Coming Up with Ideas
One of the most common questions asked of writers is: Where do you get your ideas? Some authors get incredibly frustrated with the question, because the simple answer is: All over the place! (In fact, once you begin writing on a daily basis, you may eventually ask yourself, “How do I get the ideas to stop long enough so I can decide which one I want to write about next?”)
There is no set formula to use to come up with ideas for stories, or nonfiction articles — or any form of writing, really. What you'll find is that the more you exercise your creativity, the more ideas just tend to pop into your head. Sometimes, you'll get a partial idea, and a few days later a slightly different idea will come. Your subconscious may combine the two and come up with a completely innovative third idea that you'll find absolutely brilliant, and that will get you motivated to write.
The simple trick is to be open to these ideas as they come along. Your imagination is like a muscle. The more you allow your imagination to play, the fitter it will become at generating interesting ideas.
Immediate Ideas
For short-term ideas, there are a variety of tricks you can keep in your magic imagination bag. The following list provides some examples, but don't think of it as an exhaustive list. The more you play, the more you're likely to come up with ideas that work for you. As mentioned above, the trick is to be open to ideas as they come along.
On the Bus
As you ride around waiting to get to your destination, covertly observe other people on the bus. Where do you think they might be going? What kind of mood are they in? What kind of story can you weave about the people, coming up with the history of how they got here and where they are going now? What are they wearing? Are they dressed shabbily, or are they dressed immaculately? Use these as a springboard, and let your imagination run wild. Do you think that any of the people on the bus actually know each other, but are pretending not to for some strange reason? All of these questions can give you traits for characters that you can use in your own stories.
In the News
What's happening in your community? What's happening across the country? In the world? One little element of a news story or a human interest feature can tweak wonderful ideas. Keep a notepad beside you and jot down ideas as they come. Play a game, and pull one element from one story (such as a break-in at the doughnut shop) and combine it with an element from another story (like the purchase of a winning lottery ticket by a little old lady). How can you combine these into an interesting story?
On Your Bookshelf
You can do the same thing with the books on your bookshelf. Flip through them and look for things that trigger your imagination. Sometimes, a simple short phrase is enough to do it. Just pick a page at random and see what lies there waiting for you. Any book works, too. A book on prescription drugs might give you a great idea for a murder mystery.
On Television
This can work too, but be careful with it. You don't want to get caught becoming engrossed in what you're watching. Grab your remote, and flip through channels at random. Maybe an ice bucket you see on the shopping channel will give you some sort of idea. Combine that with the tube of lipstick you see a couple of channels later, and you might end up with the image of the evening after a celebration with smeared lipstick and a little too much champagne.
The Yellow Pages
Sure, it seems absurd, but the Yellow Pages offer a concise encyclopedia of the businesses and services that are available in your area. Each one is a potential idea for the location of a story. If you're having trouble coming up with names for your characters, try the phone book. There's a big list of names there. Choose a first name from one page, then choose a last name from a different page. Just be careful to pick and choose and not name your characters after someone who already exists.
Long-Term Ideas
Long-term ideas are really just an extension of the short-term idea generating strategies. The only trick is to come up with some way to remember what all of these ideas are when you don't have time to work on them. Using the story-generating ideas in the short-term section, you'll soon find that you'll have more ideas than you know what to do with.
It's a great idea to keep an ideas folder. When your ideas come, write them down — don't count on being able to remember them later. Whether you write your ideas on scraps of paper and keep them in a file folder, or whether you use a notebook dedicated to that purpose, record the idea at the time you get it so it'll be there later. Never count on your memory when it comes to story ideas, because they tend to be fleeting things that disappear if they don't get used.
When you're making your notes, make sure that you include enough information so that you'll remember it later. You may not come back to the idea for months or years, so you'll want to have as much information as you can to trigger your memory.
Ice cream parlor — chocolate sprinkles
While the above example might give you enough to recall the idea a few days later, as time wears on, you're bound to forget about the details you didn't write down. If you make more extensive notes, however, the chances are much better that you'll be able to recall the entire scene, or at least be able to reconstruct it.
Flashback: Little girl — in ice cream parlor — got money from grandmother to buy a cone — wants chocolate sprinkles — doesn't have enough money — nice old gentleman gives her the extra nickel — affects little girl for rest of life — she becomes compassionate remembering the kindness of the old man who helped her
Your ideas folder can also contain copies of magazine articles or newspaper clippings, but you may also want to attach a sheet outlining why this piece spoke to you and what kind of ideas it gave to you. As far as your notes go, write down everything you can. Personal observations, snippets of conversations you have overheard, and impressions about setting and mood are all important things to record. If you have ideas for dialogue, it's a good idea to elaborate in your notes a little bit, so that the dialogue has context, and you'll have an idea later about how you wanted to use the quote.
Keep yourself committed to maintaining these notes, and you'll always have a resource to consult when you're stuck for ideas.
