Finding Inspiration

Where will your next book idea come from? Where are you going to get that idea that sparks that joy the is writing into your fingertips?  Well, that’s what we’re going to talk about today! We are going to discuss what to do when you want to write and can’t find what you want to write about.

As always there is the typical route of watching movies, reading, books and traveling. Those are very viable, and will completely work! However, you can only watch the same movies so often. You can only read the same book so many times (Maybe not I read the same over and over lol). I’m going to teach you how to come up with ideas while sitting on your couch, riding a bus, and maybe even when sitting down with others. 

The question that you want to always ask yourself is “What if…?” If you see someone walk across the street ask yourself what if something happened. What if a dragon intercepted them as they walked by. What if they were stopped by a woman wearing a dark cloak and had fangs. What if a wizard jumped out of a garbage bin. What if the ceramic factory you were reading about made magical items? “What if” is the single most powerful question you can ask to generate ideas. It starts you thinking about the possibilities. And are millions of those.

The next question to ask if the first one didn’t take you down a rabbit hole of storylines is “Who did…?” So the person walking down the street was a man in the first question. Now change them into a woman. How would the scenario change? What did they do? Is she a doctor that is on her way to perform plastic surgery on a known criminal warthog? Maybe she isn’t even human. Maybe she is a house maker who is also a mummy?  She has to unwrap herself each morning to tend to her kids and get her husband off to work. They are in the magical witness protection program and on the run from her husband who is trying to bring them back to home sweet pyramid. By asking who after why you have started to qualify the what.

The last bit of advice is going to address the fear that you might be rehashing the same story. Don’t worry about all the millions of stories that have been told. They have not been told by you, in the way that you can. You bring a distinct voice to that story that someone is ready to read. Just keep asking “What if…?”