By BookBaby author Michael Gallant
Great ideas can come from the most mundane, extraordinary, or unexpected sources. If you don’t know where to begin your next work of fiction, actively seek inspiration and kickstart your creativity.
Sometimes, all you need is a place to start. But with a blank page or screen staring at you, that launch point can feel unfathomably far away.
As a writer, if you’re hitting a wall when it comes to initial inspiration, there are plenty of ways to spark interesting ideas — and a single phrase, association, image, or emotion may be enough to get things rolling.
Read on for strategies that have helped me find creative-writing inspiration when none seemed naturally available. I hope they can help you jumpstart your own fiction writing as well.
Experience music you’ve never heard before
Music can be a great source of comfort and inspiration, but sometimes we get stuck in our own bubbles of familiarity. If you’re a jazz fan, seek out some great orchestral metal to listen to. If you’re purely a country music person, try vintage hip-hop or contemporary classical. Whatever your tastes, go as far outside them as you can, listen hard, and be mindful of what you hear and feel.
You may stumble on a lyrical snippet in an old bluegrass classic that catches your ear. Write it down, imagine who would say that particular phrase and in what context, and see if that can transform into a seed of a central character for your next story.
Perhaps the off-kilter rhythm of a hand percussionist in a reggae track could make you conceptualize a person or animal that walks with a similar cadence; if so, make a note, flesh it out, and see if you can build a scene around whoever that character turns out to be.
Or does the intensity of an overdriven guitar remind you of someone screaming in joy or rage? If so, try to picture the person and imagine the emotion behind the noise. Build the character’s scene, identity, and struggle from there.
Peruse paintings
Many works of visual art can be seen as snapshots from stories, caught and suspended in the moment. The rest of the story is yours to write.
Look at Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” for example. Who is the character? Why is the screamer upset? What happened an hour before and two minutes after, and why does the sky look the way it does? Answering these or any other questions that come to mind can give you creative material from which to begin building your narrative.
Abstract art can also be inspirational. I’ve written multiple scenes and stories inspired by abstract works from Jackson Pollock and MC Escher. Sometimes, I imagine what sort of character would enjoy or detest such works and start thinking about why. Other times, I try to remember the emotional fingerprint such works left on me, and imagine what sorts of events would create a similar reaction in someone else.
Listen to a young child talk
Children’s words can be ridiculous, silly, stunning, insightful — sometimes all at the same time. Whether you have children of your own or happen to overhear how kids speak on the street or in a store, listen hard and take notes. You may be surprised by what compelling turns of phrase they create, the thought associations they piece together, and the inspiration you can derive as a result.
Write what you can’t speak
Fiction is a great place to express what society, politeness, convention, self-preservation, or your own sense of what’s appropriate tells you you’re not supposed to say out loud.
What would you have liked to shout at the person who cut in front of your car the other day? What’s the killer retort you came up with — five hours after an argument ended? What do you want your politicians, neighbors, parents, children, friends, enemies, or coworkers to know that you can’t find a way to say, or that they simply cannot hear?
Meditate on these thoughts, no matter how jagged, and see how they inspire your creative writing. Your seed of inspiration could be a full paragraph, word for word, that you would want to say to somebody but for some reason feel you can’t. Or, you could imagine a situation in which a character feels similarly unable to say something and build your narrative from that creative seed.
Filter your most extreme emotions into words
My two most recent short stories were direct results of intense pandemic-related frustration. They were not literal translations of what was happening around and to me. Rather, I tried to focus on the intensity of emotion — how it felt in images, tastes, and smells. I imagined how some other person in a different situation might arrive at the same emotional endpoint, and what would happen next. Then I wrote it down.
Whether your most intense emotions are rage, joy, gratitude, or envy, pay attention to the words and images those feelings summon. Then take as much or as little from that as you need, place that at the center of your narrative, and see what characters, events, conflicts, and resolutions float as a result.
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What strategies do you use to jumpstart your creativity? Share in the comments below.
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