By: Adrian Smith
You just finished a major scene in your story. You’ve read it over a few times and feel pretty satisfied. The story, to this point, is everything you imagined it would read like—but you’re not sure where to go from here. You start circling your mind for the next part of the plot, but nothing makes sense for the scene you’ve just written. Obviously, it’s difficult putting together a story that keeps readers immersed in dramatic conflict, but here are some momentum-building story ideas that will move your plot along, or just give you a place to start (or continue) from where you get stuck:
1. Your main character gets lost on his/her way to someplace important…but ends up somewhere more interesting.
2. Your character brings the wrong item home by mistake and makes fatal discovery in it.
3. A character’s home gets destroyed in a fire or a flood. They end up in a place that alters their worldview.
4. Your character discovers their bedroom/laptop has been searched.
5. A minor character has unshakable faith in something the main character venomously advocates against.
6. Your character travels far and overcomes a great deal of adversity, only to find the place or a person they were looking for is no longer around.
7. Your character’s fate/life (direction) hangs on a single coin toss.
8. Your main character needs to lie to someone who has absolute trust in them in order to protect a delicate situation.
9. Your main character is forced to interrupt a funeral.
10. In order to move forward, a character needs to go back to a place they’re not welcome in, as he/she swore they would never return.