Hey everyone! Here we are again with another post in the series! There are only two more posts after this one! I can’t wait to write a few more helpful inspiration posts before we take another short break. In the last post of the series, I will posting what will happen next for this blog and will hopefully be able to excite everyone for a new series! Without further ado…
Inspiration: Writing Tools
A few series ago I wrote about Writing Resources and Tools. You can find the link to that series here if you are interested. I wrote several posts on the different kind of resources and tools for writers in all different stages of the writing journey. However, this series, as we know, is about inspiration. So, although I will be writing about writing tools, they are all geared towards how to use writing tools for inspiration.
When it comes to using writing helpers there is one important fact that needs to be kept in mind. When using these kinds of tools inspiration comes from curiosity. Curiosity leads to imagination which is the beginning of the development of a new book idea. Writing tools are the most useful for those who can ask questions about anything they see or read. There are some days when these writing tools don’t help me at all, and there are somedays where I only need to use one of them and I suddenly have a whole book idea I never would have thought of before. So, keep that in mind as you use these writing tools for inspiration.
Writing Prompts
Writing prompts are the best. They come in all shapes and forms and in all different document types and formats. I have my favorites and other writers might have their favorites. I tend to come up with the most creative story ideas from dialogue prompts and plot prompts. Dialogue prompts are writing prompts that give you one to three lines of dialogue to write a scene or chapter around. I find these the most useful because I can place dialogue in any situation or world. When it comes to writing whole new books, I really love plot prompts. Plot prompts are prompts that introduce a whole scene that could lead to a longer or more elaborate prompt. I love plot prompts because I enjoy finding similar ones and reading them over and over again until I can somehow mash them together to make a new, unique, and cohesive story idea.
There are many different types of writing prompts which I wrote about here in a post in my Writer Resources and Tools series. Because there are so many different types of writing prompts it is very easy to find a type that you like and to use mostly those ones just like how I mostly use dialogue and plot prompts.
Concept Art
Building upon and being inspired by others creativity is part of writing. That is why I wrote a whole post based off of reading widely because doing that can give you the skill to be a better writer but also gives you the worlds and ideas of other writers to build off of and create better storylines of your own.
Another creative world to pull story ideas from is that of art.
Many artists out on the internet make art that is widely available for anyone to view and art made without a specific story or book in mind or art used to convey an idea for use in films, video games, animation, comic books, or other media before it is put into the final product is considered concept art. I love concept art. You can find concept art for people, for clothing, for scenery, and for whole worlds. You can find concept art based off of genre, colors, or art type. Concept art has variety, a large selection, and is widely available. And the best part is that art is easy to be curious about and easy to develop new worlds, stories, or characters from.
I love looking up science fiction or fantasy concept art. My favorite ones are generally about a specific human (or non-human) subject in a larger frame of a surrounding. I love those pieces of concept art. They give me a world, a character, and a great curiosity to develop a storyline around.
Map Searching
Map Searching is a very strange form of inspiration that not a lot of writers that I know use. At first, I thought maybe I had invented it but some few other writers that I have met have informed me that they also use it, but I only know of a few others who do. There are two different ways of map searching.
The first fits more with the name it has here, and this is literally map searching. Find a map of a place you have never seen or been to in person. And then just search it for interesting place names or cool geography and do that until inspiration hits you. I once looked at a map of a small portion of Africa in an Atlas and I had a great idea for a story that I wrote that takes place half in a desert and half in a forest so that the geography looked similar to that on the map that I viewed. I also have been inspired by place names before. Sometimes those place names became places in my stories and sometimes they inspired actual characters and not just places.
The second way to inspire yourself is a little more creative than the first one. You simply begin drawing and draw yourself a map. I personally find this one more difficult because it requires more imagination and skill but it also more fun that simply staring at a page on a map. I usually draw these new maps on pieces of paper so that if they don’t inspire me with a new story, I can simply throw them away but a few of them have actually inspired stories and then I redraw them with all the world information into a book I called JM’s guide to fictional places. I track all my worlds in that book.
Song Inspiration
Song Inspiration is an interesting form of writing tool. This tool can also be used in two different ways depending on where you are at when searching for inspiration. For example, if you are already writing a book and are just lacking in inspiration for your story you might use song inspiration differently than someone who is just trying to write at all.
For those who are already writing a story and are just lacking inspiration its good to find songs that make you think about the genre you are writing. Sometimes there are songs you already know on a playlist or on your phone that remind you of specific characters or scenes from your book. In situations like this I tend to listen to those songs or playlists of genre type music to inspire myself to continue writing a story. I use theses mostly when I simply don’t have motivation to write and less when I am stuck in my story somewhere. I think at times like these it can help remind you of what you’re writing or why you started writing it and can help you get back into the mood.
For those who are not writing something already and just need to be inspired with any sort of idea, song inspiration can be used in multiple ways. The first way that I have found is to write a story to fit a song. I’ve done this a couple times and both times that I did it, it was very fun and interesting to write. I wrote a story that I felt like fit the song and added to it and edited it until it fit well, and when reading it, could be read during the duration of the song so it was like the song was written for the writing and not the other way around.
The second way that I found to use music for inspiration when I don’t have any ideas what to write is to write a scene that the song inspires. One song that I listened to one time was an instrumental Irish jig. This jig inspired me to write a scene that had some interesting back story which then inspired me to find other Irish jigs that fit in with the storyline and I wrote a whole script using the songs as the inspiration for every single scene. It was very fun.
No matter which form of writing tool you use whether its writing prompts, concept art, map searching, or song inspiration you can always find simple everyday things to inspire new stories and ideas. This is only four writing tools that you can use to inspire yourself. There are tons of other everyday things to inspire yourself. I hope that as we finish this series off with the next two posts that we can find something else to help inspire you when you are in need of an idea.
I hope everyone liked this post. If you have any comments, questions, or future post suggestions feel free to send me an email from the contact page or send me a message through social media. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, become a blog page member, share, and follow me on social media at the links at the bottom of the page. I enjoy writing and I’m hoping to continue writing this blog a long time in the future. And always remember…
Get Up, Get Writing, and Get Published. See you next week!
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