I need plots!

[Quiver he/him]

So...Yeah. Asthenia title says.

I have some...vague ideas for settings or concepts, but I'm finding it hard to turn them into actual stories. Any advice?

[Edgedancer he/him]

Story telling duct tape. As the saying goes, ideas are cheap so just use them up multiple at a time.

Or, if you can't find a way to grow them to the size of what you consider a story you could always start out writting short stories. It's not like anyone's forcing you to write at least 200k words and up.

[Zathoth]

If you have a setting you just need to make something go horribly wrong in said setting and you more or less have a plot.

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

google "writing prompts generator"

[Eagle of the Forest Path he/him]

35 minutes ago, Darkness Ascendant said:

google "writing prompts generator"

That's probably okay for short stories, but I wouldn't want to rely too much on them for anything longer, personally.

Writing prompts can cause a nice brainstorm now and again though, so it is well worth exploring them.
Just remember that they are not plots by themselves, IMO it's best to think of them as the thing that starts you thinking towards your own plot.

 

Getting started on a story depends on what type of writer you are, a discovery writer or an outliner.
If you are a discovery writer I'd say to do a lot of writing prompts and write them into short stories, eventually something will catch your imagination and you can work that into something longer (or if you like, you can stick to short stories like Edgedancer said).
For outliners it's a bit more complicated, you can still do the prompts (which will teach you a bit of how to discovery write at the same time) but it will probably be harder for you.
I have another suggestion in case you're an outliner (which could still work for discovery writers, but will be harder), if you have only vague ideas for the setting, it might be worth it to expand on that. Go deeper into your world-building, think of how certain aspects of your setting will affect people's lives. Once you understand more of your world(s), you might discover what kind of story you'd like to tell in it(them). 
A warning though, if you go too far in this it could result in the dreaded world-builders disease, which in certain cases can only be cured by a radical inspiration-ectomy.

A last suggestion is to create some characters, they are what will (or should) be the focus your story after all. If you create a character you really like, it's likely to be a good motivation for thinking of what you'd like them to do (or what you'd like to do to them, nyark, nyark).

2 hours ago, Morzathoth said:

If you have a setting you just need to make something go horribly wrong in said setting and you more or less have a plot.

Basically true, but rather cynical, no? I like it!

[Zathoth]

8 minutes ago, Eagle of the Forest Path said:

Basically true, but rather cynical, no? I like it!

Not really. Stories need conflict, having something go horribly wrong in your setting is a great way to create conflict.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

12 minutes ago, Morzathoth said:

Not really. Stories need conflict, having something go horribly wrong in your setting is a great way to create conflict.

Harry Potter: There was an evil dictator who seems to be finding a way to rise from the dead. 

Star Wars: The galaxy is ruled by evil space wizards. 

Avengers: The brother of a superhero is gathering an army. 

Seems the "take a setting and have something go wrong" formula is pretty solid, whether or not the writers responsible for those works knew that was what they were doing. 

[Zathoth]

54 minutes ago, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

Harry Potter: There was an evil dictator who seems to be finding a way to rise from the dead. 

Star Wars: The galaxy is ruled by evil space wizards. 

Avengers: The brother of a superhero is gathering an army. 

Seems the "take a setting and have something go wrong" formula is pretty solid, whether or not the writers responsible for those works knew that was what they were doing. 

I think those are more cases of "Theres a bad guy, someone needs to stop him."

Elantris is a better case of "The setting broke, now someone needs to fix it... and there are insane, religious extremists."

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

10 minutes ago, Morzathoth said:

I think those are more cases of "Theres a bad guy, someone needs to stop him."

Elantris is a better case of "The setting broke, now someone needs to fix it... and there are insane, religious extremists."

I'd say they're still examples of something going wrong within the setting, though. Voldemort, Darth Vader, and Loki are all bad guys within their respective settings, and could not arise from any other setting. 

[Zathoth]

Just now, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

I'd say they're still examples of something going wrong within the setting, though. Voldemort, Darth Vader, and Loki are all bad guys within their respective settings, and could not arise from any other setting. 

I see what you mean. Point taken.

[Eagle of the Forest Path he/him]

2 hours ago, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

I'd say they're still examples of something going wrong within the setting, though. Voldemort, Darth Vader, and Loki are all bad guys within their respective settings, and could not arise from any other setting. 

I completely disagree.

Voldy, Vader and Whatshisface are all inextricably tied to their respective protagonists, if you keep those relationships intact, you can mostly transplant the story to another setting (My name is Harry Potter. You killed my father. Prepare to die!).
Your point fits very well with TLR, though.

Looking at it from the other side, if you keep the You-Know-Who, Darth and Loki in their own settings but change the protagonists, the bad guys lose most, if not all, their relevance.
If Vader wasn't Luke's dad, all that's left of that storyline is fight scenes with some fancy choreography and a lot of special effects.

Edited July 30, 2016 by Eagle of the Forest Path

[Stormgate he/him]

Dystopian fantasy.

Medieval spy.

Murder book where the killer is a shapeshifter.

A superhero origin story in a medieval setting.

 

Take a plot or something that is done in a normal setting, then put it into a different setting or twist it. I like medieval stuff, for example. I'm currently figuring out the specifics for a story with a mad scientist and doomsday device, but the scientist looses his memory and helps his nemesis (who doesn't know his true identity) stop his own plot. I'm also figuring out how to do a story where someone who grew up in a postapocalyptic world goes back in time to before the apocalypse and has to deal with things like not driving any random car, or having to buy food, etc. 

[Straw he/him]

Here are some of my favorite ideas:

A person searching for a lost God in a world where all gods are thought to have died.

A person from a city is lost in a magical forest and must discover magic to survive.

A person who is hired to hunt down the killer of someone the main character hates.

 

Edited August 15, 2016 by Straw

[Kyrt Malthorn he/him]

 

I was very recently struck by something Sanderson put on his site...  quote from this.

Quote

Let me enforce something very strongly here: One idea, no matter how brilliant, does not make a novel! One idea probably won’t even make a short story. I’d say that a novel needs at least six, [...] the thing to keep in mind is that you can’t generally carry a story on just one concept.

[...] There are plot ideas, character ideas, and setting ideas. [...] Plot ideas generally come in the form of general frameworks. You may have heard that there are only a few basic ‘plots,’ which is, in a way, true. However, what I look for here is a new twist on a plot structure. I usually try to combine a couple of these for a novel.

[...]

Plots can mix together to form very interesting ideas as well. If you mix two plot tensions, will combining them make complimentary storylines or not? In a novel, I think it’s important to have a nice mix between smaller level plotting and large, macroscopic plotting.

 

My takeaway was this: we've all seen most of the plot achtypes hundreds of times before - I mean, the basic ideas.  Enemies-become-friends.  Overthrow-evil-dictator.  Stop-world-domination-schemes.  Stranded-in-a-hostile-environment.  Uniqueness is born not in any one plot individually - though you can certainly do it in a way you haven't seen done before - but real uniqueness is by combining plot types into something more than the sum of their parts.

Think about some of your favorite books or movies, and the basic plot elements in them.  Find one that fascinates you with potential, maybe one that works well with a setting or character you have laying around, and look for other plot elements that you haven't seen paired with the one you've chosen. 

Edited August 15, 2016 by Kyrt Malthorn