There are usually four elements to most traditional stories, characters, setting, genre and theme. If you have one of these you're well on your way to making your own story. From there you can create anything that may be missing from your world as it were. So for today, in our first coverage of these elements we'll be talking about characters.
Characters are probably my favorite element in a story, many of them can take you away on new vistas of psychological landscapes. That alone would make for a great book. But you really only need one or two characters to spread out form your existing story. With that you can just type around what they may or may not do every day, how they're defined, what they believe, etcetc.
Your whole environment can be molded around characters and how they interact with their world in each stories. One story that is very character based is a manga called “Azumanga Daioh” which is basically about school girls dealing with every day life. Slice of life is a great avenue for characters. The most fantastic stories can be extraordinarily mundane, isn't that great??
You shouldn't have to accept traditional character roles, try to explore what kind of characters may be common or uncommon. For example, a vending machine in a fantasy world. Something lifeless can become anthropomorphic in your story and you can easily go from there with other elements and settings.
So if you're having a hard time writing, but only have one or two characters, you could already be well on your way to making a story. Perhaps it's what they want to achieve, what they believe or disbelieve, where they are in life right now, or where they have been, you get the idea.
As I said, the every day could be a key for another story of your character whoever they may be or not be. Keep that in mind and if you're looking for something to write then try to start there.
Another way is to throw your character into a difficult situation and see how they behave or may deal with it. This could happen in almost any book and it's a great exercise.
Finally writing about the past and future events of your character could help also stir the creative juices. So look into their past or future and see what you may want to write about, or what may happen as a result of something which has/is/did occur.
Next time we will be covering setting. Whee!