One imaginative way to start a story is by having students imagine an alternate reality. You can give students a generic "What if?" and have them come up with their own crazy ideas to finish the sentence. Or, give a specific one, such as "What if animals could talk?", "What if kids ruled the world?", "What if all people looked the same?" or "What if I could fly?"
While fantasy offers fertile terrain for creative writing, you can also use story starters to get your students to write about themselves. Have students write a story about one of their pet peeves by opening with the sentence, "One thing I can't stand is" or "I hate it when." Students can take this wherever they wish and complain about younger siblings, bedtime, vegetables, homework or long, boring movies.
Fantasy does not just have to be about alternate realities. Get kids excited about the future by imagining where they will be when they are adults. Allow them to ground their stories in reality or to escape on a flight of fancy. Students can write about how they will live in space, be president, invent a gadget that will change the world or solve one the world's pressing problems.
All kids have talents. Help your students develop self-confidence by writing a story about their best talent, no matter how crazy or quirky it is. Get students to think about something they can do that no one else can. It might be a more conventional talent, such as playing an instrument or a sport. Or, it might be something more original, such as making a funny face, annoying their sibling, sliding down a bannister or eating quickly.