Monday, November 1, 2010

How to capture an idea to write a story or else

Getting an idea to write story is like deciding to run in a marathon race where you haven’t trained. You must have the ability to finish but your progress should be slow, painful and exhausting. While writing, an empty page will turn into miles of empty roadway that you have to take several hours to cross it.

Brilliant ideas seem to be alive, carrying a story forward with their own energy, filling pages with little effort from the writer. But finding such an idea is a challenge, especially if you look it in a wrong place. You cannot expect to simply get an idea from empty space. Ideas exist in the physical world and in creative works.

You can take a look at other people’s writing to get the ideas. Good writers are always good readers. Build an array of short story collections; make sure you include a variety of styles, tones and eras. The above collections will give you with the hundreds of plots, characters etc.

Another place to find an idea is from real-life stories. One place to find strange, inspiring ideas is Wikipedia. The online encyclopedia has a wealth of unusual people, animals, and historical events just waiting to be turned into a brilliant story.

Picture galleries are another great source for story ideas. Take a picture and ask yourself, "What is the relationship between these people in the picture? What are they thinking about? What happened just before this picture was taken? What happened afterwards?"

Once you get started looking for ideas, you will probably find more than you will ever be able to use. Instead of spending hours struggling with writer's block, you'll spend days just deciding which stories to write.