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I want to start this post for people who have trouble coming up with plots or chapter ideas once they begin writing (i.e. me). I'll start with a few of mine. Hopefully others can come up with better ones.

• A retired secret agent is called back to help an ex teammate with in a dire situation.
• A guest travels to a small town, but there is something off about the place.
• Vampires exist in the real world and humans don't leave their homes after sundown. What happens one night when an error in judgement leads you to be out after dark.

 

 

 

 

"A retired secret agent is called back to help an ex teammate with in a dire situation."

The retired agent takes the call. He casually drinks his mojito pressing the phone to his ear. He nods and takes a deep breath of the sea air. He pauses before speaking, "I'm retired. Suck it."

He hangs up the phone and gestures to the cabana boy with his now almost empty drink, clearly needing another.

"A guest travels to a small town, but there is something off about the place."

She knew immediately when she stepped off the bus that something was off here. Her small nose crinkled up and she tried not to breathe. But when she opened her mouth, some rancid taste invaded her mouth, coating it with the horrible smell. She gagged a little, then noticed the sign: "Burritos R Us." She really should not have gotten off at this stop.

"Vampires exist in the real world and humans don't leave their homes after sundown. What happens one night when an error in judgement leads you to be out after dark."

I turn around and go back inside. Also, I leave the door open to taunt the vampires, since they can't enter a house unless they're invited.

Your dog Bailey digs up a genie lamp in the back yard.

I run out the back door, screaming at the dog for making a hole in my perfectly manicured yard. I look for a stick to let the dog know whose boss, then I skid to stop, tearing up some additional grass as I realize that I don't even have a dog! Whose damn dog is crapping in my back yard? And how do I know its name is Bailey?

I make a handy living off packaging and reselling the ribeye steaks that begin to periodically fall from the sky, enough that I can quit my job to stay home and give Bailey belly rubs all day. It does kind of suck though that I have to sleep on the floor while she gets the bed, I never can figure out why I started doing that.

If vampires were real everyone would troll them so hard. The amount and severity of the weaknesses they have is actually hilarious.

I feel like if the vampire had a gun they could get around this problem.

But then that goes for a lot of things.

The three in the original post could all be combined into one story.

 

But it's not hard to come up with ideas, it's just hard to write enough to turn them into finished stories.

 

I agree.

But...just writing enough also shouldn't be that difficult. If you have free time, you can write during it, right? Few people have zero free time.

Now, good writing on the other hand...also shouldn't be that difficult. After you've done the writing in your free time, switch to proofreading in your free time instead.

For bigger structural changes, make a new draft.

Repeat till your happy (or less unhappy) with your story.


Now, doing this in a reasonable time frame, especially for ambitious CYOA/IF, is the real challenge. So just start small.

I think some people skip drafting altogether to save time too. I certainly think its easier to do for linear works.


Anyway, my point is, to get a finished story, you just got to write!

How's yours coming along?

I would've also accepted 'Then how come you haven't finished a storygame?'.

But to answer the question, it's coming along slowly.

I'd love to talk about it, but I've found that the ideas I talk about never get finished, so I'm keeping quiet for now. Granted, the ideas I don't talk about that get finished end up being shit, so I should probably talk about it eventually, to get feedback and all that.

I will say that having a complete plan is helpful. Mind you, it's a super broad plan, but just knowing where the bulk of the story should end, along with what locations will be passed on the way there, is helping me not feel like I'm working on something impossible.

I'm just hoping the writing quality will be readable, but I should practice what I preach and proofread (and even draft, if it comes to it).

An avalanche uncovers ancient ruins untouched for centuries, what lies inside?

This one would be fun to do. Hard to go wrong with ancient ruins.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It was a horrible waste of time and money to even explore it.