How to get ideas for writing

Many writers get sick of people asking them ' How do you come up with your ideas?' but it is a reasonable question. Many writers know what they want to write such as blogs, poetry, non-fiction, short stories, or novels, but they are not always sure about the subject to write about.

What's important is not to wait to feel inspired and expect ideas to come from out of nowhere. If you think about it, there are many, many styles, themes, and subjects that can be used when writing. As a writer, there are things that you can draw on as everything you write about is related to things that you have found out, things that you have made up, or things that you know.

Things you have found out

This refers to research. Often, when we think of the word research, we start to imagine libraries or professional writing help as advanced services such as these can help us when it comes to collating research for our academic writing. Although some research may be relevant to a library, it is important to recognize that research has many elements to it.

For instance:

● You plan to write a historical piece related to your local community. You need to visit your local community center and speak to some older residents and see if they can share their memories of the place which relate to the time period you are writing about.

● If you have decided to write a story related to crime, and you are not sure of the correct procedure that takes place once someone has been arrested, you will need to call a friend or family member who is a police officer and can help you with this.

● You want to write a historical piece related to popular television. For this, you will need to watch many DVDs and TV shows for your research.

● You would like to use the names of flowers and plants to create a piece of poetry. You will need to find a flower /plant guide book that will help you to locate names such as 'cloudberry' and 'eyebright'.

Things you have made up

This is your imagination. When you can use what you know in your writing, you can create something unique. Equally, when you make something up, and you imagine things, you can also create something that is unique.

It may be possible for you to create characters using people that you have met and know, but it is also possible to create characters using your imagination alone. Similarly, you could use a location that you know was a setting in your writing, but you may want to omit or add extra features such as a train station or church to fit in with your ideas. Consider renaming the place you have in mind.

Another way you can use your imagination when it comes to writing is with your language. Once you use dialogue in your writing, your characters will soon have their own style of speech and the styles you use will change depending on the genre of your writing. Eventually, you will adopt a style that suits you, and you are comfortable with, and this is called 'your voice.' Even once you have found your voice, it is still important to try new things out and experiment with things.

Things you know

This comes down to your experience. If you are new to writing then you'll often hear people tell you to write about what you know, but you may feel that you don't actually understand what this means. Therefore, it is worth writing out a list of subjects that you already know about.

Think about:

● Your hobbies

● Your school, college, or university memories

● Your personal experiences

● Your work or career

● The places that you have visited or lived

● Any spare time interests

● Any films or TV shows that you have watched

You can also include your family life, for example, getting married, divorced, or having and raising children. Before long, you will soon see that your list will probably be longer than you would have expected.

The way you could use this information, for example, is:

● Any technical knowledge you have can be used to create a murder in a piece of writing related to crime fiction.

● The places that you have read about, visit, or lived in could be the setting for something fictional.

● Your memory or impressions of relationships, life, and death could be used to create some poetry.

● The people you have met throughout your life could become characters in your writing

● The experiences you have gone through could be used to write a memoir for a psychological piece of writing

You may still find that even with all of this knowledge, you still need to do more research and find out more than you already know. If it's something fictional, then you may have to delve into your imagination to create things out of nothing.

As a writer, what is important is that you are always doing some research. You need to be always on the hunt for new and fresh material, quirky characters, useful information, dialogue that you overhear, and unique ways of how to use language. It doesn't matter if you are at the pub, in a restaurant, at a party, reading for pleasure, or surfing online, everything that you do and experience in research and when you least expect it, research can suddenly come to you.

For example:

● You overhear a conversion where people are talking about a person who is slightly unusual.

● You come across and learn a fact that's odd or unusual

● You read about something that you'd forgotten, such as a historical situation.

With all of this in mind, you are always in a position where you are gaining new ideas and all of them can be used in your writing. Remember, writers are curious and that is the best way to get ideas for your writing.