#writerguides

I have come across a lot of writers especially beginners claiming that they are having a hard time generating ideas for their stories and keeping the flow constant!

So I have decided to share few methods that can help you find ideas quickly (Note that these methods are not my own and discovered them while researching, tried to adopt them personally and found them really helpful/useful)

1. First things first, decide what kind of story you want to write. Personally, I find it a lot helpful while generating ideas when I have decided my genre beforehand. Sometimes it can be a lot of work and stress if you pressurize your mind to generate ideas when it doesn't even know what kind of ideas you want. It's a simple method but is really helpful.

2. The next method is used and shared by a lot of writers. Instead of staring at a blank piece of paper, waiting for perfect ideas to pop up just pen down all the ideas that randomly come up to your mind. Then pick the idea you find is the best and make it as the base concept for your story. From here on you can either try to extract a nice - new plot or just try to see if the remaining ideas can be somehow be connected and used in your story.

This way you will not waste any potentially good ideas and experience least stress. It will save a lot of your time :-)

3. The next method is quite as same as the previous one but ends up in a little different manner. Here like the previous one you first pen down all the ideas related to the kind of story you want to write. Then you organize all the ideas in a chronological order possible and create a basic - brief plot for your story. This will act as a skeletal form for your story. Now you can plot the whole story just by simple stretching the skeletal points.

4. The method that I am going to talk about now is my recently discovered and one of the most favourite methods. I like to call it 'Musical Method'. So you select your favourite songs or it's best if you select any instrumental/orchestral/background music and listen to them. Try to close your eyes and see what kind of ideas pop up in your mind. Some kind of music work better than the others depending on one of the genres. For example, if I am writing a fantasy story, epic instrumental music or fantasy games theme songs really work well than the others.

5. If you are a rookie writer and you have no new or beginning ideas to work on then I suggest you first read or watch a few. I used this method when I first started as a writer. Read the books/comics/webcomics or watch movies/animes related to your genre. Sometimes while reading or watching a movie random ideas pop up. Particularly I used to watch anime a lot and in-between, unique ideas would pop up when I tried to compete with the original storyline thinking how differently it could be done.

(I used this method for years when I couldn't actually write due to studies. As soon as I used to find a new idea, I would come up with a code name or temporary title, write a short note regarding the idea and after years I had a huge heap of story ideas ready to be written)

Anyways these are the methods I usually use when I need motivation and I am stuck while plotting or writing a story. I just jump between all these methods and pick the one best suitable!