[CrypticHearts]

Hey! I've been trying so hard for so long to get a good story idea. I need someothing that has alot of area or potential to add in details and create a really rememberable story. My genre is fantasy, like vampires, and unrealistic creatures ( future robots etc.) I've written a story about a girl with cancer, who falls in love with a vampire. So I dont mind writting about vampires as long as they dont fall in love with anyone.... Got any ideas at all? I really need help

[SuperFede]

I don't think you are right to ask for ideas here. You must have your own.

It would be right to ask for opinions on your ideas or on how to expand them.

If you search there is plenty of stories out there you can use to inspire yourself. However i have seen very little vampire stories in this site. You can check out mine here:

http://www.sffworld.com/community/story/3173p0.html

the story is called victor and has prolog, chapter one, two. chapter three is a work in progress.

Or in any case, you can go to your local book stores and buy any of anne rice vampire chronicles books. :D

[CrypticHearts]

After thinking through a few possibilities, I've come up with some kind of idea. I need help filling in the empty parts.

First Idea: "Save Me"

Kelsey Willson had the best life ever. Her family was rich and she was popular at school. She was raised into this kind of life, but was never really comfortable with it. She had empathy for those who didnt fit in, or had nothing. She tried to hepl them but that was hard when her parents had specific rules for her not to approach anyone "lower" than her.
That all changed when she met Eric Sams. Eric's life was completely opposite from hers. His parents were abusive and he had nothing. Eric also struggles with a strong drug addiction. He's weak and is desperate to get help but doesnt trust anyone enough to tell them whats going on.

So I need help filling in some events that could happen. How should they meet? What should happen to Eric to make her want to leave her life behind to save him?

[kmtolan]

Hey Cryp...I really don't want to sound like a creep, but here's my take on this.

If you can't come up with an idea, or can't come up with some interesting scenes, to quote a World Of Warcraft baddy - "You are not prepared!"

That said, here's an exercise you might want to follow to make sure you're just not snowballing yourself into a corner by taking on too much at the beginning.

1. Come up with a basic idea (sounds like you're scrabbling to do that)

2. Write down all the neat things you'd like to deal with. Scenes you think would be cool.

3. Put those neat ideas into a kind of chronological order.

4. Think up some characters. Make a biography for all the main players. As you do this, you'll find yourself adding more "neat things" to that list of yours.

5. Now, look at that list. Guess what - you just made a chapter outline! Keep in mind that you will kick the living hell out of it as your story and characters come alive.

6. Write a first draft just to get things out of your head - it doesn't have to be good since it will all be rewritten anyway.

7. Write a second draft to develop your story arcs and subplots - and to meet the word count a perspective publisher will want.

8. The HARD and most fun part - word smithing! This is where you make it all shine pretty, iron out the grammar issues, and try and make it so smooth that the reader sees a movie in their heads - not your writing.

9. Peer review - chapter by chapter you submit to a group of folks who will give you a line by line review. No friends or family. Writers and readers. The very last thing you need at this point are "yes men".

10. Now submit that novel to a *real* publisher.

Sounds easy...my formula for (cough) success.

Kerry

[goldhawk]

Kelsey Willson had the best life ever. Her family was rich and she was popular at school. She was raised into this kind of life, but was never really comfortable with it. She had empathy for those who didnt fit in, or had nothing. She tried to hepl them but that was hard when her parents had specific rules for her not to approach anyone "lower" than her.

Kelsey is a Mary Sue (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue). You can tell this by asking what happens to her is she fails; what are the consequences? Very little. Your readers are not going to be interested in her because she's not doing anything important. Nothing bad will happen to her if she doesn't succeed.

That all changed when she met Eric Sams. Eric's life was completely opposite from hers. His parents were abusive and he had nothing. Eric also struggles with a strong drug addiction. He's weak and is desperate to get help but doesnt trust anyone enough to tell them whats going on.

Eric is the more interesting character. That if he tries to overcome his addiction and creates a better life. BTW, people with addictions are not weak-willed. You are going to do a lot more research into drug addiction to make him believable.

So I need help filling in some events that could happen. How should they meet? What should happen to Eric to make her want to leave her life behind to save him?

If it said that writers must be horrid people because they put the characters through hell. To make your story interesting, put your characters through hell.

How about: Kelsey's parents died and the government ceases their assets for irregularities in their taxes. They will pay Kelsey a stipend until it gets sorted out but it just enough so she doesn't qualify for subsidized housing. Eric, her would-be boyfriend, promises to help but sells her to a pimp, where she gets beaten and raped. End of chapter one.

[Rayenae]

How about: Kelsey's parents died and the government ceases their assets for irregularities in their taxes. They will pay Kelsey a stipend until it gets sorted out but it just enough so she doesn't qualify for subsidized housing. Eric, her would-be boyfriend, promises to help but sells her to a pimp, where she gets beaten and raped. End of chapter one.

Now THERE's a story you can really sink your teeth into!

You'll hear it a million times, but only because it's worth saying: Writing is about conflict. So feel free to get your hands dirty and rough up your characters a bit. It might seem cruel some times but they'll thank you for it. No character WANTS to be shallow and 2-dimensional. They need that driving force to become something almost real.

Anyway that's my little two cents

[Holbrook]

Just write. Try and put your ideas down. Until you do it is just an idea. It does not matter how bad it is at first. You learn by writing, the more you do, the more you learn.

[Hoodwink]

I sympathise and understand your plea for help - ideas often spring up as scenes, themes or concepts but they're a long way away from being the germ of a real story. Happens to me all the time and I've decided there's no easy way of unearthing a full story idea - they come to you or they don't, and when they don't that's probably because they wouldn't be worth the effort.

Spend time stimulating your imagination. Keep reading, read outside the genre, watch as many B-movies as you can, check out asian movies, especially the anime. You're looking not to steal ideas but to see something that sparks of the kindling of your imagination. Go sit in the park and people-watch. Visit a cemetery and read the enscriptions on the headstones.

You seem to have a start with your two characters. The trouble is you don't know what's going to happen to them next, or why, or what the conflict is.

You could begin with the death of one of them, and the other being arrested for it, despite there being absolutely no link between them. Or the boy becomes so infatuated with this high-class spoiled girl that she manipulates him to do things for her.

[benh]

Think of something you've never seen before. And something only you could dream up.

Then write about it.

Like this:

A vampire who is fat, ugly and slow. Who can't fly or whatever it is that vampires do because he is overweight. He falls in love with a woman but, because of his weight, he can't pursue her. She finds him grotesque. So he drinks her blood as a means of getting closer to her. Then he kills her accidentally. Oh! Sad irony!

Then he'd shout at the heavens in rage.

[Hoodwink]

Or try a fusion of ideas for new concepts.

A vampire is sent back from the future where the global population are vampires by a rebel group who are fed up with being vampires. He's sent back in time to destroy the vampire who started the epidemic back in 2009, a cop called David Draculowski....