Story Ideas

Have you always wanted to be a writer like I have, but you never know exactly where to get your ideas for what to write about or where to get the names of your characters.  Here are a few ideas I read about in this book I have been reading lately. 

1. Listen to a conversation, or part of one in the next few days.  Build what you hear into an idea or an outline for a story.
2. Page through the telephone book until you find a name that might be an interesting character.  Imagine and record a situation that might be the basis for a short story.
3. Go through the "Dear Abby" column in a newspaper.  Expand a situation described there into an idea for a story.
4. Read some articles in a popular science journal.  Develop material from one into an idea for a science-fiction story.
5. Go through the personal ads in a paper.  Build one of them (or a combination of two or more) into an idea for a story.  Write an outline of the story idea.

taken from "Writing Incredibly Short Plays, Poems, Stories" by James H. Norton & Francis Gretton