Story Ideas that I’ll never write: Part 1
I have a lot of story ideas. Like…A LOT! I have several notebooks that are just random thoughts and ideas I’ve had over the years, that I’ve jotted down because they could someday make potential stories. The only problem is…I am NOT a fast writer! It’s already taken me roughly 8 years just to write my current novel, and it’s still not out yet because I’m learning how to format and self-publish it. So, I will most likely never get around to turning all of these random ideas I’ve had into fully-fledged stories because I just don’t have infinite time on my hands.
And that’s why I thought, it would be a shame not to share some of my ideas with you all, just in case anyone else wants to take any of them and make them into their own stories! So, think of this as sort of a writing prompts list, from the archives of my own brain. I’m keeping some of my best ideas for myself of course, so I won’t be sharing every idea I’ve ever had! But these ones are the ones that I’m frankly not interested enough in to commit to the time it would take to develop them into whole stories.
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Also, some of these ideas aren’t full-on fantasy ideas, i.e. they’re set in the modern world, or don’t focus much on fantasy. This is another reason why I’m not that interested in them, but I thought I would warn you in case you were hoping for JUST fantasy story ideas. But hey, you could probably take some of them and add more fantastical elements if you want.
And also, don’t worry about copyright! Of course, I’d love to be mentioned as a source of inspiration if any of you do use these ideas for your own stories. But consider all of these ideas copyright-free. Besides, these ideas are just the bare bones of a story, so as soon as you created your own full plot and characters using the ideas, it would be impossible for me to claim any sort of copyright anyway!
Finally, I realise that for all I know, there may already be stories that exist out there that are based around these ideas. After all, other people may have come up with these ideas before me and actually turned them into stories. If you guys know any, let me know in the comments!
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1. How I became an Internet Celebrity Cat!
This one is a VERY modern idea with a smattering of fantasy thrown in. The story is set in our modern world, and the human main character discovers they have the ability to transform into a cat (or you could have them able to transform into any animal frankly). So, what do they do with their newfound ability? Some people might try and become a superhero and fight crime if they discovered they had a superhuman power like that! BUT not our protag! Instead, they get their friend to film them as a cat doing silly things and make it big on social media!
When I first had the idea, I was thinking of YouTube as the place the protag and their friend would post videos, but you could easily make it TikTok or Instagram, or whatever social media site is most popular at the time when you write the story. As long as social media exists, funny cat videos will forever be a staple of our modern culture, so it’s not too far-fetched to imagine a person who can turn into a cat taking full advantage of the hype.
In terms of expanding the story into some more substantial, maybe the protag starts getting jealous because their friend is the one getting most of the credit for their ideas. After all, the protag has to remain a cat when on video or in public meeting fans, otherwise the jig is up! So, their friend would be the one talking on their behalf, pretending that the cat is their pet. I can imagine lots of friendship struggles boiling to the surface as a result, which would make for some juicy drama!
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2. The Kaiju Wrestlers
Again, set in our modern world, but no ‘magic’ this time! Just good old-fashioned giant monsters fighting each other! For those who don’t know, ‘Kaiju’ is the Japanese word for a giant monster, such as Godzilla, but it’s become popular over the years in colloquial geek talk when referring to gigantic monsters.
In this modern-day world, Kaiju exist but are intelligent beings. They have become celebrities who battle each other in virtual simulations for the entertainment of humans. Like how one might watch pro-wrestling matches. When they’re not battling for fame and glory, they live in bespoke towns and cities built for their gigantic size.
However, the child of one of the most famous Kaiju fighters doesn’t want to fight. They want to leave their Kaiju town and find their purpose in a human-populated area. As you can imagine though, this causes all sorts of problems! A human city is not built for a Kaiju, that’s why the Kaiju stay in their own areas. And although this child Kaiju is smaller because they’re just a child, they still cause accidents and mayhem just by attempting to live in a human city.
I imagine in this story that the child Kaiju meets a human child who tries to help them fit in, in the human city. There would be the classic parent vs child conflict with the child Kaiju disobeying their parents and not living up to their expectations. Also, there could be a whole moral quandary of whether Kaiju and humans can and should be living together, instead of having a ghetto-type situation.
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3. Cryptid Tours
In case you don’t know, a ‘cryptid’ is a creature that some people claim exists, but its existence has never been proven. Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster are probably the most famous examples of cryptids. Other examples would be Mothman, Jackalopes, the Chupacabra, and the Bloop.
In this story, a little kid lives near this big national park, that they like to explore every day. One day, they meet a bunch of cryptids and they all become friends. The cryptids all live and hide in the park because it’s a huge area where humans most likely won’t find them. So, the kid hatches a brilliant scheme. They make money by offering tours around the park for people looking for cryptids. During those tours, the cryptids play along by letting themselves been seen, just a little bit, so the tourists think maybe they did see something, but they can’t know for sure. This means more and more people pay for these tours, hoping to catch a glimpse of something remarkable.
This little kid’s scheme could lead to some light-hearted banter as the cryptids try not to get caught in the act completely. Maybe the story gets a bit more serious as special secret agents and government scientists become interested in whether there actually are strange creatures living in the national park. I feel like you could have a lot of goofy fun with this story.
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Anyway, those are just a few of my ideas, but like I said, I’ve got plenty of random ones written down and will probably come up with plenty more in the future. So, expect more writing prompts like these ones at some point. Do you think any of you could make any of these ideas into fully realised stories? Let me know in the comments and thanks for reading!