Go Ahead — Write This Story: Finding an idea

Actually, ideas are the easy part; stories are hard. Still, you need an idea, so here are some ways to find them. Create an event for a story that justifies a proverb, refrain, or headline. Try crossing two unrelated things, like dental floss and espionage. Take a tarot reading or cast a horoscope for an imaginary person. Consider a real-life situation; now make a key person in it have the opposite personality, and see what happens. Look at an interesting picture and imagine it as the ending of the story. Or use one of the following ideas:

● This is a biting parody about a get-rich-quick scheme involving the sale of nanobots to be implanted in bald men's scalps that will spin out hair much like spiders spin out silk.

● This is a radio play about children on a playground pretending they are Klingons, and they are suddenly faced by a great and real test of their honor.

● This is a thriller/martial arts story in which a freelance theologian travels to New Orleans for a showdown with the Seven Deadly Sins.

— Sue Burke