Hey, writers! At a recent family gathering, a beautifully creative relative and I were discussing writing projects we’d done in the past. She mentioned having written an entire screenplay from one sentence given to her by a colleague. I have also felt inspired to create work based on an idea or a word. And this got me thinking: Sometimes we feel so much pressure to create something amazing, that we clog our meaning with a whole bunch of extra. Writing should be crisp and clean, allowing for gorgeous ideas to explode through the page.
Writing exercises that help me the most are those that provide a word or a sentence to incorporate. I attach myself to a phrase I’ve read or heard, and I let the idea bloom into something original and new. My story, The Hunger, came from reading Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast and my flash fiction piece, Revolutions, came from a news headline I heard one summer.
Here are ten sentences. Choose one to incorporate at the beginning, middle, or end of your short story, flash fiction, poem, blog, screenplay, or memoir today.
Ten Sentences for Story Ideas
- Nights like this one take a hold and never let go.
- Her innocence was hypnotic.
- His eyes told stories his lips would never express.
- To be fully understood was a feeling like no other.
- His voice was rough like tree bark, and she had never heard anything more beautiful.
- Red, green, yellow on repeat was all she could focus on from the diner window.
- Desire was a funny word.
- It only took one pen to do a lifetime’s worth of damage.
- There, on the bed, she slept so soundly.
- Sarcasm is known as the biting of the skin.
If you use one, I’d love to read your finished piece. Send them to me at awriterinside16@gmail.com. Happy writing, friends.
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