Sometimes the ideas just don’t come. But one thing I know is ideas breed other ideas. As John Steinbeck said, “Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.”
Here are a couple ways to get your mind working:
WORD LISTS
Make up long lists of….
- specific places.
- where you’ve been.
- from childhood (include dramatic places where you or someone else was worried, afraid, injured, etc.).
- places important to you now.
- where you’d like to be (research probably needed).
- specific nouns.
- active verbs.
- specific situations or problems.
- talents and skills.
- habits and quirks.
- Pick items from three or four lists and see what happens when you put them together.
- Do you come up with an opening for a story? Interesting ideas for a character or a problem? A way a character could solve a problem? A setting? An antagonist?
- Experiment with these ideas and see where they take you. Enjoy playing around.
OPENING LINES
Make up a list of first lines without worrying whether or not you’d actually want to use them. Make them compelling and interesting.
- If you need a starting point, look at famous opening lines and reimagine them.
- You can search online and find many. Here’s one source: https://www.boredpanda.com/famous-books-first-lines/
- Imagine how your character, if you have one already, might say something similar.
- Imagine how a specific animal might say it.
- Put it in picture book language.
- Make something serious funny or vice versa.
- Have fun—there are no rules.
- You can search online and find many. Here’s one source: https://www.boredpanda.com/famous-books-first-lines/
- When you’ve got a good number, read through them again.
- Ask yourself questions such as…
- Which ones catch my attention?
- Which ones make me laugh?
- Which ones make me want to know more?
- Which ones make me sad?
- Which are boring?
- Pick a couple of favorite opening lines. Can you expand them into a paragraph or more? If you find ideas are flowing, keep going to see how far it takes you.
- Set the list and the paragraphs aside.
- If any ideas keep “haunting” you, consider how to make them a complete project.
- Look at the list again at a later date. Do the same lines grab you or do different ones? If different lines grab you, expand those.
- Look at the paragraphs again at a later date. Does more scene unfold in your mind? Write and see where you go.
I ended up writing a whole novel inspired by a writing exercise. Others have inspired picture books. Yet, others sent me back to the writing desk to works-in-progress. And at the very least, they got me putting words on a page.
As Louis L’Amour said, “Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the tap is turned on.”
^Excellent post, Sue.
We all have our idiosyncratic ways. For me, houses evoke stories. As I walk, I look at houses, both commercial buildings and homes. Who’s there? What has happened? Then the stories begin to churn.
I know some have the same effect reading names. The phone book is a good resource (they’re online now) or the Internet baby names lists, and the names can evoke characters. Obviously for me it begins with a place 😉