Knowing how to find book ideas doesn’t come naturally to every writer, but if you are out of fresh story iedas there are many ways you can jog inspiration and make the process of coming up with novel ideas fun. Here are fifteen ways to find ideas you can expand into short stories or novels:
Use Burroughs’ cutup technique
The writer William S. Burroughs developed a technique he called cutups. In short, it involves taking a complete text, cutting it up and rearranging the pieces to make a new text. While you shouldn’t use cutups exactly the way burroughs did (to cut and paste whole sentences) because it’s been done before, you can generate ideas using this same technique. The juxtaposition of words, passages and ideas in new ways can spark inspiration and get your imagination churning.
Listen to music
Some people say they can’t write with music on while others can’t write without it, but whatever type of writer you are, you can use music to generate ideas. Music also has a way of eliciting or reminding us of strong emotions. You can try listening to music that matches the mood, time period or place of the type of story you are trying to write or that captures the feeling you want to give your readers. Some writers find that music without lyrics can be particularly inspiring, since there are no words to interfere in a free associative response.
Do a little light reading and research
Fantasy writer Robin Hobb says she often gets new ideas while she is researching facts: ‘Often the research is what triggers the story in the first place. I may be looking up something specific in a story, discover a related fact or two and think, ‘Well, there’s a story idea right there.’
Keep a notebook nearby while you are reading or researching story ideas and set aside a section for ideas that come to you that are unrelated to your current project.
Get ideas flowing with exercise
Because writing can be such a sedentary profession, many writers swear by physical activity as a way to ensure that they get out of the house and stay physically healthy. But physical activity can also be an excellent way to brainstorm. Just as people often get ideas while showering or driving, exercise can shake some ideas loose.Something about the monotony of the physical activity seems to set the mind to work and allow problem-solving from a different perspective.
If you’re worried about forgetting ideas you have while you are out doing something like running, you can bring your phone or another small voice-recording device to quickly record any thoughts.
Read many news story headlines
The internet is a treasure trove of ideas when it comes to news items. These range from the bizarre and absurd to the poignant to the political. Sometimes headlines are the best part, and skimming the day’s events from the news of the weird to human interest stories from around the globe to the latest scientific discoveries can spark story ideas for every genre.
In fact, best-selling author of the Hunger Games series Suzanne Collins got the idea for her trilogy from the news:
Be open to ideas
Sometimes combining several different ideas can lead to inspiration. That’s what happened to Suzanne Collins:
‘One night, I was lying in bed and I was very tired, and I was just sort of channel surfing on television. And I. . . was flipping through these images of reality television. . . and then I was flipping and I was seeing footage from the Iraq War. And these two things began to sort of fuse together. . . and that is when. . . I really got the idea for Katniss’s story.’
Ask questions to set off story ideas
The popular and prolific writer Neil Gaiman suggests asking questions:
‘The most important of the questions is just ‘What if’. What if you woke up with wings? What if your sister turned into a mouse? Another important question is, ‘If only…’ And then there are the others: ‘I wonder…’ and ‘if this goes on…’ and ‘wouldn’t it be interesting if…’
Ask yourself questions about your story or anything that interests you, and see where your answers take you. This idea finder is built into the Now Novel step-by-step story building process. Try our guided story builder if you haven’t yet and see for yourself.
Mine your dreams for ideas
Often what seems like a great idea in the middle of the night is revealed to be somewhat less inspired in the light of the day, but all the same, dreams can form great kernels for ideas. William Styron, author of Sophie’s Choice, got the idea for that book after he dreamed about a woman tattooed with numbers from a concentration camp. The first words he wrote on waking remained unchanged as the opening of the novel.
Try a different environment for brainstorming novel ideas
Sometimes, being in a different environment can spark an idea. Trains, buses and other forms of transportation can take you out of your ordinary routine. It worked for J.K. Rowling:
‘…I was travelling back to London on my own on a crowded train, and the idea for Harry Potter simply fell into my head.
Rowling elaborates further: ‘I had been writing almost continuously since the age of six, but I had never been so excited about an idea before. To my immense frustration, I didn’t have a pen that worked, and I was too shy to ask anyone if I could borrow one…I think this was probably a good thing. I simply sat and thought, for four (delayed train) hours, while all the details bubbled up in my brain.’
While Rowling said not having a pen worked out for the best, you might want to see what happens when you write things down:
Keep a journal
Keeping a journal to generate story ideas does not have to be a formal process. In fact, it may be more useful if it is not. You can make lists, scribble down words or images that interest you, and make note of other types of inspiration. Get a journal that is small enough that you can take it with you wherever you go. Alternately, some people prefer to make notes on a tablet or smartphone.
Force yourself to find new ideas with freewriting
Freewriting is effective because it doesn’t give you time to second guess yourself. Choose a limit, set a timer and go. Write for five or ten or fifteen minutes without lifting the pen from the paper. You can do this on a computer as well, and if you do, don’t take your fingers away from the keyboard or slow down. Don’t judge what you have written. Put it away for at least a day, and you may find that there is a good idea in there or even a story opening.
Become a discreet eavesdropper
Listening to others’ conversations might feel a little sneaky but it can be a wonderful inspiration. If you carry a journal, you can jot down what you hear. This can help you in writing dialogue, too.
Thing about story-worthy details from your own life
It’s not just the lives of other people that can provide inspiration for stories. As the saying goes, it’s important to ‘write what you know,’ and your own life, the people you have known and experiences you have had are probably far more interesting and unique than you give them credit for. Think about what incidents from your own life might inspire fiction. Take an event that turned out one way and imagine a story branching out from a different turn of events.
Use Mindmapping
This is a kind of brainstorming that involves starting with a word, an image, an idea, a character or some other element in the middle of the page and branching off from that element with other free associations. You might end up with an entire novel plotted or with just enough to begin a traditional outline or, if you are a pantser, the beginning of your book.
Look to other writers
Most if not all writers are keen readers, given their love for storytelling. Other writers are always a source of inspiration, but in some cases, they can inspire your novel very directly. The book Wicked used characters and a world created by L. Frank Baum while Michael Cunningham’s The Hours drew on Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. If you are using material directly from the source as Wicked did, be sure the work is in the public domain. You can also look to myths, legends and folklore for ideas.
One advantage of trying out some of these methods for how to find book ideas is that you will begin to develop a greater awareness of how many ideas are out there. Even if some of the specific methods listed do not work for you, you will be more open to the almost endless sources of ideas that you can develop from kernels to full-blown stories and novels.
What is one method you use to get book ideas when you feel stuck?
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