What kind of tone would you like for the story that you center around your idea to take? Something serious, something funny, something somber? Establishing tone should be your first priority, but you’ve likely already done that, from what I’ve read here. I bring this up for a reason, though, so bear with me here.
After you’ve figured out what you what you want the general feeling of your story to be, music wass always a good startfor me back when I wrote fanfics. I would find something that matched the tone of my idea and build off of it from there - I would also avoid songs with lyrics, because lyrics will usually have some kind of meaning and I didn’t want that to really interfere with my creative process.
For instance, the last fanfic I could ever be arsed to write was focused on the idea of being unable to sleep. I started off by having the character blame it on the bright lights of the urban city outside of her apartment, while subtly hinting throughout that the actual reason for her insomnia was more internal than it was external. As a result, I listened to a lot of music that had a relaxed, nighttime feel to it, but it also had a tiny bit of a punch packed into the otherwise calm nature of the song - hence, my go to track for it was
Stickerbrush Symphony.
I’d say you should find some kind of music without any lyrics that fits the vibe to the story that you’re trying to tell, and then just kind of shutting off your mind and letting it works its course. Turn off all of the lights, close your eyes, whatever - listen to the music and just let it create the imagery for you. Maybe it makes you think of scenarios, maybe it drudges up some obscure memories that lend themselves to the creative process of writing a story, or whatever. It was what I always did, and it worked like a charm for me.
After that, that’s when you start worrying about conflict and villains. Villains aren’t always necessary, of course, and depending on the tone you might want to take a villainless route and have the conlflict be one that arises between the differences of the characters whose friendship you’re developing. This is what I mean by listening to music and having it create imagery for you - the music might dig up some kind of conflict you felt in the past and you can begin molding it from there. Be sure and find a conflict that you think is best here, and not necessarily the first one the song reminds you of. You can begin playing with those thoughts and the imagery provided and use that to build up your conflict.
