The old cliché of a question from fans and reporters to
authors is, “Where do you get your ideas?”
Most authors find this a very difficult question to answer, simply
because there isn’t one specific place they get their ideas.
“Ideas just come to me,” they say, or “out of
my head” or “from anywhere.”
Yes, these things are true.
But what many of these questioners are actually asking is, “How can I
get ideas for writing?”—for which none of those answers is helpful. I would therefore like
to give some actually useful advice for coming up with ideas and brainstorming
when you feel stuck.
What ideas you get “out
of your head” depends on what you put into your
head.
One of the greatest dangers for a writer, when it comes to
coming up with new ideas, is stagnation.
If you only read the same things, go to the same places, talk with the
same people—it’s easy to dry up.
Diversity is the key here. Choose
to randomly go somewhere new. Make sure
you keep learning new things.
Occasionally read National
Geographic or some other magazine of your choice from which you can learn
things you not only never knew, but never knew you wanted to know.
Now consider: what do you spend a lot of time thinking
about? Are you thinking about a
variety of topics, or just the same three to five things over and over again? Do you think continuously about (from my own
life), 1) your dog, 2) what you’re going to make for your next meal, 3) your
current goal . . . and not much else? If
so, you are constraining your own brain.
Go find something different to think about.
Not sure what to think about?
Go to
https://randomwordgenerator.com/.
Take the FIRST word it generates, and then go
read the Wikipedia article on that word and learn something.
(Excuse me for a moment, I need to go read about “mouse.”)
Most really clever ideas
are in fact the combination of two or more seemingly unconnected items.
The second random word I generated was “election,” so I have
mouse + election. So let’s write
something.
The first mouse
President of the United States was not, despite all expectations, named “Mickey.”
or
This is the tale of
how a theme park/movie company came to rule the world.
or
We shuddered,
terrified in our homes. We’d thought the
aliens had been bad, but then the mice had stepped up to protect us, and we
found ourselves under far worse dictators.
or
Jimmy would never have
elected to transform in a mouse, but he hadn’t had much say in the matter.
or . . . or . . . or
. . .
You see what I mean?
It took me all of two minutes to write those ideas, and I could’ve kept
going for a very long time. If I started
to get stuck, all I had to do was a) learn more about mice and/or elections
(don’t assume you know! There may be
interesting little facts you never guessed with hiding within articles), or b)
grab a third random word (“tooth”).
The position of tooth
fairy was, naturally, always held by the elected head of the mice.
This technique isn't only for new stories,
by the way. If you’re in the middle of a
novel and come to a road block, this is one way to get through it: introduce a
new, unexpected mouse (or other random factor).
Don’t starve your
brain. Read your genre.
This ties into the first factor, but from a specific
angle. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say
it again: read more than you write.
Devour novels you adore that are in the same genre as you write. Don’t read garbage; read what you love. Remember that when you’re reading, you’re feeding
your brain. You can feed it nutritious
food (quality prose with depth of story) or you can feed it junk food. And the quality of your writing and of your
brain refreshment will reflect that.
