Maximizing Your Writing Time: Ideas! I need Ideas!
So I earlier this week I touched briefly on the importance of an outline, but before you get an outline you need an idea! If you get a bad idea it doesn’t matter how great your outline is… Your story will suck, end of story. Now there are a bunch of posts out there that will give you ideas, but sometimes the best idea is to just sit back with a notebook and a pen and come up with you own ideas.
Getting started
Ideas can be hard to come by, but your best bet is to 1st off decide the genre that your piece will be in. Better yet, decide what you want to write; a poem, a short story, a blog post, you name it. I know this sounds stupid, but I have been sitting in my house telling myself “I really need to write something,” but had no idea what I wanted to write.
Next choose the type of story, poem, post etc. that you are going to write. This could be anywhere from romance to horror, but you need to have an idea of where you want to go with this when you are getting finished. If this is getting hard for you flip open a book. Reading the whole thing is not always necessary, but you will want to go out and find something that might interest you even if you have to read a book about Sci Fi in order to get an idea for a romantic love poem.
If reading doesn’t work then jump on the TV, or the good ol’ internet, and search for some ideas that others have come up with that you can twist to your own. Take something you like and write it down, do this continually till you have at least 10 good ideas (less for a book) but make sure you have a number of good ideas so that you don’t get stuck with the 1st thinking it is a great concept and later finding that it was a horrible idea.
Putting it all Together
Now is the time when the outline is ultra important. You have the idea, now it is time to put it all together. Even if it is a book, write down what you plan to do. I personally have realized that while I’m writing something so long the story usually changes, but it’s better to have to change something than to realize that you forgot an important part to the story that requires redoing all the writing you just did.
Next * Previous
Other Writes of this Series
Time to Publish
Editing your work
Ideas! I need Ideas!
Start with the Outline
well, i write about just anything i want. no specific area. why must we think so much?
zorlone says
As a poet, it helps to write down the main idea of what I want to make. A poem is usually a pleasure read if the words agree with each other. So, I try to throw in the words and rearrange them in a later time.
As for a story, I think I would still have to make an outline. I usually, just type in a scene and see if that part is a good intro, body, or ending or none. LOL.
Z
Izzy Daniels says
@John Writing involves a lot of thinking. sometimes you can do less but it is really important to think outside the box.
@zorlone good to see that you atleast have a plan. I've gone in many times to writing with no plan and had to eventually throw the peice away because it was just that bad.
Shea says
Ideas might be hard to come by if you're sitting down saying, "I need an idea!" I like to carry around a notebook with me at all times to write down ideas I get at random, then look over them again later so that I can develop the good ones.
I don't know if I agree about choosing the type of story before outlining rather than letting the ideas come out, then figuring out how to tweak it to the genre the story leans toward, but everyone has their own method.
Izzy Daniels says
@Shea
How true how true. I use both methods myself as that is how some of my best poems have come along, but there are times when structure is important if you want to have a good story. And yes, I have used the method of carrying around a notebook, I'm sad I forgot to add in in this post. thank you for bringing that up, I will make sure to address it in my next post.
Webbielady says
I have the same sensation.. Though I am not a teen anymore, I am 24. I want to write... I always tell myself too to write something... But worse than you, I lack two things: the idea and the drive...sometimes i just feel so lazy plus the lack of idea... the result is naturally NOTHING. ;(
Izzy Daniels says
@Webbielady
Ya, I have those days too. Especially with all the school work that I have finding time to write it difficult. but as Shea said up above sometimes it is best to carry around a notebook for when you do get ideas.