SQL Query Help - Using DropDownLists To Sort (multiple Variants)

Hi Everyone,
I am creating a portal and want the user to be able to select four variants from four separate drop down boxes... Such as chapter, story, etc... The user will then be able to click Find and shorten up the gridview list. The below query is what I am using for my current gridview (with custom paging). What I want to do is something like this:
 
Pass a variable such as @Story. If no Story is chosen, then the variable would be *. If a variable is chosen, the the @Story would the StoryID. However, I don't believe SQL recognizes the * in this case. I was thinking it should, but I don't believe it does. I was hoping it would just take it and I could write, SELECT * from Stories where StoryId=@Story, or something like that... and if * was @Story, then it would just select all... or if it was 1, then just stories with a StoryId of 1.
Am I totally off base here? Thanks!

 
CREATE PROCEDURE SortAllStories
@startRowIndex int,
@maximumRows int,
@totalRows int OUTPUT

AS

DECLARE @first_id int, @startRow int

SET @startRowIndex = (@startRowIndex - 1) * @maximumRows

IF @startRowIndex = 0
SET @startRowIndex = 1

SET ROWCOUNT @startRowIndex

SELECT @first_id = StoriesID FROM Storie ORDER BY StoriesId

PRINT @first_id

SET ROWCOUNT @maximumRows

SELECT Stories.StoryId, Chapters.ChapterName, Chapters.EnglishName, Translations.Translation,
Stories.Verse, Stories.Story
FROM Chapters, Stories, Translations
WHERE Chapters.ChapterId=Stories.ChapterId AND Translations.TranslationId = Stories.TranslationId  AND Stories.StoryId >= @first_id
ORDER BY Stories.StoryId


SET ROWCOUNT 0

SELECT @totalRows = COUNT(StoryId) FROM Stories