Goood morning everyone! I hope everyone’s summer has been going well so far! On this week’s episode of “Writing Advice”, I’ll be sharing different tips and ideas for finding inspiration starting your very own book! Over the course of future writing posts, I will write about ways you can find inspiration for specific aspects of your writing, but for the purpose of this post, I will be covering ways you can find inspiration for everything creative you do. Since this is a writing advice post, I will treat this like you’re also writing a novel, but all of these suggestions can be easily implemented into other aspects of writing or creative endeavors.
Now, before I dive right in, I must apologize. I realize last week I said that I would be covering Plot-types this week, but for some reason I cannot find what I had in mind for the post, so I’ll need an extra week or two to do the research. So, this week I’m going to take a quick detour into finding inspiration for your writing.
Picture hunt: This is a bit dangerous, if only because the internet sometimes has a way with keeping you from what you should be doing – writing. However, if you don’t let your internet time cut into your writing time, you should be okay! What I love to do is go on Pinterest and see all of the gorgeous artwork by various artists, that inspire me to create characters, improve them, and create my world. You may see an artwork that makes you go, “oh my goodness, that looks just like my character!” It is actually incredibly helpful to have those various artworks that look so similar to what you have in you head, as it makes it easier to visualize and describe in your book/story. Other websites that you can do that with is DeviantArt, Pixiv, and Tumblr (those are the most popular sites for art, but there are plenty others). If you want to spend even more time (and possibly even some money) on seeing exactly what your characters look like, you can draw them yourself, or commission someone to draw them for you. (There are quite a few artists that do it on DeviantArt.) You may find that you don’t know as much as you think about your character, and this provides the drive you need to completely fill out your character.
People watch: Whether you go out with the purpose of people watching, or you find yourself in the perfect position to people watch, this is great for filling out characters and understanding the psychology of people as a whole. You can people watch anywhere: A cafe, a train station, sport events, really anywhere people are! Take note of what people are wearing, what their personality might be based on the expression on their face, and what stands out that makes them unique from the people around them. Depending on how you want to take note of things, you can bring a friend and talk about it with them, write everything you can down in the moment, or take quick notes to expound upon later!
Dream: Dreaming – I know – is completely out of your control. You may remember your dreams, you may not, but if you are enough of a morning person to do a quick exercise every time you remember a dream (or at least, an interesting dream) it could provide some unique inspiration for your writing! Dreams tend to fade over the course of the day, whether you want them to or not, so when you remember them first thing in the morning, write them down. If your dreams are a little too personal to be accidentally (or not-so-accidentally) seen by others, you can easily find lock diaries or lock note/diary apps that are cheap and effective. Not only will writing them down help with your future writing, but it can boost your memory so you remember more of your dreams. Besides, it would make a good pastime in the future to sit down and re-visit your dreams~
Daydream: Daydreaming is something we do often, whether we’re bored in class, or worrying about a future encounter. If circumstances permit, try daydreaming about your story. With the natural thinking process of your brain, you may find some hidden gems for your story! Something a touch more strange you can also try (and I can personally attest to doing) is acting out your scenes. This may be as simple as reading your pre-written lines (by yourself or with a friend) or taking a scene fresh in your head and working through it. You are the voice to all characters, embodying their dynamic personalities, and acting as they would. When I have an idea for a scene, it is often very vivid in my head, so what I do is take that scene, visualize it, and (when I’m by myself) act out the scene. Most of it, isn’t all that conscious. My acting can go from anything, from leaping across the room to mumbling to myself as I do laundry. Work around with how you see the scene and how you can embody your characters in a way that helps you make it more real for yourself.
Just write! Of course, as any good writer will tell you, if all else fails, just sit down and write (or as Orchid would say “Just. Do it!”). You can write according to your mood (sad scenes with a sad mood, happy scenes for a happy mood, etc), or just power-write it from front to back. Just, whatever you do, make sure you write. I often make the mistake of working through the vivid scenes in my head until I’m sick of them, never transferring them into an actual chapter or scene for the book. Therefore I would recommend working through the scenes, but schedule time every day/week/something so that you get those scenes down on paper. There are going to be times where you reaaaally don’t want to do it, or you can’t seem to write the scene just right, but do it anyway. Edit only enough to let yourself move onto the next bit of writing, and always have a trusty notebook (or notebook app) that holds all of your ideas and scene ideas, so that when you’ve gotten yourself reluctantly sat down to write, you aren’t wasting your time internet surfing because you are out of ideas.
That’s all for today! Thank you all for reading, I hope this will help you find your creative stride!
If you have any comments or questions or want to share your experiences finding inspiration, please feel free to either comment below or contact us via the contact form at the bottom of the home page.
Until next time!
