Roll the Dice or Create your own Story Generator

If you are looking for story ideas or some exercises to warm up your mind before starting on that big project then use this simple method of selecting characters, locations and themes that you can then use to start a short story.

For each of these headings list six possible results numbered one to six, if you prefer you could set this up as a table. If you would like more options you could use two or more die and therefore list twelve or more possible results.

Character

Situation

Location.

Below are some examples:
Character

1 – Teacher, female, 40 years

2 – Doctor, male, 32 years

3 – Doctor, female, 45 years

4 – Shop assistant, male, 62 years

5 – Child, female, 7 years

6 – Hiker, male, 22 years

Situation

1 – Minor car accident

2 – Taking an exam

3 – Planning a holiday

4 – Applying for a new job

5 – Cooking a meal

6 – Taking a gym class

Location

1 – Busy street

2 – In a bank

3 – On a beach

4 – In a forest

5 – At the swimming pool

6 – In a restaurant.

Roll the dice to select a character, roll again to select a second character, it’s OK if they are the same. Roll again to select the situation and again for the location. You now have two characters, a situation and location. Write your story using these elements. Remember this is to help you generate story ideas or to warm up your writing muscles so do not feel constrained whilst writing; if you decide you want your doctor to become a café owner then do it – it’s your story.

You can add to or change your lists to suit your needs or interests, you may also decide to add additional headings such as theme, gender, age, conflict or barrier. Over time you could develop quite a large number of possible story ideas.

Happy writing.