Pebblepup's Writing Den

Sometimes ideas come to you from the ether. Other times you have to hunt them down like they’re elusive prey in the woods. When that happens, you end up doing what’s called brainstorming. I’ve talked about this before, but I don’t think I ever actually defined brainstorming. So i turned to the Internet for a definition. it said it’s a process of generating a large number of ideas or solutions to a problem. You do that through a collaborative, informal and non judgmental discussion. That’s if you’re brainstorming with other people. It’s very similar if you’re doing it on your own. There are different ways of doing it. The idea is you find ideas. without judging them. Or criticizing them. At least not as you’re generating them. Your focus here is quantity, not quality.

There are rules involved in brainstorming. Focus on quality brother, than quality as I’ve said. Do not criticize what comes out. For wild idea shows up, write it down too. Accept it. Take some ideas and combine them. If you come up with a vision, include them. The fact it’s an image doesn’t mean it isn’t a germ of an idea.

Only when the session is over do you start evaluating your. The ideas that came up in the session. During the session, write everything down that comes to mind. A session can be anywhere from 10 minutes to an entire day. Sometimes I’ll let ideas sit for a while and then I look at them and see what I can do to improve them or develop them further. It happens. I have an entire notebook of story ideas that I can go to and say, “hey this will work. I want to do this one today.” And I’m off and running. Sometimes I can’t decide between ideas that come to me. I end up developing 2 stories at the same time.

The point is, as you generate an idea, you need to write it down. I don’t know about you, but my mental filing cabinet is not very good at holding things. Which is why I have my notebook in the first place. When you get an idea. Write it down. It doesn’t matter how good or bad it is. What matters is that you write it down and you hold it for the future. Often you can come back and find something you thought was awful and you think, “hey, that has potential.”

Brainstorming is a wonderful tool. You can research on the Internet the various ways to go about doing it. I recommend keeping everything that comes up during a brainstorming session. That can cut down on the number of times you have to do brainstorming. So if you’re writing stories or generating blog ideas. Keep everything. It may spark something new further down the line. Good luck and keep writing.