A useful classification for ideas is their level of detail. Depending on which class best describes your ideas, some methods to formulate a story might come more natural to you than others.

On one end of the spectrum exist 'big picture' ideas which encompass your entire story but only in broad strokes. If you can prepend "the story is about" to the idea, it probably is part of this class. A few concrete examples:

• A man who searches for his wife in an abandoned holiday town after receiving a letter, three years after her death
• A young girl who sues her own parents for forcing her to donate a kidney to her dying sister
• A coke-snorting hacker who travels into outer space to stop two AIs from merging and becoming sentient

'Big picture' ideas can be turned into full stories by adding layers of detail. Take your one-sentence summary and expand it into a hundred words. Paint broad strokes; now's not the time to describe the protagonist's difficult childhood. Also, don't be afraid to rewrite those hundred words until you have something you like.

The next stage is to divide your story into three acts, and from there, to start work on an outline. This technique is called the snowflake method, and I encourage you read the linked article because it goes into much deeper detail.

On the other end of the spectrum exist fragmented ideas. Perhaps for characters, items, locations, half the set-up for a scene which looks cool in your head. Each a puzzle piece, though not all necessarily from the same set. Examples:

• Protagonist befriends a talking cat (character)
• Temple on the moon built by ancient Egyptians (location)
• Character goes through experimental chemotherapy and becomes violently ill (scene)

If you have a large number of these ideas, your job is to find out how they piece together, if at all. Write each idea on a Post-It. Rearrange your Post-Its in groups which make the most sense to you. See if a possible narrative begins to form. For instance, using bullet points #1 and #2:

On a school trip to the British Museum, Lydia meets a talking black cat who claims to be a reincarnation of the Egyptian goddess Bastet. Bastet convinces her to board a NASA rocket, and they travel to the moon to reclaim her lost temple.

The emerging narrative need not and will not be perfect. You'll have many questions. Why does Bastet want her temple back? Why is Lydia the only person who can help? How does an eleven year old travel from Britain to the US, alone, sneak onto a rocket ship unseen, and survive the massive g-forces involved in lift-off? Write all questions down in a notebook and answer them. When answering one question creates another, answer it as well until none remain. What remains is a document with all the facts you need to write an outline.

A useful classification for ideas is their level of detail. Depending on which class best describes your ideas, some methods to formulate a story might come more naturally to you than others.

On one end of the spectrum exist 'big picture' ideas that encompass your entire story but only in broad strokes. If you can prepend "the story is about" to the idea, it probably is part of this class. A few concrete examples:

• A man who searches for his wife in an abandoned holiday town after receiving a letter, three years after her death
• A young girl who sues her parents for forcing her to donate a kidney to her dying sister
• A coke-snorting hacker who travels into outer space to stop two AIs from merging and becoming sentient

'Big picture' ideas can be turned into full stories by adding layers of detail. Take your one-sentence summary and expand it into a hundred words. Paint broad strokes; now's not the time to describe the protagonist's difficult childhood. Also, don't be afraid to rewrite those hundred words until you have something you like.

The next stage is to divide your story into three acts, and from there, to start work on an outline. This technique is called the snowflake method, and I encourage you to read the linked article because it goes into much deeper detail.

On the other end of the spectrum exist fragmented ideas. Perhaps for characters, items, locations, half the set-up for a scene that looks cool in your head. Each a puzzle piece, though not all necessarily from the same set. Examples:

• Protagonist befriends a talking cat (character)
• Temple on the moon built by ancient Egyptians (location)
• Character goes through experimental chemotherapy and becomes violently ill (scene)

If you have a large number of these ideas, your job is to find out how they piece together, if at all. Write each idea on a Post-It. Rearrange your Post-Its in groups that make the most sense to you. See if a possible narrative begins to form. For instance, using bullet points #1 and #2:

On a school trip to the British Museum, Lydia meets a talking black cat who claims to be a reincarnation of the Egyptian goddess Bastet. Bastet convinces her to board a NASA rocket, and they travel to the moon to reclaim her lost temple.

The emerging narrative need not and will not be perfect. You'll have many questions. Why does Bastet want her temple back? Why is Lydia the only person who can help? How does an eleven-year-old travel from Britain to the US, alone, sneak onto a rocket ship unseen, and survive the massive g-forces involved in lift-off? Write all questions down in a notebook and answer them. When answering one question creates another, answer it as well until none remain. What remains is a document with all the facts you need to write an outline.

