So you've decided to write a short story, but are a bit stumped by one minor detail –- you don't know what to write about. Here are a few suggestions, most of them based on my own writing experience, on how to look for short story seeds, and how to go about growing them so that they can flower into short story masterpieces.

1. Read

There's nothing like another work of art to inspire you or trigger an idea in you that you didn't know was there all along. Sometimes a word, a scene, or the flow and rhythm of sentence is enough to stir the creative juice in you.

My first published short story, "The Catfish," was inspired by reading Jose Dalisay's short story, "In the Garden" from his short story collection Sarcophagus and Other Stories. In that story, you'll find a scene where some boys are working on garden mounds. This image reminded me of my own childhood in which we,  elementary students, labored on our garden plots. More specifically, the image triggered in me the smell of earth, and us hoeing in the garden, our adolescent hands gritty with dirt. So I took off from that image, with the boys hoeing, and I just started to write, not knowing where the image would lead me. The result was a story which even surprised me. Indeed, reading other works has a curious way of touching our subconscious and reminding us of the stories lying dormant within us.

2. Listen

Hang out with friends, neighbors or new acquaintances; chat with them and listen to their stories. A story of mine called "Rooms," was inspired by a story told by a boarding house mate -- a story of a "cursed" room in a college dormitory. I then created a character similar to myself and put him in that room. This became my second published story. (When my boarding house mate saw my story, he said jokingly that he should also be compensated. I would have if I had been paid that much.) Anyway, the point is, more often than not, stories come to us, and it's up to us what to do with them whenever they run into us.

A similar thing happened to Raymond Carver in a party once in which somebody told an anecdote of a man taking out all his furniture and arranging it in his front lawn. He and his writer-friends joked who would be the first one to write a story or poem about it. No one else did, except Carver, and the result was one of his most brilliant stories, "Why Don't You Dance?"

3. Remember your youth or childhood

As already touched on in this article, adolescence is good fodder for short stories. Flannery O'Connor once said that one's childhood is enough material to last you a lifetime writing stories, or something to that effect. Young adulthood is also a very good source for short stories because it is when we are just discovering how it is to be an adult, what life really is, how sad and how so full of potential at the same time. "Invisible" is a story I wrote based on a semester break reunion just after I got into college. I wrote some scenes as it happened, made up some, and I had a story.

4. Write about your friends

Now this is a bit touchy because your friends might not like it that you wrote about them. But others might be flattered that you wrote about them. So just follow your gut. The important thing is to be truthful, which includes not being judgmental. You know them well so it will be easy to create characters based on them. Then you can improvise. Put them in a certain situation, and just go from there. A story of mine for example was based on a friend who had a drinking problem, and he would tell us of incidents in which he would find himself waking up in ditches or places like that. That roused the writer in me and I put him in one these instances. But this time he wakes up in the middle of the park and it is still dark: the middle of the night. What can happen to him? The story became "Can They See Us?", one of my more adventurous stories.

If you're still fearful of writing about your friends, change their gender or age. Or make a composite character based on two or more of your friends. That way, you're more confident that you're not risking losing a friend or being sued for libel.

5. Live

And lastly, an advice I admit I should take to heart more, go out there. As scriptwriter Ricky Lee once said, "Don't be scared of life. Have your hearts broken every now and then." Reach out to others and share your talents, yourself. Living and loving are after all a writer's bread and butter, with the latter (loving) not failing to produce at least a literary work from every writer.

Dino Manrique is the owner/publisher of FilipinoWriter.com. Most of his stories and poems have appeared in the Philippines Free Press and Philippine Graphic. You may reach him at filipinowriter(at)gmail(dot)com.