Where do ideas even come from?
When a good one hits, it feels like a divine gift. But when our creative well runs dry, it seems like good ideas are impossible to come by.
The thing is, you can write from a place where ideas are always available, even when you’re feeling blocked and uninspired. I promise! There are always ideas available to you if you know how to find them.
Here are three ways to come up with story ideas when you think you’ve run out of them.
Get Curious
I’ve never written a good story after sitting at my computer and staring at a blank page. There’s never once in my fourteen years of writing been a time when I’ve forced a good idea out of thin air.
I have, however, had great ideas come to me when I’ve gotten genuinely curious about something.
In one case, I spent four and a half years writing and revising a novel that began out of curiosity. While doing a writing exercise, I saw a specific image in my mind that I couldn’t shake. I kept wondering about it, feeling desperately curious about the people in the scene, so I wrote to understand it… and from that curiosity, an entire novel idea was born.
If you’re curious about even the smallest thing, like a word or image or feeling, you can turn it into a big idea.
Curiosity is a clue about what interests you. It’s a sign that there’s something for you to uncover. Follow your curiosity as far as you possibly can, even if it seems “too small” to be a big idea. Oftentimes, the smallest detail sparks the biggest inspiration.
Experiment
Sometimes we feel like we’re out of ideas because we’ve been doing the same thing for so long, we’re just bored.
A lack of ideas can sometimes just be a sign you’re in a writing rut. To get out of that rut, try experimenting with the things you read and write. Pick up a book in a genre you never read. Write in a style you’re a little bit afraid to try.
Go as far outside your comfort zone as possible and play with the form, the style, the language. Give yourself permission to write what’s forbidden or scary. Be bold and as unlike yourself as possible.
You don’t have to ever see it in print, but the process of doing it could very well flood you with ideas.
Even if the product of your experiment isn’t something you stick with, there’s a chance the process will spark an idea you can stick with.
Revisit Your Own Ideas
In my writing life, for every ten story ideas I have, only one ever sees the light of day. That might be different for you, but the point is this: you probably have generated ideas in the past that you never explored further.
If you keep idea kernels or scraps of stories in a document or notebook, somewhere now is the time to dig it out and read through it.
Some of those bits and pieces will be useless. They’ll make no sense to you now or they’ll just seem silly or uninteresting or not worth your time.
But there may also be some exciting ideas in the mix that you’ve completely forgotten about. You can only take action on so many projects at once (if you’re me… it’s just one at a time), so perhaps you’ll stumble across an idea you were previously excited about but didn’t have the time to work on.
Just because it’s an old idea doesn’t mean it’s bad. You might’ve just needed to wait for the right time to pursue it.
How do you come up with ideas for your writing? Tell me below!
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