1. We as humans tend to use a very small percentage of our brains. Write a story where a psychic or a scientist discovers a way to “use” the brain to perform one particular (or more than one) feat that could be classified as super human (like flying, teleporting, telekinesis, etc.) Does this pioneer choose to share this new technique or try to hide it and keep it from being discovered by the general public? If it becomes common knowledge (and common practice) then how does it effect the workings of the world? The economy? Warfare?2. Go somewhere there are people, but not too many people (like a coffee shop, a class room, an airport terminal, an airplane, or a business meeting, etc.) and then imagine that you are suddenly the only people left on Earth. How does the story unfold? Do you all survive? Does someone die? What happens to this last fragment of the human race?
3. Craft a speech. It could be a future politician’s rallying cry, the war plans of a freedom fighter operating out of the underground, or the lost words of a hero (or villain) from the past. Make it real, make it crisp, strong and full of power augmented by whatever emotion the “speaker” is trying to convey, whether it be anger, pride, or solemn sadness.
4. Write a story about a place that comes into existence only once or on a rare basis, mythical and meaningful whenever it appears. It could be a restaurant, an island, a bar, an outhouse, or anything else. The person (or people) that encounter it can be oblivious tourists totally unaware of the majesty of it all, someone actively hunting for this mythical place, or anything in between. Make the place unique, give it character, make it stand out.
5. Write a high seas, swashbuckling adventure. Consider all the pirate movies you’ve ever watched, all the films where sailing ships and rapiers figure prominently, and write your own pirate legend!
6. Try writing something interactive, an adventure in a story or a book that pulls the reader in and forces them to act to keep the story going. You might even try writing an adventure for RPG use. Whatever it is, make sure there are plenty of options for the player(s) and leave the ending up to the reader’s choice (and skill).
7. Write about someone in your family, someone different, unique, distinctive. Cast them in a story, whether fiction or non-fiction, that reveals, emphasizes and casts a beautiful light on who they truly are.
8. Pick a social issue that bugs you and then blow it all out of proportion in a way that is comedic and not wholly improbably as a possible vision of the future. (If you’re strapped for ideas, consider films like Brazil and Idiocracy.
9. Create a new career and then write about it. It’s a given in any society that, as new technologies and new needs appear, new people will be trained to work with or repair that technology and satisfy those needs. You can write it from a first person, worker’s perspective, or even from the perspective of a pitch. It’s your story. Make it what you want it to be.
10. Write an Indiana Jones-type of thriller, something with a race to get to some ancient object of mystery and power. It can take place in any time period, any setting, any world, but the central idea should center around the action-packed recovery of an object of potentially great importance.
