The Amazing Story Generator: Creates Thousands of Writing Prompts

Before you buy this, I think it's important to know what you're getting. The best advice I can give you in that regard is to look at the sample images at the top of this product listing near the image of the book's cover.The book is basically a spiral-bound creation with "pages" that are split into three parts. The top-most part gives a starting circumstance, the middle part describes a character, and the bottom part describes a situation the character finds himself/herself/itself in. By randomly flipping the three page parts, you can randomly generate a story "launching off point". Where the story goes from there is up to the writer.I bought this book for myself, to help me come up with ideas for a creative writing project. I have challenged myself to write a new original short story every week for a year and put it up on the Internet. That means I need to generate new ideas quickly. It was my hope that this book would spark me to come up with some interesting tales. I can't honestly say that it has, yet, but I've not tried to use it very often.The ideal audience for this book is probably a young child who likes to invent and tell stories. A teenager or adult writer would probably want more from it... like what kind of conflict the character is experiencing, what obstacle they need to overcome, etc. There are probably better tools out there for that than this book. That's not to say that this is a bad book at all. If you're using it for the intended audience and know what to expect from it, it's certainly something that might keep a young mind occupied for many hours.

I bought this on a whim, and I'm delighted with it. As a writer, I'd hoped it'd provide some fresh ideas for stories. At the very least, it'd be a fun book to leave open on the coffee table, for visitors to play with.Basically, the book is divided into three sections, and you can mix and match the sections by turning the pages (or opening it at random). The top 1/3 describes an event or circumstance that launches the story. The middle section describes a character involved it in. (That could be the protagonist or antagonist. You decide.) The lower section gives you the "and then things got worse" challenge... or it could be the "and that's how it resolved" situation, depending on how you look at it.While these plots aren't deep enough for a full "hero's journey" plot, they're great starting points. My husband -- also a writer -- has thought of an entire series of books (or screenplays) based on the first set of story elements he saw in this book.I'm very happy with this, and recommend it most highly for short story writers. Novelists may need more to work with, but as a spark for longer works, this book is great.

Not all of the scenarios are appropriate for kids. Examples include « after a bitter custody battle a reformed hit man kills a stranger after an armed struggle » or « After a failed bank heist a small-time embezzler founds a nudist colony » or « having poisoned the soup a freelance assassin plans the perfect murder » or « After escaping prison a friendly ex-convict kissed a friend’s husband » My ten year loves this book so we just use the ones that aren’t explicit. I’m thinking of making up our own to tape over the ones that aren’t appropriate.

We originally purchased this book from another website (for more money!) just at the end of my 3rd-graders school year. When it arrived, I looked through it and thought how great it would be to use during summer vacation. We both love to write, so I thought it would be a lot of fun to set a timer for five minutes, let him flip the prompts, and then we could have a "write-off" and compare our stories when the five minutes were up.I showed him the book when he got home from school and he got such a kick out of the story ideas that I decided to send our book to school with him to give to his teacher as an end-of-year gift to use next year with her students in the same fashion, and we purchased another one for use at home.The book is very well-made, well-constructed, and well-thought-out. The prompts are funny without being overly comical, and although I did have to explain to my 8-year-old what a "nudist camp" was (that was in one of the prompts), I haven't come across anything that would be considered off-color or adults-only. I'm not sure I'd recommend this for a professional novelist, but for people who like banging out some fun short stories or for people who are looking to get in to writing and expand their personal supply of prompts, it's a lot of fun. :)

A fiction writer, young or old, will get a lot of pleasure out of this book. It's made with heavy cardboard much like young children's books. That's okay because that makes this book almost indestructible. Each page is cut in three horizontally in such a fashion as to allow the user to flip all the pages in the top section, or middle section or bottom section. The user randomly flips to a page in each section, and then reads what it says as the premise for a story. The variety of combinations makes for some interesting, thought-provoking, and frequently, very amusing ideas. Even if the writer is not likely to create a story based on the exact idea they see before them, the book offers ideas that hardly anyone would ever think of as the basis for a storyline. A creative writer, after all, is often one who can fashion a story based on unusual ideas. There are plenty of those in this book! And any writer who is suffering from writer's block is certainly likely to get jump-started by this book. Do I recommend it? You bet!

This was bought as a birthday present for my 10 year old niece, and she absolutely adored it. It sparked her imagination and raised her enthusiasm to create stories and tales. A great buy

What a life saver! A wonderful book to dip into when I'm feeling blocked. Some of the entries are, um, a bit odd...but it's a brilliant reference to go to for a laugh and normally a lightbulb idea moment!Fabulous, fun, and a bit silly!

Items arrived in good time and packaged appropriately. Item was as seller described and good value for the money paid. I would use again. Bought for my daughter as she loves writing and will give her lots of ideas to get her started!

As an author and teacher, I bought this as a teaching aid, and my children love it too! A fab little writing tool, and it serves as a fun little ice breaker too.

Very inventive and packed full of prompts.