Creativity Blocked? Try This
Excitement of the New Year is still buzzing and you’re itching to write your next story. Your work has grown so much over the last year and you just know you’ll knock this one out of the park. You’re all stocked up on note cards, pens, and perhaps there’s a new dry erase board hanging. You open up your laptop, stare at the screen and…
You stare at the screen and…
The blinking curser on your blank document waves hello. After a while it turns into a taunt. Your mind starts to spiral and after three hours of staring blankly at the computer, you realize what’s happened: Your creativity is blocked. Has your well run dry, you ask? Not a chance.
If this sounds like you, get excited. This seemingly negative predicament can be a catalyst for unique and interesting ideas. Instead of throwing in the towel and waiting for your next creative streak, it’s time to shake things up with something different. Here are some brainstorming exercises to help awaken those creative juices and launch you into your next potential masterpiece.
Play Opposites
Make a list of your favorite stories of all time (in any medium) – book, TV show, film, or musical. Then write out the main story beats. For example: Baby in Dirty Dancing spends the summer at a resort with her family. She crosses paths with a dance teacher from the wrong side of the tracks who teaches her to dance when his partner is unable to perform. They fall in love and so on, and so on…
Now take that story and flip it on its head. Maybe a boy falls in love with a bad girl who teaches him chess during the winter – in prison. It doesn’t have to be “good” or interesting (this one certainly isn’t), but the hope is that by playing this game with a few stories, you’ll draw inspiration from something that DOES sound good and interesting. Let yourself be bad at this, it’ll feel so good.
Take A Stroll
‘Go for a walk’ sounds like elementary advice, but it can produce impressive results. “But a walk won’t give me my next idea, David.” Fair enough, although some folks at Stanford would disagree.
Their study on walking and creativity determined that people who walk (indoors or outdoors) generated more creative output – up to sixty percent more. Ask yourself this: Would you pop a pill that could boost your creative juices up to sixty percent? If so, ditch the pill and get moving. If it was good enough for Steve Jobs in his meetings, it’s good enough for the rest of us. Instead of trying to squeeze thoughts out of thin air, allow them to flow to you.
Draw From Your Experiences
Try creating an “experience” file on your computer. This is where you’ll log any memories you have that are worth writing down. Try starting with these warm-up questions:
- What’s your most embarrassing moment(s)?
- When was your first kiss? Give details.
Then dig a little deeper.
- Was there a moment in your life when you felt very different than other people?
- Was there a moment in your life when you felt like people are generally the same?
This has nothing to do with writing a novel about the time you weren’t picked for dodge ball. Our personal experiences could spark something universal to serve as your story’s foundation or theme. All you need is the germ of an idea to get the wheels turning into something compelling and relatable.
Fake News
Pick up the newspaper (or click on its website) and skim the headlines. News is full of high stakes, high drama. Take the headline and/or the beginning of an article that you’re not familiar with and try to guess what happens after the setup. You could create a whole new story based on a single logline.
“Thief Caught With Over Fifty Purses.” What if this purse thief was an eighty-year-old grandmother? What would her story look like? Let your imagination go wild.
Much like the newspaper headline exercise, scroll your Facebook feed for posts that spark a story or character idea. Try these exercises to start:
- Look at a stranger’s photo and write an interesting story about their life.
- Funny meme? Create the story that lead up to that captured moment.
- Browse posts and ignore the photo. Write an exaggerated character description for the kind of person who would write that post.
- Join a Facebook group in an industry/topic you’re unfamiliar with and pickup on their specific lingo.
Take away the pressure to make each brainstorm your next best seller. Have fun with the games, hope to find something useful, and stop editing yourself as you go along. You never know what will come from allowing yourself the freedom to play. Inspiration is everywhere and there’s no shortage of ideas!
David L. Hancock, Founder
Morgan James Publishing