Starting stories with a general idea about a problem and no targets is a great way of getting a robust and healthy plot line going.
I once asked Joe Neilson (the unrecognized co-founder of TPRS) how he starts his stories. He told me that he thinks of a general problem that some character has, and that just doing that is enough to get a good story going.
Using that idea as a starting point, I then combined it with the proven technique of asking students to provide a fear, problem or secret with their individually created characters. The result was “story starters”, in which the personality or physical form of the character directly contradicts something they want or don’t want.
Basically, a story starter is just a formulaic device that can be used to increase the interest right from the start of any tableau or story.
This is the formula:
[The character] doesn’t like/want/is afraid of/lost [some quality or physical characteristic that the character has].
Here some examples:
incense that hates bathrooms
a broom that doesn’t like dirt
a teacher who is afraid of teenagers
a pair of lips that don’t like kissing
a patch of ice who doesn’t want to melt
a baby giraffe who is afraid of heights
a train that is afraid of loud noises
a pumpkin that is afraid of Halloween
a car that is afraid of people
a sheet of paper that doesn’t like the pair of scissors who has a crush on her
a basketball that hates touching glass and metal
a snowflake that doesn’t realize that it’s journey through the air is going to end
In each case above, there is a natural synergistic opposition between the character and the problem – the one doesn’t “fit” with the other.
That’s all you have to do! These little story starters make getting a good story off the ground easier. They are one way to start a story with confidence. Even if the idea eventually isn’t used on any particular day, you have it as a back-up as the story goes along being developed. It’s like a security blanket.