This is the second post in my ABCs of Writing series: Post B
About once a week, I find myself freaking out, terrified that I’m never again going to come up with any good story ideas. I’ll panic for a bit, maybe stress-eat some chocolate, then force myself to sit down and try to write something. Sometimes, the words flow out. If I’m lucky, one of my characters will do something I didn’t see coming, and I’ll think, It’s okay. You’ve got this. You still have some good ideas sometimes.
However, when I can’t get any words to come out and I find myself playing a tenth game of solitaire rather than writing, I’ll force myself to put down my phone and resort to the brute force method: google brainstorming ideas and try all of them. Well, not all, but most. If I do this long enough, either a good idea will come, or I’ll give in for the day and try again the next.
This list of brainstorming methods is a product of the aforementioned googling, as well as a few methods I picked up somewhere along the way during my writing journey. I’ve split the methods into two camps: brainstorming for a new idea and brainstorming for a work in progress.
Brainstorming a New Idea
Move.
Get up, move around, change your context. Go for a walk. Run an errand. Relocate to a different room inside your house or apartment or whatever. Changing your physical location shakes up your brain and gives it a breath of fresh (or at least new) air. Take at least 15 minutes to make your brain take a break, and try to stop thinking about the problem you were trying to solve or the plot line you were trying to come up with. For me, it’s especially important to avoid screens when I take these breaks.
Stop writing.
That’s right. I said it. Stop writing. Go do something different but still creative. For me, this means drawing, or maybe working on a tiny model house. They’re silly, but beyond cute. (If you want to spend a pleasant ten minutes watching someone put one together, check this out.)
Make a list.
Not a shopping list. (Doing chores rather than writing is what my friend calls productive procrastination. Very productive, but still procrastination.) Write a list of words, things you’ve seen, places you’ve been. Write for a while, several minutes at least. Then, put down your pen (or laptop, or quill, or whatever) and see if any themes have emerged. Do any of the ideas spark a story? I’ve found that prefacing each word with “the” makes it seem more interesting, more official, more like the beginning of a story or the title of a book. Keep your lists and refer to them later. Something you wrote today might not mean anything today, but could generate an entire world tomorrow. This is the technique Ray Bradbury used to come up with many, if not all, of his phenomenal story ideas. If you’re interested in reading more about this technique, check out his essay entitled, “Run Fast, Stand Still, or, the Thing at the Top of the Stairs, or, New Ghosts from Old Minds.”
My Sample List
- The space between the shed and the fence
- The house on the corner
- The smell of cut grass and gasoline
- The trampoline
- The lilac bushes
- The corner where the fences meet
- The hot concrete
- The stretch of sidewalk great for biking
- The tie-dyed bean bag
Brainstorming for a Work in Progress
Meet your characters.
So you don’t know what to do next to drive your story forward? Take a break from the plot and focus on your characters. Is there something about them you don’t know yet? Jot down some details about their backstory. Pen their best memory, now their worst. What was the most frustrating thing that happened to them yesterday? What food are they craving right now? Motivation is born out of these things, the minutiae of human existence, and motivation drives action. Once you have a handle on the little details of your character’s life, you can understand their motivations more clearly. Only then should you return to your scene and determine what your characters would do in that situation, as guided by their motivations.
Read your draft.
For me, re-reading is hard. It feels like moving backward rather than making progress. But sometimes it’s incredibly helpful when I’m stuck, especially if I wrote those words days ,weeks, months, or even years earlier. Re-reading helps me I’ll pick up on bits of foreshadowing I inserted and promised I would bring to fruition but never did. Sometimes, I’ll discover that a character said something brilliant that I didn’t realize was so interesting at the time. I can now return to that idea and let it breathe life into my plot.
Capture some images.
When my creativity is gasping for air, I find it useful to feed it in different ways. When I’m stuck on a work in progress, I’ve found it incredibly helpful to pause writing and instead gather images in an attempt to portray the world I’ve created in my head and on my paper. Sometimes, I’m feeling very artsy and will attempt to draw my characters or scenes, but most often, I find it helpful to borrow inspiration from the many, far-more-artsy people out there. I’ve found that Pinterest is the best method of both finding these images and storing them with some semblance of order. I’ve compiled a number of boards for my setting and characters, as well as images that I find inspiring and might spark a fresh story.
Again, there are so many good brainstorming methods out there. These are just the ones that I find myself returning to repeatedly. Please leave a comment if you have any favorite brainstorming tactics! Coming your way in a few weeks, the third installment of my ABCs of Writing series: Climbing: How Writing and Sending Are Similar.
THE QUILL & THE INKPOT 