I thought I would try sharing some of my favourite writing exercises and games. If you find this useful, let me know!
The Idea Factory is a simple exercise to spark new ideas for fiction. You could try this for non-fiction or poetry too.
Step 1: What do you want to write about?
Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle to divide it into two columns.
On the left side, write a word or short phrase which sums up what you want to write about.
For example, if you want to write genre Romance, you might pick love or dating or relationships – whatever aspect of the genre appeals to you most.
I write Fantasy. My word is magic.
Don’t overthink this — keep it simple. You can always try a different word if this one doesn’t work for you.
Step 2: What do you know about?
On the other side of the page, write a list of 5-10 topics (activities, objects, places, concepts). These can be anything you like, but choose topics you are somewhat familiar with – things you could write about with some confidence. It could be your hobbies or objects you see out of the window. Again, keep it simple and don’t think too much.
For example, I might write: gardening, cake, birds, Dungeons & Dragons, Greek myths, IKEA furniture, electricity.
Step 3: Put it together
Unsurprisingly, the next step is to take each item on the right and consider how it might work with the word on the left.
Let’s say you want to write about love, and one of your righthand items is cake.
Your first thought might be: cosy romance set in a cake shop. That’s an OK idea, and you might want to write it — but it’s hardly original.
So let’s try something else. Take another sheet of paper and at the top write:
Love is like Cake
What does that suggest? Write down everything that occurs to you, without worrying about whether it makes sense or is any good:
- goes stale
- better shared
- I wish I had grandma’s recipe
- important for a wedding
You could also try the alternative formulations: What if love was cake? Or even: What if cake was love?
The aim is to kick your brain into metaphor-mode, forcing you to think about both cake and love in new ways.
Take the most interesting ideas and see if they can be developed further. Combining with the first, superficial idea you had can work well (add Grandma’s recipe book to the cosy cake-shop romance). Or you could take it somewhere else entirely — you don’t have to end up with a story about cake.
If nothing good came up, no problem. Go on to the next item, or start again with different items.
Hopefully that all made sense. Let me know if you found this technique helpful or interesting!