Beginning writers often ask where they can find ideas. Sometimes there’s a simple answer, but often a story’s gestation is too complex to convey in a way that makes sense outside the writer’s own head. The best answer is that you find them yourself.
In a post on BookBaby, Michael Gallant offers advice for finding inspiration for your writing. “Great ideas can come from the most mundane, extraordinary, or unexpected sources,” Gallant says. “As a writer, if you’re hitting a wall when it comes to initial inspiration, there are plenty of ways to spark interesting ideas — and a single phrase, association, image, or emotion may be enough to get things rolling.”
Gallant suggests:
- Listening to new music. “Whatever your tastes, go as far outside them as you can, listen hard, and be mindful of what you hear and feel,” Gallant says. Listen for interesting lyrics that might prompt a character or storyline. Consider the emotion behind the music and try to picture a character in that same state.
- Studying paintings. “Many works of visual art can be seen as snapshots from stories, caught and suspended in the moment,” Gallant notes. “The rest of the story is yours to write.”
- Listening to kids talk. “Children’s words can be ridiculous, silly, stunning, insightful — sometimes all at the same time,” Gallant writes. “You may be surprised by what compelling turns of phrase they create, the thought associations they piece together, and the inspiration you can derive as a result.”
- Writing what you can’t say. “Fiction is a great place to express what society, politeness, convention, self-preservation, or your own sense of what’s appropriate tells you you’re not supposed to say out loud,” Gallant says. “Your seed of inspiration could be a full paragraph, word for word, that you would want to say to somebody but for some reason feel you can’t. Or, you could imagine a situation in which a character feels similarly unable to say something and build your narrative from that creative seed.”
- Filtering your most extreme emotions into words. “Whether your most intense emotions are rage, joy, gratitude, or envy, pay attention to the words and images those feelings summon,” Gallant writes. “Then take as much or as little from that as you need, place that at the center of your narrative, and see what characters, events, conflicts, and resolutions float as a result.”
