Where do you get ideas for stories? Ideas are all around us. News stories and headlines, conversations, people watching, reading other books, or watching movies can all give you ideas. As you watch people, interact with others, or read, think about the characters. Maybe one of the characters has an interesting vocation that could be the center of a story. I imagine what people at the mall are doing. Why do they dress like that? What is their life like. You can read a lot from a person's expression, posture, and appearance.
Imagine what it would be like to live in another country or another period in history.
Look for writing prompts. They are intended to make you think and can spawn countless scenarios. Each writer's mind works a little differently based on the experiences they've had in life. This is what makes all our stories unique. If a room full of writers were all asked to write a story on a certain topic, all the stories would be different. That's the beauty of it all.
