Skip to main content

199+ Plot, Name, Story, and Other Generators

As any author can tell you, coming up with names and ideas for a story is sometimes more difficult than writing said story. The process of inventing names is a critical first step akin to looking at a blank sheet of paper and trying to find that first word.

I’ve developed on my own method for coming up with names (it’s a variation of the porn star name game) and I have shared a handful of tricks for naming websites.

But those methods won’t work for everyone, and they won’t help you with problems like thinking up the plot for your next novel.

Fortunately, I can help.

One of my ongoing projects are turnkey websites for small publishers (here’s one). I’ve gotten pretty good at thinking up names for the companies, but I still struggle to write original and good quality content for things like the about page, book listings, staff names and descriptions, and so on.

I have not invented as many names and descriptions as your average George RR Martin novel, but I have had to come up with enough names that I went out and found ways to automate the process.

Here are a few of the plot, name, summary, and other text generators websites that I have found useful.

Edit: Do you need a map of a fictional land or city?  I found a couple Twitter bots that post randomly generated maps.

Edit: Here’s a more detailed map generator for medieval cities.

Rum & Monkey

This site has over 30 name generators, all specialized for a certain niche. There’s Mormon and vampire name generators as well as generators for military code names; Korean, Thai, Arabic, Elfish names; and many more.

Perhaps my favorite one (after the "behind your back" generator) is the one that told me my stripper name was Thunder Down Under .

Generator Land

You won’t find many book-centric name generators here but this site does have any number of "outside the box" idea generators including ones for startups, sports drinks, story plots, Jame Bond villains, Kung Fu movies (Stuttering Fists , Raging Farmer), and more.

This site will even let you make your own name generator. I haven’t had a chance to test this option but it could be a great way to come up with truly unique and relevant names.

Plot Generator

If you need a random story summary for a book then this is your site, but I wouldn’t use it too much. This site has almost 2 dozen genre-specific generators, but they’re not very good.

Each generator has a single template, which means if you use the horror story generator six times you will get six very similar summaries. I found I had to edit most summaries so they were unique, but I did still use this site.)

Name Generator Fun

This gaudy looking site contains 29 name generators for various fantasy and SF fandom. For example, it told me my Star Wars name was Sham Disyvan, and that I was a rebel pilot from Derra IV.

This site might not appeal  if you’re not writing fanfic, but I for one like the off the wall suggestions. If nothing else, the names will be unique when used outside the intended fandom.

Seventh Sanctum

I was trying to count the number of name and other generators on this site, and lost count at fifty. This site’s owner has been building them for a couple decades, so there is bound to be even more.

It’s worth your time to check out all of this site’s generators; they range from anime to location settings to spells, and tech.

? ? ?

So what is your favorite name generator?

The five sites mentioned above include over 200 content generators, and I’m sure I only scratched the surface of what’s out there.

What do you use to generate names?

Similar Articles


Comments


Mackay Bell October 22, 2017 um 10:45 pm

Scrivener has a pretty good generic name generator built in. I use that mostly. For specialized names, like sci-fi names, I just Google "sci-fi name generator" or whatever. Or if I’m looking for someone of a particular type (say someone of Italian descent) I just run a Google search on popular Italian names.


Marilynn Byerly October 23, 2017 um 1:55 pm

As someone who is a professional novelist and has taught fiction writing for over thirty years, I have to disagree with your first statement about finding plot ideas. I’ve never met a serious writer of fiction who has problems coming up with ideas. The problem is not enough time to write all the ideas he has.

The silly name generators might work if you are writing satire or a humorous novel, but these names would be death for anything else. You don’t want to have your reader snickering through your action novel because of the stupid names. Most of us also find that finding the perfect name for the main characters is part of the synergy of creating those characters.

Plot generators would be just as problematic since the creation of plot and character is organic for the story as well as the individual writer.

So, yes, to these if you want to amuse yourself or write something deliberately silly, but, no, if you want to write anything else.

Nate Hoffelder October 23, 2017 um 3:51 pm

The silly name generators might work if you are writing satire or a humorous novel, but these names would be death for anything else.

Fantasy frequently uses ridiculous names, and science fiction authors have also been known to stray into the realm of absurd names. And what you describe as silly may appeal to another writer as diverse.


Tom S October 24, 2017 um 10:17 am

Sorry, but this is the future:

https://medium.com/towards-data-science/romance-novels-generated-by-artificial-intelligence-1b31d9c872b2?source=linkShare-fdaf6a2aad79-1508854405

AI does not need to be perfect, it just has to be ‘good enough’. Authors are doomed.


Write a Comment