Mystery Monday #13: the Brainstormer

It's Mystery Monday!

Welcome to our regular Monday feature, where you'll find different kinds of writing prompts and exercises. Each week, we'll give you something to help exercise your mystery-writing muscles.

I thought I'd take a little space today to talk about an app I use on my iPod when I get stuck in writing: the Brainstormer. It's available from the iTunes App Store here. While technically not a mystery writing tool, it could be used as one. Either way, it's a lot of fun.

The Brainstormer, according to it's creator, is,

"...a bit of kindling for creative minds. A tactile tool to randomly combine a plot, a subject and a setting or style, the Brainstormer can provide that elusive moment of inspiration for writers, painters, or any kind of creative endeavour. It’s a great way to combat creative block, to spark new ideas for a new project or to summon up quick subjects for doodling, sketching or journaling."

Basically, you click the dice to spin the slot or the wheel to come up with a combination of plot, setting, and subject. Your job then is to write the premise or the scene or the story that goes with it. (A mystery, of course, right? <-- See how I got the mystery in there? :-P)

Don't like your combo? Spin again. Cool, huh?

But maybe you're already in the midst of working on something--and you're stuck. Here's something even cooler about the Brainstormer. You can customize it. You can enter in your characters, your settings, your situations, whatever. That's right: YOU CAN CREATE YOUR OWN WHEELS.

So, sounds great, right? But what if you aren't an iWriter? Well, first of all, thanks for reading this far. And second, while I haven't combed the web for anything that works exactly like the Brainstormer, there are a few generators out there that look like fun:

• The Imagination Prompt Generator: journal prompts to get you going
• The Story Starter: a first sentence for your next story
• Writing with kids? Try the Story Starter Jr.: same idea, simpler sentences

Or maybe YOU have a favorite online tool that gets your writing juices going. Please--help us solve the mystery of where stories come from by posting a link here in the comments.