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The Dying Art Of Brainstorming (And How To Revive It)

Guest: Author Bethany Spiller
1 day ago
5 min read

This is a post by Bethany Spiller, an Indie Author who currently has a poetry anthology "Spilled Stardust Volume 1" and a period drama with fantasy elements "Maristella Arrington: The Admiral's Daughter" available for purchase, and will be releasing a sequel novel next year. This post is a collaboration hosted by NoQuWriCo.

NoQu's website: noquwrico.com


Maybe ideas come easily for you. Maybe you excel at figuring out what to do next. Maybe you don't stop in front of the blank canvas and the empty document and cower in fear over a failure that doesn't even exist yet.

Or maybe you're like me.

Maybe sometimes you wonder where your story's supposed to go. Maybe you can't figure out what comes next. Maybe an idea is bursting within you, and you have no idea how to break it out.

And if you're like me, here's seven methods for brainstorming, and fleshing out your story in a way that only a human ever could.


1. Spend Some Time Unstimulated.

Do you ever wonder why "shower thoughts" have become the birthplace of modern philosophies? I don't suppose it's a coincidence that we have more original thoughts while showering, and that showering is also one of the only times spent staring at a blank wall, doing a wordless task, and not listening to any music, tv shows, or advertisements. Protect that time, and times like it, and seek to increase them.

Keep a notebook in the bathroom to collect stray thoughts without autocorrect trying to fill them in. Try to do a few routine tasks without music and see where your brain leads you. Leave your phone in another place as much as possible, charge it on the other side of the room at night, and before you turn to doomscrolling to cure your boredom, ask yourself if it's such a bad thing to just let yourself be bored. Stop filling your brain with a steady stream of other people's thoughts, and let your own thoughts take root.


2. Take A Hike!

No, seriously! Go for a brief walk before you start writing. It can even be inside if it has to. A study¹ has shown that the act of walking is what gets the creative juices flowing, not the mere change of scene from doing so outside. Taking a walk, especially if you can do so without external stimulation, as mentioned in the previous point, can get your creative juices flowing in ways that just sitting and thinking won’t.

Pace the room. Go around the block. Walk to the library and back and note what you see and hear around you. Describe things in your head as though they were a poem. See if you can do it all without your phone or any music. Listen to your thoughts. As soon as you're back, start writing any ideas that come to mind.


3. Brainstorm In Your Own Handwriting.

Technology is awesome, but sometimes it's a little too awesome. We want to type something perfect, fill in exactly how the page is supposed to look, and have no choice but to backspace “bad ideas.” Stop it.

Grab a cheap notebook or an old whiteboard or even a napkin. Write it down. Capture any scattered thoughts on the paper. Not a great idea? Scribble it out, but not so hard you can't come back to it. Doodle arrows and timelines and smiley faces. Need to restart? Turn the page, but keep the old one. Let some words be bigger or smaller or messier or neater, or even different colors. Just keep writing.

4. Worldbuild Your Way.

Figure out what it is that excites you about a fictional world, and let it come alive for you. What interests do you have that can help shape the world your characters live in?

Make a map for your world. Draw art of your original characters, or create them on Picrew or Heroforge, and think about every detail you put into them. Write detailed lists and histories. Construct elaborate family trees full of people the audience will never see. Create diagrams of vehicles and vessels. Write in-universe materials. When you come up with an idea, write it down, even if you know it won’t be canon lore. Develop a language or alphabet or font. Find a list of questions about your characters and answer them all. Create creatures. Once you see what the story looks like, it'll be easier to see where it takes you.


5. Let Other’s Worlds Help Shape Yours.

One of the most prevalent crimes an author can commit against themself is to avoid media that reminds them too much of their story, for fear of plagiarism (and perhaps, admittedly, to feed their desire for self-reliant uniquity.) Instead of fearing inspiration, let it transform your works. Just as you are an amalgamation of all of the things you’ve ever loved, your story can be shaped by what you observe around you in a way you would never be able to write on your own.

Read books of a similar genre. Make playlists of songs that remind you of your characters, and stare out the car window while you listen to them. Make a movie marathon of films that fit your story’s vibe. Find a fellow author who writes in your genre and ask for advice and feedback. Keep a commonplace journal of quotes and lyrics that can inspire your story. Write an epigraph if you want. Don’t be so precious with your words that you’d sacrifice the best version of your story for the sake of your own shallow pride over it.


6. Get Yourself A Rubber Duck.

"Rubber duck debugging" is a programming term, in which, while describing a frustrating, problematic line of code to a rubber duck, a programmer figures out where the problem or bug in their code lies. This works for plot holes and writer's block as well.

Find a dedicated "rubber duck" to "debug" your writing to. Your rubber duck could be a literal rubber duck or inanimate object, but it could also be a journal or a notes app, a housepet or houseplant, or even a conversation with another person. Start from the beginning and explain the whole thing in terms someone who knows nothing about your story can understand. Along the way, you’ll find the problem, and you’ll probably figure out how to fix it, too.


7. Just Start Writing.

I don't know if anyone's told you this recently, but you have permission to make bad art. You don't have to write world-shaking lines with every session. Just start writing. It can start bad, and you can always fix it later.

Let the first draft open weakly. Skip the opening entirely and start in the middle. Put stuff in brackets instead of diving into that Wikipedia rabbit hole. Write a non-canon scene, or something you know you’ll cut out later. Name someone "Placeholder." Skip a climactic scene. For now, what matters is that you're writing. Keep writing.


Those are my top tips for brainstorming, but what about you guys? What helps you come up with ideas?



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