Brainstorming a story can feel overwhelming—blank pages, scattered thoughts, and no clear path to follow. But the truth is, every great novel, screenplay, or short story begins with a burst of raw creativity. Before you outline plots or refine characters, you need a way to unlock ideas and explore possibilities. In this guide, we’ll share five powerful brainstorming techniques to help you generate fresh story concepts, spark plot twists, and uncover the emotional heart of your tale.
Stage 1: Brainstorming – Unlocking Creative Ideas
Before you worry about structure, grammar, or even the perfect plot, you need raw material to work with. Brainstorming is where you gather sparks of inspiration, explore possibilities, and let your creativity run wild. If you’re anxious to get your story started, you might be tempted to skip this stage, but I would urge you not to. This phase is important, and it can also be a fun stage, letting you work uninhibited by the restraints of structure and cohesiveness.
Why Brainstorming Matters
Brainstorming is the foundation of every great story. It’s your chance to explore freely, dig deep into your imagination, and uncover the heart of your narrative before structure or rules come into play. This phase helps you discover fresh ideas, clarify your story’s vision, and even spot potential problems early on. Most importantly, it breaks the fear of the blank page—giving you momentum and creative energy that will carry you confidently into outlining and writing.
Here are some effective techniques to help you generate and capture great story ideas:
1. Free Writing
Set a timer (10–15 minutes works well) and write continuously about anything related to your story idea. Don’t edit, don’t stop to think—just let the words flow. This unfiltered process often reveals surprising ideas you didn’t know you had.
2. Mind Mapping
Draw your central idea in the middle of a page and branch out with related thoughts—characters, settings, conflicts, themes. Visualizing connections this way helps you see relationships and potential story directions that might otherwise stay hidden.
3. “What If?” Scenarios
Push your imagination by asking “what if” questions. What if the hero failed their mission halfway through? What if the story’s villain isn’t human? What if the setting itself has a secret? These questions open the door to unique twists and fresh plots.
4. Associative Brainstorming
Pick a random word or image and force yourself to link it to your story. This often sparks unexpected connections and new angles to explore. It’s particularly useful when you feel stuck or your ideas seem too predictable.
5. Character Backstories
Sometimes the best story ideas emerge from your characters themselves. Write short backstories for your main characters—where they came from, their deepest fears, their strongest desires. These personal histories often suggest conflicts, motivations, and plot directions naturally.
Free Writing: Unleashing Your Creativity
Free writing is a powerful and flexible brainstorming technique that encourages writers to bypass their inner critic and let their thoughts flow freely onto the page. To practice free writing, all you need to do is set a timer for about 10 to 15 minutes and write continuously without worrying about grammar, spelling, or coherence. The key is not to concern yourself with structure at this point—that comes later. The goal is to capture every thought that comes to mind, no matter how random or unrelated it may seem.
You can approach free writing in whatever way feels most natural to you. If you want to write as if you’re working on a chapter or a scene, go for it. If in the middle of that scene, you suddenly get a fantastic idea about another character or a different part of the story, simply skip a line and start writing about that new idea. The main thing is to keep writing for the entire allotted time and not let yourself stop or overthink.
When your timer goes off, and your free writing session ends, the next step is to read through what you’ve written. Look for any ideas, phrases, or concepts that stand out, and highlight or make notes of anything that feels inspiring or worth exploring further. This is when you can start organizing these raw ideas into more structured outlines or develop them into scenes and chapters.
Mind Mapping – Organizing Ideas Visually
Mind mapping is a powerful technique that helps writers visually organize their thoughts and see how different story elements connect. Instead of listing ideas in a straight line, you create a diagram that radiates outward from a central concept, much like branches growing from the trunk of a tree. This approach makes it easier to spot relationships, develop subplots, and uncover gaps in your story world.
The Goal of Mind Mapping
The main purpose of mind mapping during brainstorming is to clarify and expand your ideas. When you lay out your characters, settings, and potential plot points visually, your brain can make connections it might miss in traditional note-taking. This often sparks fresh story directions, reveals hidden conflicts, and helps you build a richer, more cohesive narrative.
How to Create a Mind Map
Start with a central idea – Write your story’s core concept or theme in the middle of a blank page or digital tool.
Add main branches – From that center, draw lines outward for major elements like characters, settings, conflicts, and themes.
Expand with sub-branches – Break each branch into finer details: for a character, add traits, relationships, and motivations; for a setting, add key locations and atmosphere.
Use keywords and images – Keep notes brief and visual. Icons or color coding can help distinguish different story aspects.
What to Do Once You’re Done
After completing your mind map, step back and examine it. Look for clusters of related ideas—these often suggest natural plotlines or subplots. Identify any gaps where you need more development. From there, you can transform your mind map into an outline, knowing you’ve explored your story’s components in depth and seen how they connect.
Extra Tip for Writers
Mind mapping isn’t just for starting a story—you can return to it anytime you feel stuck. It’s a dynamic tool that grows with your ideas, helping you track plot threads and character arcs as your story evolves.
What If Scenarios – Unlocking Endless Possibilities
“What if?” scenarios are one of the most powerful brainstorming tools for writers. By asking simple but bold hypothetical questions, you break free from predictable thinking and push your story into new, exciting territory.
What It Is
At its core, a “what if” scenario is an open-ended question that alters reality or challenges assumptions in your story. For example: What if the hero is secretly the villain? or What if gravity stopped working for a single day? These questions create a mental sandbox where anything can happen, sparking plot twists, character dynamics, and intriguing settings.
