One of the greatest things about writing fantasy is the lack of limitations. It can also be one of the hardest things about writing fantasy. With endless possibilities finding an idea becomes intimidating. There are ways to find interesting ideas for fantasy without having to go to the cliches. So whether you want to write traditional fantasy, dark fantasy, urban fantasy or some other sub genre there are plenty of ways to find good fantasy story ideas.
The thing that generally separates fantasy stories from other genres is the supernatural. Whether it is magic, gods, ghosts or some other element that exists outside the laws of nature. Thinking about it this way is a good start for a fantasy idea. The difficulty with this is often not in finding it but in defining it. It is easy to say you want to have a world with magic but that is not really an idea, because its not specific enough but it is a start, and something you can work with.
There are a few ways to decide that but one of the better ways is theme. If you have an idea, emotion, or character then you can use the fantasy element to explore that. For example, if you are interested in the concept of death you might make the magic in your story based in some way around death. Perhaps you have to kill someone in order to use magic, which would mean only killers would have magic. The same could be used with almost any concept. This can give you a lot of setting, but often in fantasy the setting is the core of the idea.
If you are more interested in plot than magic you can generally look at many of the great plots, such as man vs. man, man vs. god, man vs. nature, etc. These are useful because there are a very limited number of this type of plot and can describe virtually any type of story. While useful in any story type, beginning with these in many genres can lead you into cliches, but in fantasy they can help you discover an idea. For example if you want to try man vs nature in a mainstream story it might be someone stuck in the mountains in winter. In a fantasy story though you could have a grove of magical trees that cause strange effects. The story might in some ways be similar but in many others it would not.
A third element that you can begin with when looking for an idea for a fantasy story is character. Often trying to explore a specific character trait is the general core of the idea of a story. This can lead to a lot of potential ideas in fantasy. Want to explore love you can have a character in love who must face some type of magical test, or you could have a character who feels love in a different way due to the magic, or even someone who is not human who simply experience love differently.
There are many ways to come up with ideas for a fantasy story, these are just a couple but they help you discover the ways that work best for you to to find fantasy story ideas..
