The Amazing Story Generator: Creates Thousands of Writing Prompts Spiral-bound – August 15, 2012

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!

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. :)

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.

Great coffee table book, awesome for kids and adults, and helpful to writers AND improv comedy folks alike.I like that the pages are easily flipped, adding to the fun of the book. It does just what it says, giving you ideas to spawn new ones. If you want to step it up a notch, use it at bedtime with the kiddies to tell each other a story that you make up on the spot. Such fun!Writers and Improv Comedy folks - may I also recommend THE STORYMATIC system of cards for the same reasons? Yes? OK, then, yes, consider this a fun tip for you :-)I hope this review helps, please let me know if it did - and please feel free to ask me any questions... Cheers!

This book is really awesome. Each "page" is divided into three parts. Then you pick a top selection, middle selection and bottom selection which gives HUNDREDS of different options. For example the top selection may say something like, "An ugly duckling"...then the middle choice may say, "Takes a nap"....and the bottom could say, "In outer space." Put it all together and you have the topic you will write about. Or if you flip a few of them it could be that "An ugly duckling...Goes to school....And wins the lottery" It gives kids (or older readers) TONS of ideas! My 10 yr old son is quite the author but he is always writing about the SAME thing....zombies, vampires, "minions," and video gaming. This will give him a new topic every night to write about. He could write three stories per day for the next 5 years and NEVER run out of NEW topics for his stories! I am INCREDIBLY happy with this purchase and my son is extremely excited to start using it! 5 stars all the way (I would rate it higher if I could!)

I got this book for myself to use as a tool to break writer's block. It's perfect for providing a number of interesting prompts that can be very funny or serious. I've also found that it can be used as a sort of icebreaker story-telling game. I've noticed some reviewers say that the prompts tend to skew toward a younger audience, but I think this works for any age.If you're looking for something to give you a simple situation for a writing exercise, improv game, whatever, this book is an excellent source.