A useful classification for ideas is their level of detail. Depending on which class best describes your ideas, some methods to formulate a story might come more natural too you than others.

On one end of the spectrum exist 'big picture' ideas which encompass your entire story but only in broad strokes. If you can prepend "the story is about" to the idea, it probably is part of this class. A few concrete examples:

• A man who searches for his wife in an abandoned holiday town after receiving a letter, three years after her death
• A young girl who sues her own parents for forcing her to donate a kidney to her dying sister
• A coke-snorting hacker who travels into outer space to stop two AIs from merging and becoming sentient

'Big picture' ideas can be turned into full stories by adding layers of detail. Take your one-sentence summary and expand it into a hundred words. Paint broad strokes; now's not the time to describe the protagonist's difficult childhood. Also, don't be afraid to rewrite those hundred words until you have something you like.

The next stage is to divide your story into three acts, and from there, to start work on an outline. This technique is called the snowflake method, and I encourage you read the linked article because it goes into much deeper detail.

On the other end of the spectrum exist fragmented ideas. Perhaps for characters, items, locations, half the set-up for a scene which looks cool in your head. Each a puzzle piece, though not all necessarily from the same set. Examples:

• Protagonist befriends a talking cat (character)
• Temple on the moon built by ancient Egyptians (location)
• Character goes through experimental chemotherapy and becomes violently ill (scene)

If you have a large number of these ideas, your job is to find out how they piece together, if at all. Write each idea on a Post-It. Rearrange your Post-Its in groups which make the most sense to you. See if a possible narrative begins to form. For instance, using bullet points #1 and #2:

On a school trip to the British Museum, Lydia meets a talking black cat who claims to be a reincarnation of the Egyptian goddess Bastet. Bastet convinces her to board a NASA rocket, and they travel to the moon to reclaim her lost temple.

The emerging narrative need not and will not be perfect. You'll have many questions. Why does Bastet want her temple back? Why is Lydia the only person who can help? How does an eleven year old travel from Britain to the US, alone, sneak onto a rocket ship unseen, and survive the massive g-forces involved in lift-off? Write all questions down in a notebook and answer them. When answering one question creates another, answer it as well until none remain. What remains is a document with all the facts you need to write an outline.

A useful classification for ideas is their level of detail. Depending on which class best describes your ideas, some methods to formulate a story might come more natural to you than others.

On one end of the spectrum exist 'big picture' ideas which encompass your entire story but only in broad strokes. If you can prepend "the story is about" to the idea, it probably is part of this class. A few concrete examples:

• A man who searches for his wife in an abandoned holiday town after receiving a letter, three years after her death
• A young girl who sues her own parents for forcing her to donate a kidney to her dying sister
• A coke-snorting hacker who travels into outer space to stop two AIs from merging and becoming sentient

'Big picture' ideas can be turned into full stories by adding layers of detail. Take your one-sentence summary and expand it into a hundred words. Paint broad strokes; now's not the time to describe the protagonist's difficult childhood. Also, don't be afraid to rewrite those hundred words until you have something you like.

The next stage is to divide your story into three acts, and from there, to start work on an outline. This technique is called the snowflake method, and I encourage you read the linked article because it goes into much deeper detail.

On the other end of the spectrum exist fragmented ideas. Perhaps for characters, items, locations, half the set-up for a scene which looks cool in your head. Each a puzzle piece, though not all necessarily from the same set. Examples:

• Protagonist befriends a talking cat (character)
• Temple on the moon built by ancient Egyptians (location)
• Character goes through experimental chemotherapy and becomes violently ill (scene)

If you have a large number of these ideas, your job is to find out how they piece together, if at all. Write each idea on a Post-It. Rearrange your Post-Its in groups which make the most sense to you. See if a possible narrative begins to form. For instance, using bullet points #1 and #2:

On a school trip to the British Museum, Lydia meets a talking black cat who claims to be a reincarnation of the Egyptian goddess Bastet. Bastet convinces her to board a NASA rocket, and they travel to the moon to reclaim her lost temple.

The emerging narrative need not and will not be perfect. You'll have many questions. Why does Bastet want her temple back? Why is Lydia the only person who can help? How does an eleven year old travel from Britain to the US, alone, sneak onto a rocket ship unseen, and survive the massive g-forces involved in lift-off? Write all questions down in a notebook and answer them. When answering one question creates another, answer it as well until none remain. What remains is a document with all the facts you need to write an outline.