Once you identify a story seed, you better ensure that it excites you enough; you don’t want to end up writing dozens of thousands of words only to realize that you’d rather work on something else. The following are the notes on the subject I gathered years ago from many books on writing.

• Freewrite about what seems important about the idea.
• What is the point of the story?
• Is the story really worth it?
• What could be the staying power of this story idea?
• Why would any of it matter?
• Does your imagination fill with possibilities? Do the preliminary scribbles get you excited about writing more?
• How is this story personal and unique to you?
• If you hope to write a book of either fiction or nonfiction, you will have to live with the characters or topic for a long time. Do you think you can do that?
• What quality, characteristic or concern surrounding your idea grabbed you?
• Why do you want to write this? What is it about your life at this moment in time that attracts you to this idea?
• Do you bring a long-standing, or at least overwhelming, desire to have lived the story?
• Why must you tell THIS story? Why is it important to you to spend the energy? Why are you willing to take time away from another area of your life to develop this story? What is it you want to say and why? And how? Where is it coming from inside of you?
• What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of?
• Is this something that by writing it might change your life? Is the story idea that important to you?
• Will it fill you, does it check something off your bucket list, will it give you focus and joy and challenge? Is the idea worth a year of your life? Do you want to be remembered for this story?
• Imagine you are dying. If you had a terminal disease, would you finish this book? Why not? The thing that annoys that self is what’s wrong with the book. So change it.

• #2

Here are my few remaining notes about generating story seeds, taken years ago from books on writing.

• What would arouse a sense of wonder?
• Freewrite about settings you find deeply intriguing, loaded with curiosities and mysteries.
• What situations, problems, conflicts and emotions you want to be more adept at understanding, coping and resolving?
• Think of two incompatible, compelling moral decisions. Dilemmas work best when the stakes are both high and personal. When one choice is morally right, it will win out unless it is offset by a different choice that is equally compelling in personal terms.
• What’s the worst thing that could happen?
• Make a list of ten times in your life when you felt the most scared or worried.
• What subject close to your heart would embarass you, were you to open up about it? In such limits is often where great stories are found.
• Start imagining great scenes. See them in your mind and justify them later. Who are these people? Why are they doing what they are doing? What’s happening beneath the surface?

• #1
• #3

Here are some more notes about generating story seeds, taken years ago from books on writing.

• When an image really grabs you, stop and write about it for five minutes.
• What people do you find interesting?
• Think of a character with a flaw, a knot that is hurting him and will do him more harm in the future, and what new way he could pursue. Think of a story that would show off or amplify this.
• Create a character with an obsession, then follow.
• Who are your personal heroes? What makes these people a hero to you? What is his or her greatest heroic quality?
• What sort of protagonist could serve as a vessel for you to work through your own problems?
• Think of something you wouldn’t tell anyone: not your spouse, maybe not even your therapist. See if there is a way to make that a story.
• Brainstorm over the following points: things you hate. Things you love. Worst things you’ve ever done. Best things you’ve ever done. People you’ve loved. People you’ve hated. Bucket list. Hobbies. Things you know. What you’d like to know. Areas of expertise.
• Write about the emotions you fear the most.
• How would you live your life differently if you could start over? What would you do, who would you be, where would you go?
• Consider hatching an idea from your passion, and then develop a concept that allows you to stage it and explore it.
• Write about the burning core of your being, the things which are most painful to you.
• Has your own life ever reached a turning point? Have you ever had to face up to your mistakes, admit failure, and find a way to go on? Have you ever been wrecked by the knowledge that you are inadequate, that you cannot fix things, or that your limitations are plain for all to see? Was there a moment when you knew you might die in the next few seconds? Has there been a point of do or die, now or never, it’s up to me?
• What is the truth that you most wish the rest of us would see?
• How do you see our human condition? What have you experienced that your neighbors must understand? What makes you angry? What wisdom have you gleaned? Are there questions we’re not asking?
• Is there a particular theme about which you feel strongly?
• What is the most important question? What puzzle has no answer? What is dangerous in this world? What causes pain?
• Look in your own life: Is there a loss or fear you’d like to finally grapple with, or an ideal or extreme you’d like to imagine?
• Think of some value that you believe in. Through what kind of story would you be able to debate that truth, try to prove it wrong, test it to its limits?
• The whole point of a story is to translate the general into a specific, so we can see what it really means, just in case we ever come face to face with it in a dark alley.

• #2

Back in the day, when I believed that writing stories could be systematized like a computer program (I’m a programmer by trade, after all), I was obsessed with books on writing. I own two double-row shelves of them, and that’s just the physical ones. You would think such an obsession would translate into sales, but it does not.

A couple of days ago I figured that in my spare time at work, when I’m not editing my current chapter, I could sieve through the hundreds, if not thousands, of notes I took, and post them on my site. I didn’t go as far as writing down to what book each of the notes belongs, or if I rewrote them in any way, so I hope I won’t get in trouble for this.

Anyway, the following notes relate to the process of generating story seeds.

• Freewrite for five intense minutes. Write anything that comes to mind: your impression, visions, dreams, ideas. Ask questions, brainstorm answers.
• Write out, continuously without stopping, one hundred questions. They could be personal questions, questions about the world, about science, about nature, about society, about family members, life, spouse, dog, car engine. Circle the ten that seem to you to be the most important. How do these ten questions relate to a body of work? Are your most important questions reflected in any of your works? Do the questions suggest areas into which you might extend your work?
• Write down a wish list of everything you’d like to see in the screen or in a book. It’s what you are passionately interested in, and what entertains you.
• Is there an interest that you could use as the core idea for an ingenious and appealing original premise? What has always fascinated you? What do your children love? What have you spent most of your non-essential spending on?
• Take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How would you rearrange them into what you do like?
• Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.
• Reflect upon your most satisfying and influential reading experiences. Do they have a common takeaway?
• Name three books you were desperately anxious to read. Identify the times you read the back cover copy and thought, “I have got to read that book.” What do these books have in common?
• Each time you get an idea spark, come up with at least five to ten related “what if” scenarios. The last few should be the hardest to come up with but may turn out to be the best.
• Come up with ideas that connect with you emotionally. Nudge them in a direction that offers the greatest possibilities for conflict.
• Write five things you are passionate about. Five things you fear the worst. Five things you’ve always wanted to do. Five interesting things that recently have made you stop and think. Can you apply a “what if” question to each of those five things?
• Think about what things should never be done. Come up with “what if” scenarios for them.
• Come up with a fresh twist for the common scenario involving a group of characters, a confined space, and something chasing after them.
• Think about what you are daydreaming about these days. If it brings you joy, what concept can you extract out of it that would make the story a vicarious experience?