Coming Up with Ideas by Allison Symes

 Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.

How easy do you find coming up with ideas? I’m always on the lookout for new ones. I write flash fiction and blog for online magazines, so I always need a stock of ideas. 

 

As well as writing on topics of interest to me (and I hope other writers), I use random generators to trigger ideas. These work especially well for fiction but I have used things like a random question generator to give me a blog theme.

 

I also use prompt books and have contributed to a couple. I like the challenge of rising to a theme set by someone else and bringing my take to it. With the random generators, I can do this via variety of means.

 I have used the following:-

  • Random word/object generators.
  • Random noun/adjective/verb generators.
  • Random name generators (a recent story of mine was accepted for an online magazine and the idea for it came from the generated name).
  • Random question generators. (Great for use as a theme).
  • Random number generators. I’ve used numbers as a countdown in a story or as part of an address where the action happens.
  • Random picture generators. I use the picture as my setting and then work out who or what could be in it. My story then comes from that.
  • Random Pictionary generator - really! This is a standard word one though the words that come up are something you can draw in the game.  

 

 

The great thing with the generators is you can set your own parameters. I generate two or three items at a time as by the time I’ve done that, I’ve got an idea I know I can work up. You can even choose starting letters and closing ones for the random word generators.

 

I find these things encourage me to think laterally which in turn leads to further ideas for stories and blog posts. Win-win there I think.

Naturally ideas come to me from the kinds of stories I like reading. I love flash, humour, fairytales, twist endings etc, so some of my tales at least will reflect that. I’ve also been inspired for story ideas by non-fiction books I’ve read. 

 

I just love the whole idea of having plenty of ways to trigger that crucial creative spark. Keeping your options open seems sensible to me. And I suspect these generators are the modern equivalent of story dice and the like.

What I’ve also been doing recently is taking whatever I’ve generated and using it for a 100-word story which I submit to a certain website and using the same idea in a different way to create another tale for my YouTube channel. Two ideas out of one generated item? Yes, I like that a lot!

 

I must admit though I think the biggest battle for authors is to persuade reluctant readers to pick up a book (any book!). The second biggest battle is to get reviews. 

But there are options for generating ideas for our next stories or blogs at least.

Comments

Peter Leyland said…
Ideas for blogs have been coming to me thick and fast recently Allison but I can see the value of prompts as you describe for when they don't. Why not random generate an idea for us all on AE to write an essay or story about, putting the cat amongst the pigeons, to coin a phrase!!!
Sarah said…
I've not really used random generated prompts on line. When I started writing flash fiction I followed a lot of friends on Twitter who would regularly post picture or word prompts and it was fascinating to see the different directions people took the ideas.

I find listening in to conversations can spark an idea, just an odd throw away line and I'm off...
I usually generate my own ideas for novels, but I do find prompts are great for short stories so it's useful to have more sources for them - thanks!

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