| 50 Great Story Starters
1. I woke up one morning and looked around. Where was I? The ground was soft and full hills and valleys. Suddenly, I realized I was in my own bed, and I was only three inches tall!
2. That morning started like any other morning. I climbed out of bed, stepped on a plastic building block, and got dressed. Then I went downstairs and everything changed. My mother looked at me and gasped.
3. My eyes shot open at exactly 6:00 AM when my alarm went off. Then I shut them, rubbed them, and opened them again. Was I dreaming? The whole world was black and white, like an old TV show. Where was all the color?
4. On a perfect day, I get up at 6:30, have pancakes for breakfast, and head outside to play with my dog. Today, I didn’t wake up until 9:00, had plain oatmeal and prune juice for breakfast, and my dog growled at me when I stepped outside.
5. Sometimes people complain about having a bad hair day, but nothing can compare with what happened to my hair yesterday. When I woke up and looked in the mirror, I screamed. Could that be me?
6. As my family sat down to breakfast, my dad said, “I have some exciting news.” A knot formed in my stomach. He continued, “I’ve quit my job and bought an ostrich farm. We’re going to look at it today, and we’re moving on Saturday.”
7. I stepped into the kitchen for breakfast and was shocked to see a very large dog sitting in my chair. My mother smiled and said, “Good morning, dear. We’ll be keeping the Mr. Neighbor’s dog while he’s on vacation. He says Fido always eats at the table. Could you refill his water bowl for him?”
8. The house was strangely silent when I woke up that morning. I ran to the kitchen, then to my parents’ room, looking for someone, but no one was to be found. I checked outside. No one. I called Aunt Polly. No answer.
9. I woke up excited. It was my birthday, and I suspected my family had planned a big surprise. If only I had known how big a surprise!
10. All night I had dreamed of snow, and when I woke up in the morning my dream had come true. Two feet of snow covered the ground. We could hardly get the front door open. Maybe it would have been better if we hadn’t been able to.
11. I had never been to the ocean before, so when my parents told us to get in the car for a trip to the shore, I was ready to go. Well, almost — I did have a few reservations about sharks.
12. Have you ever found a surprise on your front porch? Sometimes our neighbors leave things for us, like zucchini or even flowers, but you will hardly believe what we found last week.
13. My dad and I were hiking through the woods one day when we heard a terrifying sound. We stopped and heard it again. I started to shake, but my dad said it sounded like an injured animal. He was right. We found a baby bear caught in a trap close to a stream. But the noise was coming from its mother.
14. Let me tell you about the day I decided to take over doing the family laundry. Mom said she didn’t mind doing the laundry one bit, but I knew it was hard on her and she could use a break. People haven’t looked at our family the same since.
15. We have a big yard — a whole acre — and it’s my job to mow the grass. Mowing grass can be pretty boring, as you might guess, especially is you don’t have a riding mower. One day I decided to make it much more interesting.
16. Christmas was coming up, and I didn’t have a cent to spend on anyone. So I decided to make gifts. It was pretty easy to make things for my sister and brother. Dad was easy, too. I redecorated his Sunday tie with oil paints from my paint-by-number set. But I couldn’t think what to do for my mother. She was always saying she didn’t have anything to wear. Maybe I could change one of her dresses so it would look new.
17. The day I found a baby bird on the ground changed my life. It was so helpless, and it was up to me to save it.
18. I knew from the time I was three I wanted to own my own business. When I turned eight, I finally did it. Here’s how.
19. My dad invented the most amazing thing last week. Now I’ll never have to worry about the bully down the street again.
20. Right outside my bedroom window is a huge tree, and you’ll never believe what lives in it. Nobody believes it, but I’ve seen it.
21. Last week I found a strange machine in the woods. When I touched it, it started making weird noises, then it grabbed me up and threw me back in time.