Why It’s Useful
This technique forces you to look beyond obvious storylines. It’s especially helpful when:
You feel stuck or uninspired.
Your plot feels too linear or predictable.
You want to add depth to characters or conflict.
You’re exploring speculative genres like sci-fi or fantasy but also works for thrillers, dramas, and romance.
How to Do It
Start with your basic story idea or character concept.
Ask open-ended questions beginning with “What if…?”
Don’t judge or discard ideas—write down everything, no matter how outlandish.
Follow the threads. If one idea excites you, ask further “what if” questions to develop it.
Examples:
What if the detective investigating a murder is unknowingly related to the killer?
What if the peaceful town hides a secret time portal?
What if the protagonist can’t tell reality from a dream?
What to Do When You’re Done
Review your list of scenarios and highlight the ones that spark strong emotional reactions or open the door to compelling conflicts. These are seeds you can plant in your outline. Even if you don’t use every idea, the exercise ensures you’ve explored possibilities you might never have considered otherwise.
Associative Brainstorming – Connecting the Unlikely
Sometimes the best story ideas come from the most unexpected places. Associative brainstorming is a technique where you deliberately connect unrelated concepts to spark fresh, imaginative story directions. It’s particularly useful when you feel stuck or your ideas seem too predictable.
What It Is
Associative brainstorming is about making mental links between random words, images, or objects and your story concept. For example, if your main idea is about a detective solving a crime and you randomly pick the word “butterfly,” you might imagine a plot involving a butterfly-shaped clue or a theme about transformation.
Why It’s Useful
This method pushes you to think outside conventional patterns. It:
Breaks creative blocks by introducing unexpected elements.
Helps generate unique twists and surprising subplots.
Adds depth to characters and settings through symbolic connections.
Opens new genres or tones you hadn’t considered.
How to Do It
Choose a Random Prompt: Flip through a dictionary, scroll random images online, or pick an object from your room.
Write Down Immediate Associations: Note the first ideas or feelings that come to mind.
Link It to Your Story: Ask yourself how this word or image could influence your plot, character, or setting.
Explore Multiple Prompts: The more random associations you create, the more original your brainstorming becomes.
Examples:
Random word: Clock → Story about time manipulation or countdown suspense.
Random image: Old photograph → Mystery involving hidden past connections.
Random object: Chess piece → Political thriller with strategic rivalries.
What to Do When You’re Done
Review your list of associations and highlight the ones that give your story a unique angle or add intrigue. These can inspire scenes, dialogue, or even central plotlines. Associative brainstorming is also great to revisit during revisions, helping you infuse fresh ideas into stagnant sections of your draft.
Character Backstories – Building Depth and Discovery
Sometimes the most compelling story ideas don’t start with plot twists or settings—they begin with the people who inhabit your story world. Developing character backstories during brainstorming helps you understand who your characters are, why they make certain choices, and what emotional journeys they’ll face.
What It Is
A character backstory is the unseen history of your character—their childhood, key life events, fears, dreams, and the relationships that shaped them. Even if most of this never appears directly in your story, knowing it helps you write authentic, layered characters that feel real to readers.
Why It’s Useful
Drives Motivation: Understanding past traumas or victories clarifies why your characters act the way they do.
Generates Conflict: Backstory elements can lead to secrets, rivalries, and internal struggles that fuel plotlines.
Adds Emotional Weight: Readers connect more deeply with characters who have rich, believable histories.
Sparks Plot Ideas: Sometimes, a backstory revelation can inspire entire chapters or twists.
How to Do It
Start with Key Life Moments: Note defining events like losses, triumphs, or relationships.
Explore Childhood Influences: Family dynamics and early experiences often shape character flaws and strengths.
Identify Core Desires and Fears: What does your character want most—and what are they terrified of losing?
Write Short Scenes or Monologues: Let your character speak in their own voice about a past event.
Use Prompts: “What secret would they never tell anyone?” or “What’s their happiest memory?”
What to Do When You’re Done
Keep your backstory notes handy as you write. You don’t need to reveal everything to the reader, but sprinkle in details that hint at your character’s history. This adds depth and makes their choices throughout the story feel organic. As you revise, you may discover that a hidden piece of backstory deserves to become a major plot point.
Wrapping Up: Turning Sparks into Stories
Brainstorming is where every story begins—before outlines, drafts, and edits. By exploring these five actionable techniques—Free Writing, Mind Mapping, What If Scenarios, Associative Brainstorming, and Character Backstories—you give yourself permission to think big, make unexpected connections, and uncover the emotional heart of your story.
Not every idea you jot down will make it to the final draft, and that’s the point. Brainstorming is about quantity, not immediate quality. It’s the raw, creative playground where you experiment freely and stumble upon the unique threads that will ultimately shape your narrative.
Now, here’s your challenge: pick just one of these techniques today and try it. Spend ten minutes free writing, sketch a quick mind map, or ask yourself a wild “what if” question. You might be surprised how quickly a spark of imagination can grow into your next big story.
Normally, we’d end with a reminder about how StorySteps can help you structure and develop your story step by step. But you know what? Brainstorming isn’t about structure—it’s about letting ideas run free. So go brainstorm, have fun with it… and when you’re ready to shape those ideas into a finished story, come back to us.
(Psst… StorySteps is free forever for your first story—no deadlines, no pressure. Take as long as you need.)
