY IDEA!!!
LOL.
But yes, that was the verse that gave me the idea to write my story Greywater. A couple of other verses in that chapter were used to structure what goes on in my fictional city, and I took it from there.
In my story, the people worship pigs—literally. They can’t buy or trade without first offering some of their money to one of the great number of pigs inhabiting their city. Wondering what the name of the city is? Greywater.
Take a wild guess why . . .
So I want you to know—you can get inspiration from anywhere! I know it can be hard sometimes, but I’ve come up with a project to help you get started! For Part 1 of this project, I’ll focus on characters—one way to come up with awesome individuals for a story.
Here goes . . .
WRITING INSPIRATION FOR CHARACTERS
- Take yourself outside. Bring a writing tool with you 😀 (Pen and paper, tablet, computer, etc.).
- Take a walk down the street. If you live in town, all the better. If not, go to somewhere where there are a lot of people!
- Sit yourself down somewhere and observe some people (try not to make it awkward).
- Take the first two people you see and write down some stuff you notice about them.
Let’s say, for example, that you see a depressed looking girl wearing a hoodie pulled up over her head, jeans, and dirty sneakers. Write those kinds of details down!
Next you see a . . . dog? Ok, you see a dog. It’s a bouncy terrier pup straining on its leash, wearing a bright orange jacket. Record it!
- Ok, now that you have your characters, you can go back to your house, apartment, or wherever you like to write.
- Get comfy and take a look at your notes. Now you have two colorful characters for a short story! The first draft might be a little rough, but you can always fix and revise it once you have the backbone for your story.
- Come up with names for your characters and place them in a cool setting.
Some ideas: castle, homeroom at school, a store, a totally different world! Maybe your girl and dog are on a wagon train heading to Oregon—it’s up to you!
- Now that you have a general idea of who these two characters are, you can start writing! You can limit yourself to a couple hundred words if you want, or try to get a few thousand! Again, it’s your choice.
Maybe it turns out that this story concept is so great that you take it to novel form and eventually publish it! Or it could be a cool short that you use in a writing competition next year—you’ll never know until you start!
The point that I’m trying to make in all of this is that you can get ideas for a story anywhere! You can go outside and just observe the people you see, take those characters and make them your own!
Or you can look through old photos of your family, look up keywords for characters you’re thinking about, or make some random sketches and see what they remind you of!
If you try this out, I’d love to hear how it turns out! Sometime soon I’ll post one of my own using this method just so you can see what you can do with it.
I’d also love to have input from you on how you get your inspiration, so feel free to post a comment below about it! 😀
Thanks for reading, and God bless,
~Janet
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