22. Yesterday I baked my very first cookies. No one was home, so I was on my own. How was I supposed to know what one teaspoon of soda meant? I had never heard of baking soda, and one teaspoon didn’t sound like nearly enough.
23. I once learned a very good lesson about the importance of a clean room. My room used to be a mess, until I discovered that I was not living in it alone.
24. Last year, my brother and I decided to have a marshmallow-eating contest. I won, but I don’t know if it was worth the embarrassment.
25. I’ve always wanted to be a hero. Last week I got my chance.
26. I always thought my dad was a hero, but I didn’t realize just what sort of a hero he was until I found his cape in a trunk in the basement.
27. Our dog is very unusual. You see, he can talk. But he only talks to me. He’s very smart and tells me amazing things.
28. Let me tell you how I became the world’s expert at identifying plants.
29. I’m a collector. I collect all sorts of things: stamps, rocks, leaves, stickers. But the strangest thing I collect is ________.
30. Some people collect stamps, but my neighbor collects people. He has twenty people living at his house, and he goes out looking for more every day.
31. One morning I woke up and realized I could no longer speak English. Mom thought I was fooling around and got mad at me, but I wasn’t faking! The question was, what did I speak and how would I learn English again?
32. I always dreamed of what it would be like to get locked in a store all by myself overnight. Then it really happened.
33. My friend and I were playing next to an office building when we saw something sticking out of a trash can. It was a briefcase full of money. We decided to turn it into the police, but that wouldn’t be so easy.
34. I met a boy who said he was from another planet. At first, I didn’t believe him, but now that I’ve known him for a while, I think he may be telling the truth.
35. I plan to be a millionaire by the time I’m twenty. Here’s how I’ll do it.
36. Did you know you can’t vacuum just anything? My mom asked me to vacuum the house the other day, and I learned some important lessons.
37. We have one cat and one dog, and they never got along. But I solved the problem.
38. One summer, my mom decided we would live like pioneers all summer long. We had the electric company turn off our electricity. No TV, no stove, no lights. What a summer!
39. Caves are very dark. My sister and I found that out when we went exploring in a cave and our flashlight batteries went dead. We couldn’t see a thing, not even each other, and we were afraid.
40. I’m a bird watcher, and I can identify almost any kind of bird in the world. But one bird really had me stumped, until I found a very old book in the library. It was a story about a mysterious bird that had been seen by only three people.
41. When my mother announced she was going to have a baby, I was excited. What would it be like to be a big sister/brother? Then I got worried. What if my parents liked the baby more than me? What if it cried all the time? What if my mother had twins!?
42. I don’t like dogs and dogs don’t like me, so I was very suspicious when our neighbor’s dog started following me everywhere.
43. Last year, I decided to see how long I could go without taking a bath. There were plenty of objections, but I convinced my family that if I set a world record I’d become famous.
44. After watching the barber cut Dad’s hair, I decided it looked pretty easy. All the same, I thought I should try it out on someone else before fixing myself up all fancy.
45. Let me tell you about the day I traded places with my dog.
46. Fall is my favorite season. One fall, I used all the leaves from my yard and most from my neighbors’ yards to build a giant maze. It was so tall I couldn’t see over it. I couldn’t find my way out, either.
47. Little brothers and sisters are good for many things. You can practice haircuts on them and use them for an audience when you want to put on a play. You can even give them parts in your play. But, as I learned the hard way, there’s only so far you can go. At least that’s how my mother felt.
48. Last year, my mom told me that if I kept complaining about school she would make me copy the entire set of encyclopedias the next school year. I didn’t believe her.
49. I like challenges. One time, my dad challenged me to climb the highest mountain in our state with him, and I did it. Another time, my brother dared me to climb the oak tree in the back yard. I did that, too, but I needed help getting down. Last month, my Aunt Kay challenged me to do something nice for everyone in my family every day for one year!
50. The zoo is a very scary place when all the people are gone and it gets dark. I should know. |
