The Fastest Way to Get Ideas

If you have no idea what to write about, just browse through the book at random and you’ll soon find something to inspire you. If you already have a theme or subject in mind, look at the list of categories at the front of the book or the headings at the top of each page. There are 150 categories listed in alphabetical order.

Once you have an idea you like, use it as a starting point for a short story, novel, screenplay, stage play, poem, joke, article – or just about anything. And once you have your starting point, you can use more What Ifs to add characters, personality traits, background details, plot points and twists, and all sorts of other things.

Full list of categories:

Accidents; Actions; Addiction; Age; Ambition; Animals; Appearance; Art; Belief; Birth, babies, pregnancy; Cannibalism; Celebrity and fame; Characters; Children; Communication; Control (lack of); Crime and punishment; Culture; Death; Decisions and choices; Dedication / determination; Desperate measures; Dreams; Drink; Ecology; Education; Email; Embarrassment; Emotions and feelings; Enlightenment; Exhaustion and tiredness; Failure; Family; Fate; Fear; Food; Friends and enemies; Gardens; Geography; Gifts; Government; Health; Help; History; Holidays; Home; Horror; Human biology; Humour; Illegal; Inaction; Judgement; Knowledge and (mis)understanding; Language; Law; Letters/post; Likes/dislikes; Limitations; Literature; Living and lifestyle; Lost and found; Love and romance; Luck; Lying and cheating; Memory; Miscellaneous; Misconceptions; Mistakes; Money; Music; Mysterious; Mystical; Names; Nature; Neighbours; Noises and sounds; Oops!; Optimism/pessimism; Paranormal?; Parents and parenthood; Parties; Partners; People; Personality and behaviour; Pets; Phone calls; Plans gone awry; Police; Politics; Power; Press and Media; Pretence; Problems; Psychology; Reading; Relatives; Religion; Right and wrong; Royalty; Refusal/disobedience; Rules; Rumours; Science, maths, inventions and discoveries; Science fiction; Science fiction – alternative history; Science fiction – animals; Science fiction – geography; Science fiction – science; Science fiction – time; Secrets; Self-control; Self-improvement; Senses; Skills and superpowers; Sleeping; Smell; Sociology; Speech/talking; Sport, exercise and fitness; Strange; Stupidity; Success; Superstition; Surprise!; Technology; Television; Things going badly; Things going well; Time; Travel; Uncertainty; Waking up; Wants/needs; War; Weather; Weddings and marriage; Winning and losing; Work; Work – boss; Work – colleagues; Work – customers; Work – employees; Work – jobs; Work – job applications; Work – not working; Work – pay, money, budget; Work – problems; Work – you’re fired!; Writing; You.