Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a necessary function of any writing. If you are writing short stories, non-fiction, articles or your next big novel, brainstorming can be a great way to get started. When writer’s block hits, brainstorming can help you work your way back out of it.

There are a lot of brainstorming techniques out there and I’m only going to highlight a few of them.

Free writing is a great technique. Put your pen to paper or your fingers on the keyboard and write what anything and everything that comes to mind. Do worry about grammar or spelling; just let it flow. You can either set a time limit or a word length limit if you prefer to help you keep from writing too much. You can always go back to the notes if you get stuck or need ideas to continue with your story.

Topical ideas are another great way to brainstorm. Make a list of all the topics you want to hit in your writing. Jot down ideas for each topic and expand as much or as little as you want for each topic. This is a great way to get organized so that you don’t forget something you think is important. Feel free to throw out ideas you don’t like or want.

Finally, bullet points are helpful. They can be like the topical form of brainstorming or they can be a list of ideas or thoughts that you want to keep at hand to help develop your story. This can be a very effective way to spill out your ideas. Don’t worry about them being organized. You can go back to prioritize or organize them later. The point is to get them on paper first.

Here are a couple of websites that are full of helpful information.

http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/brainstorming.html
http://www.brainstormsw.com/

Copyright 2008 Lynn Tincher