New Creative Thinking Category

I've decided to expand the categories in Writesville by creating a new category called "Creative Thinking".  All of the posts will be related to motivating or assisting our often-befuddled creative minds. Why do this? I have no idea (I'm not creative enough to answer that just yet). 

Silliness aside, I feel that, as writers, we sometimes need all the help we can get when it comes to generating ideas (whether it be for plot ideas, scenes, and so forth). Some of the tips I plan on posting will be completely new to me and some will be ones that I employ regularly. Some will be actual idea generation techniques while others are just suggestions to help your creative thinking. Either way, by posting these tips, I hope to be able to improve my creative writing while, at the same time, sharing the information with you.

I'm not sure how long this series will continue, so I'll just take it one tip at a time until I'm exhausted.

Oh, and by the way, what do you do to stoke the fires of your creative mind? Feel free to share your techniques by commenting or emailing me.

So, on to the first tip in the series!

Tip 1: Six Serving Men

This one is relatively straight forward. I'm sure some of you have heard this or do this in some round about way. Rudyard Kipling stated:

"I have six honest serving men
They taught me all I knew.
I call them Why and When and Where
and How and What and Who."

When trying to generate ideas or solve a problem, try asking yourself some basic questions to attack the issue from all sides by asking: "Why? When? Where? How? What? Who?"

For instance, I'm trying to write a new short story for Part 6 of the Writing to Improve series. At the end of the last story, Jack had disappeared and escaped the unethical doctor with the assistance of an unusual friend. Now I need to continue the story in a nice fashion. Some questions that I could ask and that I know the readers will ask are:

"Why" did Jack disappear?

"When" did Jack disappear and "When" will he show up again?

"Where" did Jack disappear to? "Where" will he show up?

"How" did he manage that neat little trick?

"What" happens now that he has vanished? Will he be OK?

"Who" really is Jack? If he disappeared, he must be special in some way, right? "Why?"

And so on in such a way that each of these questions could generate more questions until a suitable conclusion has been met. It's not rocket science and I have a feeling that many of us employ these questions in some subconscious ways. Specifically asking these questions to myself, however, has already started the creative gears turning for me.

Comments

[jhay]

Wow, great series. I'll be sure to come back here.

[1ConfusedWriter]

Hey there Arabella. Audiobooks truly are wonderful. The stuff I usually do during the day doesn't allow for much sitting down and reading anymore. With the subscription at Audible, I can go through a book in just a couple of days now (if not quicker). The only drawback to this, I suppose, is that you have to focus a little more on the story or else you'll find yourself going through the boring parts without paying any attention to them (the whole selective hearing thing). But I guess that can be the case with books too. I'm skilled at reading an entire page and not knowing what it was I just read. ;) Aside from that, I can't get enough of it!

Thanks for your advice on getting the creative juices flowing. The part where you talk of writing (anything) to get you started is something I found to be pretty helpful as well. I can stew on a subject for days and never come up with a single good idea. Once I start writing, however, the stories takes a life of their own and the ideas start gushing. Go figure.

I'm trying to train myself to think less and write more. Let's see how that turns out.

Thanks again!

Vic

[Jude's Wench]

Hmmm...did I post this already? I swear I remember posting this already, but hey, I'm fallible.

I followed the link back to the audio books site. I'm definitely going to be a customer -- during busy semesters, it's often difficult to read everything I'm supposed to -- CDs in the car are a godsend in those situations.

As far as tapping into the creative flow, I've found that reading never fails to get the juices flowing -- at least for me. Short stories work best for me, I usually reach for an anthology, as the variety of authors and genres is pleasing. Journals are also good for this purpose for the same reason. I read for a bit, then, even if I haven't exactly "hit" the idea that I know I'm working towards, I'll stop and write -- something, ANYTHING, even if it's just a mini critical review of what I've just read. It gets the fingers going, and eventually I find that I have at least some useable content in what I've written.

[1ConfusedWriter]

Well, Clive, if you happen to find the source of those good ideas, let me in on it. My "idea fountain" is shriveling up. ;)

Mik, thanks for the link. I checked out your site, it's looking good so far. Keep up the good work.

Vic

[Gone Away]

I have absolutely no idea where my ideas come from. It's probably better that way as, if I did, I'd plunder the place mercilessly and pretty soon have nothing left. ;)

[Mik]

I'll have to check out that book. Here via Blogexplosion but I added your site to my "Resources" section of my blog.

I need all the help I can get so will have a good read of your site later.

Mik