Tips on Creating Stories and Plots
Generating New Ideas to Write About
Sometimes it seems as though inspiration just won't come, no matter what you try. You stare at your computer screen or the blank page of your notebook and wrack your brain - what is it, exactly, that you're supposed to be doing?
Often the best cure is to change your mode - go for a long walk or do something else that's energetic: clean house, plant your garden, go work out at the gym. Walking is a particularly good way to jar your brains if you keep yourself awake to the moment and looking around at your environment in our to draw inspiration from it.
You might try to fine-tune this strategy by trying to notice something in particular while you're on your walk. Pay attention to everything of a particular color, for example, and move from instance to instance of that particular hue. Or try to listen to the conversations of the walkers and bicyclists around you, and see if one of their lines resonates with whatever you're currently working on. You might choose to smell your way along your walk and see what you notice - then try to imagine what your hero or heroine smells in the scene that you're working on.
Go someplace unexpected or unusual. If you never go to museums, then find the closest one and spend at least a half hour in it, no matter how small it is. Art museums may provide images that seem to illustrate a story or character you've been considering - try to figure out what it is that links the piece of art with your own work. If you're a habitual museum goer, find another place. Sit where you can watch a construction site or the traffic on a particular corner. Take the bus out to the airport, get yourself a coffee, and spend some time taking notes about the people that you see. Imagine their stories, and play what if with your imagined versions - what if aliens landed? what if a leprechaun appeared? what if the sky opened?
Look at the sky, whether it's raining or fair, and look at it until you notice something new about the world, whether it's the way rain sounds on dry leaves versus soft ground or simply that some clouds are flat on the bottom. Work the observation into your story.
Sometimes we're distracted by problems with other people or situations that have sprung up and that keep getting in the way. It's kosher to write your version of the story, but it's best to move it someplace where it isn't really - 500 years in the future or taking place between two jellyfish. Write out the dialogue between yourself and the other person. Maybe you can use it in a story, and even if not, at least you're working through it so you can put it aside and move onto something productive.
Finally, sometimes we just can't get an idea in our heads. It's okay at these times to sit there typing out "I don't know what to write, I don't know what to write" over and over again. Eventually your mind gets tired of that and supplies you with something more interesting to work with. And that's valid too.
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