Hi, everyone!

There are so many interesting ways to brainstorm, which might be considered outlining to some people. I don’t outline, I pretty much throw ideas out to the universe and see what I channel. :-) But brainstorming is another animal.

1. I write an e-mail to my main crit partner. I will go on about all angles of the story that I’m having trouble with–and then I’ll find that I’ve come up with my answers! So I end up not sending the e-mail in a lot of cases. I’ve already answered my own questions.

2. Sending that e-mail. Sometimes we definitely need that feedback from our online crit partners or others who might think in the same vein as we do.

3. Have an in-person brainstorming session with fellow writers. The energy of everyone talking and building on ideas can turn out some fabulous concepts.

4. Help crit partners brainstorm their books, and it might loosen the ideas in your own mind and get those creative juices going.
5. I got the best idea to solve a problem for one of my future books from my teenage son. I told him what my weakness my beings needed, and he came up with something brilliant. Normally my family is no help at all, but sometimes they have gems. :-) Anyway, utilize those around you when you’re stuck. They just might have something perfect in response to your question.

6. Write letters to your characters. This is one I’ve heard a lot of writers say they’ve used. I haven’t, yet. But with the book I’m writing now, I just might!

7. Index cards. Take a bunch of index cards and write down an idea on each card, in no particular order. Just keep jotting down anything that sparks in your mind. When you think you’re finished, you can even put them in an order that you don’t have to stick to. That’s actually called storyboarding, and a way some people outline. But it’s truly a method of brainstorming, too.

8. Write ideas down on sticky notes and put on a large surface, like a dry erase board large enough to hold a lot of stick notes! Patrice Michelle has some ideas on the subject on her blog. She calls it “visual plotting.” We’re not talking about plotting in this post, but about brainstorming. However a lot of what she talks about is just another way to brainstorm.
9. Collage. Here’s a fun one. Buy magazines that might relate to what it is you’re writing. Like fantasy or Wiccan magazines in my case. Or just general magazines, like People Magazine, etc. Then flip through them and cut out everything you think relates or has some significance in your story. The one I’m showing you is very simple. But it was fun, relaxing, and it did make me think. There are things on this poster that you can’t see, like “He made his choice.” I put this under a picture of a man who looks like the warlock Darkwolf in my “Magic” series. The woman with the wild hair is perfect for Ceithlenn, the dark goddess who escaped from Underworld. The faerie is perfect for a small faerie who sneaks into our world. Then, what was really cool, was that I found a woman with great feathered wings. Then I found a man who’s dark, rough, a real bad boy, and pasted him on top of the woman with wings so that it looks like he has them! Perfect for my Fae warrior hero (they can vanish their wings with a thought). I found beasts that serve as demons, a pentagram, and more sayings, like “The battle between good and evil starts within,” and “The Ruthless,” “The Soulless.” And, cool, cool, cool, as I was making it, my fellow author and friend Mackenzie McKade helped me find letters to make WICKED MAGIC, using the same style lettering, at the top of the poster. We had to be creative and use a 6 for the G, and an I and O put together to make a D, but hey, it looks cool. So what a relaxing, fun way to brainstorm. Hmmmm…maybe that’s what I need to do for SURRENDER TO MAGIC, book 4 in the “magic” series that I’m currently working on!

10. Also, some people make 3-D collages where they take actual things that relate to their books and arrange them in a group, a shadow box, etc. Sometimes just relaxing your mind by doing these things will free up your creativity.
11. Graph paper and a timeline. This was an interesting one for me that I used for MOVING TARGET. My friend, her dh and daughter and I sat down at Ruby Tuesdays and I have this gigantic graph pad. I wrote a long line down the center and started putting ideas on it, as to what I thought should happen where. Or what could happen. And they helped throw out ideas to put on my timeline.

12. Take a nap! This often works for me and is how I get some fabulous ideas. If I’m stuck, I’ll lie down, and in between that place of sleep and wakefulness, my mind relaxes and great ideas will come to me.

13. Watching movies or reading books might spark ideas or a twist in your story you haven’t thought of.

14. Write down the last 10 books you read that you adored and analyze what you adored by them, and even what you might have done differently despite the fact you loved them. Also write a list of books that you hated and what you would have done differently.

15. Rifle through unfinished pieces to see if a character or plot line jumps out at you as ready.

16. Write down the weirdest, most embarassing moment of your life and imagine how a different person would have reacted to it.

17. Okay, I’m stealing this one from Kathy Love’s last post. Sims: my crit partner Annie Windsor uses these for her fantasies. She builds worlds from her imagination and it sparks ideas that get her ideas flowing.

18. People watching. Go to the mall, a park, or other public places and watch people–how they interact with one another, if they’re hurried as if single-mindedly focused, or move slowly and pause to window shop. Imagine what kind of character they would make in a novel.
Thanks to my crit partners, Annie Windsor, Patrice Michelle, Mackenzie McKade, and Tara Donn, who helped me brainstrorm a few of these brainstorming ideas that I hadn’t tried yet, but now will! Hope some of these work for you!

Hugs,

Chey