How To Get Writing Ideas
The Shadow Realm – Book 4 of The Age of Dawn is now available in paperback!
How To Get Writing Ideas
I asked my gf this morning: “What should I blog about?” She answered, “How to get ideas.” So here it is.
1. Reading in my genre. I try to always be reading or audiobooking some form of fiction, mainly fantasy, action, adventure, or horror. I think it’s more important though to read vs listen. The reason being that seeing the structure of sentence, for me at least, allows me to dissect what made it so awesome and impactful. I love the ability to highlight passages I loved on my Kindle and go back to them for reference. I think of these passages as “reference scenes.” What I mean by this is say for example, since I’m a new writer, I need to learn how good writers create particular scenes. For example, if I want to write a scene that takes place in a busy marketplace, I may sort of have an idea of how I want it to feel, but want some ideas to get the juices flowing. I’ll then do my best to remember which book I read the scene in and then grab some ideas for that scene and incorporate them into mine and use the ideas as seeds for the scene. This is an idea I got from copywriting, which is writing advertisements basically. What these guys do is save any cool ads they saw that might have worked on them and stick them in a physical (or virtual) folder. Then when they need to write an ad in they’ll review these ads to get some ideas.
2. Playing video games. Video games these days have amazing writers developing their stories. I think it’s a great way to consume a story and find ways of incorporating cool shit you liked into your story. Video games are almost as well produced as a good movie, if not better.
3. Not consuming content at all. I’ve found this works best for me when taking Charlotte the dog on walks or bike rides. I think it’s important for idea cultivation and just being a human in general to leave space so you can let your mind wander. It’s surprisingly easy to go through your day without a moment when you’re not consuming music, podcasts, tv, movies, books etc. I suggest everyone take some time to just allow your mind to wander, you might be surprised what comes out of those tombs.
4. Movies. I love watching movies. My gf and I typically watch a couple movies every weekend and I try to observe the overall theme and story arc of the film if it has one. Side note: what is it about the word “film” that sounds so fucking pretentious? Anyway, movies are great source for seed ideas.
5. The odd and strange news stories. As the saying goes, often times the truth is stranger than fiction and offers some great ideas. People do fucked up things and they can be a good source of fiction fodder.
I hope these are helpful for you. What do you do to get ideas? Please let me know by leaving a comment.
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