Story Ideas About Travel, Hobbies, and More...

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Story Ideas About Travel

1) On a foreign holiday, your character meets an extremely attractive man or woman. They don't speak the same language, but they somehow find a way to understand each other, and your character feels a powerful connection that s/he has never felt with anyone before. Impulsively, your character marries this person after they've only known each other a very short time. Your character's new husband/wife moves to your character's country and begins to take language classes there. The better the spouse is able to communicate, the more your character realizes that s/he isn't the person your character had believed...

2) Years ago, your character ended a relationship for reasons that s/he now believes were a terrible mistake. After this happened, s/he tried to get back together, but the other person refused to even talk to her. Now, by a lucky coincidence, your character has been seated on an airplane next to his/her ex. This flight might be your character's one chance to recover what s/he has lost...

3) Your character finds a dead body in his/her hotel room. Terrified, s/he runs out into the hall and calls for help. But when hotel security arrives, there is no sign of the body. No one believes your character, but s/he knows what s/he saw. S/he decides to investigate on his/her own...

4) While camping, your character discovers very strange footprints around the tent, footprints that weren't made by any ordinary animal...

5) Your character is on a cruise. Just for fun, s/he invents a fake identity and pretends to be extremely rich. But when a flirtation with a fellow-passenger develops into deeper feelings, your character begins to feel trapped by his/her game. How can she tell the other person that s/he isn't who s/he has been pretending to be? And your character can't help wondering if the other person's really interested in him/her... or in the money s/he's been pretending to have.

6) Your character is staying in a small hotel during a hurricane. Trapped indoors, the hotel guests gather in the living room to try to pass the time. One of the guests offers to tell a ghost story. But as the story unfolds, it begins to feel disturbingly familiar and real...

7) Your character is fulfilling his/her dream of traveling the world. But in every city s/he visits, s/he keeps running into the same pair of tourists -- at some point, your character decides that this can't be just a coincidence...

Story Ideas About Hobbies

1) Your character takes a course in hypnosis, then decides to use his/her new skills to (you choose: succeed at a job interview, commit a crime, make someone fall in love with him/her).

2) Your character, an avid gardener, makes friends with another gardening enthusiast. When visiting this new friend's home, your character notices a variety of poisonous plants in his/her garden. A few days later, the friend's husband/wife falls ill, and your character has suspicions...

3) A stranger in a bar challenges your character to a game of pool and proposes an unusual bet... If your character loses, s/he has to marry this stranger. Your character happens to be a great pool player, so s/he recklessly accepts the bet. Then s/he loses the game...

4) Your character, a doll collector, returns home one day and finds that someone has stuck pins in all of the dolls in his/her collection. And then things begin to get really strange...

5) Your character is given the lead role in a romantic play. Then s/he discovers that the other romantic lead is the person who broke his/her heart years ago. Your character still hasn't recovered from the heartbreak. Should s/he give up this role? If not, how will s/he get through it?

Story Ideas About Family Gatherings

1) At a holiday dinner, one of your character's sisters claims to be receiving ghostly messages from your character's deceased mother. The mother, your character's sister warns, wants everyone in the family to make specific changes in their lives...

2) Your character is bringing home his/her new girlfriend or boyfriend to meet his/her family for the first time. There's something about the relationship that your character knows his/her family won't approve of. Whatever that thing is, your character is hoping to keep it hidden from the family...

3) A stranger shows up at your character's door, claiming to be a sibling your character didn't know existed, whom your character's parents supposedly gave up for adoption. The more your character talks to this stranger, the more s/he notices inconsistencies in the stranger's story...

4) When your character goes home for the holidays, s/he decides to murder his/her stepparent and frame his/her stepbrother for the crime (you can decide what your character's motive is).

5) When your character's family gets together for the holidays, one of his/her brothers seems different in a way that your character can't quite pinpoint. Your character has the weirdest feeling that he's not really his/her brother, but someone who looks exactly like him pretending to be him...

More Story Ideas

1) On a first date, your character makes a joke about wanting to kill his/her boss. But when the boss ends up in the hospital following a brutal attack, your character begins to worry that his/her new boyfriend/girlfriend may have taken the joke too literally...

2) Your character runs a small charity. The charity's most important donor has just died, and the donor’s widow shows no interest in continuing to contribute to the charity. Your character fears that the charity will not survive the loss of funding. Then your character learns that the widow regularly visits a psychic -- which gives your character an idea. Your character will convince the widow that s/he has the ability to speak with the dead, and will pretend to pass on messages from the dead husband urging her to continue with the charitable donations. But something strange and unexpected begins to happen. When your character pretends to summon the dead, s/he has a distinct feeling that someone, or something, is actually trying to communicate with him or her...

3) Every evening, when she goes to the parking garage of her office building, your character finds a new love note tucked under the windshield wipers of her car. These love notes are very beautiful and fill your character with powerful emotions. But they are all addressed to "Caroline". Your character's name is Melissa...

4) Your character has been kidnapped and locked in an attic. The attic has a small window overlooking the garden of a neighbor's house, where your character sometimes sees children playing. Your character doesn't dare shout out the window because the kidnapper might hear. S/he needs to find a way to signal for help without the kidnapper discovering what s/he's doing, and without endangering the children...

Story Ideas - Next Steps

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