How to Find Creative Writing Ideas

Want to write stories or poems but keep getting stuck for ideas? Finding the inspiration to start a piece of creative writing is often the most difficult part for many people, but sometimes the everyday stuff going on around us is a great place to get creative ideas.

Instructions

1. 

   Scribble. Buy a notebook and pen, and take them with you everywhere. Use them to jot down ideas, words, descriptions or scenes when they come to you, however flimsy they seem. A story can grow from the smallest beginning--an idea for a character, a single line of dialog, or an image of a scene. Building the finished story takes work, but the more ideas you gather the easier it will be.

2. Be Nosy. Learn to mine the world around you for ideas! Writers are usually good at listening and watching. They find the everyday world endlessly fascinating because it’s such a rich source of ideas. Eavesdrop on conversations on the bus, in a cafe, on the street. Jot down snippets of conversation. Watch people’s faces, reactions, expressions. Look out for interesting faces and daydream about where that person is going, what they are doing, who they are.

3. Read. Open yourself up to new sources of ideas from other writers' work. Read newspapers and magazines, and note down snippets of stories that interest you. Many successful writers get ideas for their work from the news. Browse books on subjects that you might not normally read. You don’t have to spend a lot of money doing this. You can get news feeds and blogs on thousands of subjects on the Internet for free. Check out Google Reader for a great way to keep track of them.

4. Don't be fussy or particular during the process of looking for creative ideas. Save that for editing. Don’t worry if it feels like a lot of what you are coming up with is rubbish. You will have to sift through lots of not-so-good ideas to find the gems, but the more you come up with the more you’ll have to work with, so write it all down no matter how silly it sounds.

5. Cross-breed ideas. Don’t rush it. Once you’ve been keeping your notebook for a while you may find that certain ideas are sticking in your head, but you don’t know where to go with them. Try reading back though your notebook with a favorite idea in mind and “pair it up” with other things you’ve noted down. What would that character do in that situation? Could they say that line of dialog? Could that object be part of their story? Cross-breeding your ideas like this will loosen up and broaden your thinking and generate new ideas.

6. Keep a notebook by your bed. You are often at your most creative and uninhibited first thing in the morning, while you’re still half-asleep and your logical, critical brain hasn’t kicked in. So try writing something down before you’ve had a coffee or taken a shower. You could record your dreams, or let your mind wander as you wake up and jot down ideas.

Tips & Warnings

• When you buy a notebook, go for something cheap. The more gorgeous your stationary, the less inclined you’ll be to sully the pages with scribbling! You need something that you can carry around stuffed in your bag and get messy with.

• Never, ever throw away your old notebooks! It’s sometimes useful to browse through them when you’re stuck for inspiration. You’ll find things in there you’d forgotten about, or that might trigger different ideas now.

Resources

• The Google Reader Home Page