Everything Bianca

What do I do when I want to write a story but don't have any ideas?

I have three main methods:

1) Freewriting. Just writing down whatever comes to mind and seeing what springs forth.

2) Music. I'll listen to new music and daydream a story to the music. Usually that leads to a decent story.

3) Reading. I'll pick up a book and start asking myself: what would I do differently?

I did that yesterday. I was reading about an inexperienced witch and wrote: well studied sorceress. She was trying to prove herself so I wrote: shy and recluse, not interested in actual practice.

The book continued and so did I until the inexperienced protagonist accidentally conjures a demon. I wrote: moves into a new area and stumbles across a place of power where something live. She forms a relationship with it.

I dropped the book (read: set aside my iPhone) and was furiously writing an expansion to that single idea. After a paragraph of what amounted to a book synopsis. I began writing it.

I'd take a break from writing. Read (while thinking what might come next). Then back to writing.

The two stories are nothing alike. The point isn't to rewrite something I've read, but to twist current ideas to whatever suits me.

As far as idea creation goes, those three have always worked.