by Henry Lien
Unique story concepts are some of the rarest and most powerful tools in a writer’s arsenal. As an author, I’ve focused my career on unique concepts. For example, my Peasprout Chen series is an Asian middle grade fantasy about a boarding school that teaches a sport combining figure skating with kung fu. The New York Times described Peasprout Chen as “Hermione Granger meets Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon meets the Ice Capades meets Mean Girls.”
Below are seven exercises that I use in my own writing, as well as in courses I teach for the UCLA Extension Writers Program and Clarion West Writers Workshop, to generate original story concepts. These exercises are intended to shock your subconscious out of learned behaviors, lead you into unmapped territories of your own creativity, and help you generate story concepts that only you could have come up with. Continue reading
Editor’s Note: Award-winning author/illustrator 
On Twitter this Friday (9/21/18) from 4-5 PM PST, Kayla will take your questions and discuss why our stories matter, even when we think they don’t. Log into your Twitter account during our chat hour and use the hashtag #KTChat or @mention 
Reading and writing books are the most valuable arenas of space and territories of time we can occupy to process the noisy world around us. When readers tweet that they lost track of time because they were reading, what they are doing is engaging with a story that was necessary for them. In Brené Brown’s book, 
Process fascinates me, in part because I find it challenging. It’s tempting to focus on other things that start with p: publication, perfection, panic, pretzels (snacks, help, right?) and, of course, the desire to polish off a manuscript and be finished.