Writing Ideas - A Key to Help You
Many times I’m asked by novice writers and non-writers where I get my ideas. The bulk of my ideas come from music but ideas for stories abound.
Here are a few:
- News articles
- Songs on the radio
- Fragments of conversations
- Movies that get “it” wrong
- Ditto for television
- Dear Abby style letters
- Quote of the day
- Advertisements
- An unsatisfying fictional read
- Random drawing
I’d like to spend just a moment with number 10. From the earliest time I can remember, probably about 1st or 2nd grade, I had teachers who encouraged creative writing. Often these exercises centered around spelling words (remember having to put those into sentences?).Â
Somewhere around middle school, I had an English teacher who had us create some lists. Five male names, five female names, five occupations, five locations, five events. For each category we were to draw one and then write a story around what we pulled. In the simplest of terms this is a one man brainstorming exercise. If you can do it with some critique partners or others, well then, you will hardly be able to stop the flow of ideas.
For a novelist, this might be a great place to start, but for me, it’s what I do when I need to prime the pump of my creative juices. Add the infamous, “what if?” question and you might really come up with something fun and unique to write.
If you feel you’ve hit “writer’s block” you might want to consider using this simple exercise.