Become an Idea Catcher

"Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any." -- Orson Scott Card

"If I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad." -- Lord Byron

So you've decided you want to write, whether for yourself or for publishing. The next problem you might run into is what to write about. For some, ideas come easily and frequently. It's as if the creative muses love them and whisper constant inspiration in their ears. For others, sometimes me included, we have to work for the muse to talk to us. We have to search for inspiration.

Are there really ideas everywhere? It seems impossible, but it's not. We can find all sorts of stories if we pay attention to what's going on around us. If you are at a loss for what to write, here are some ideas to help you out:

Ask, "What if?" You will find "what if" is the greatest question a writer can ask. What if animals can really speak English, they just choose not to? What if there's a whole secret world underground? What if the Bermuda Triangle is really a door to an alternate universe? What if...?

The key to "what if" is to keep asking until you've got a full story plot.

The five senses (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste) play a major role in creating a story. Things that are apart of everyday living, like nature, are great for inspiring. When you walk past that creepy tree in your neighbor's yard, can you insert it in a story? A certain smell often brings up an image, like when you smell homemade bread do you think of your grandma's kitchen? The one I specifically love is listening to music. Music can give us hundreds of ideas if we sit back and let our mind go wherever it wants. And how often do you listen to music? If you don't very often, start. And don't just have one genre, like rock or metal. Listen to all kinds, even if you don't necessarily love it, just to see what kind of images come about.

"I keep little notepads all over the place to write down ideas as soon as they strike, but the ones that fill up the quickest are always the ones at my nightstand." -- Terri Guillemets

Dreams are another wonderful tool to the writer. Sometimes we can dream up the wildest things that could make a really good novel. That's why we should put a notebook on our nightstands just in case. When we wake up in the middle of the night, we can roll over and write just a summary of what we'd just seen. Who knows? Maybe the vision of one in the morning can be the next bestseller.

The last suggestion is to read, read, and read. Of course, no one is going to copy an exact idea. But there is no general NEW idea. What makes a book unique is being able to combine old ideas in new ways. Take that idea and make it your own. If you're reading Harry Potter, think, "What if---" See? There's the question again! "---instead of a wizards' school there's a school for spies? Or a school for evil geniuses? Or...?" If you're a Twilight fan, maybe you'll think, "What if it's a boy who falls in love with someone he's not supposed to? Is she a fallen angel? A magic creature? The daughter of an enemy?" You never know what ideas you can get by reading.

As writers, we are story detectives. The best way to find a great story is to hold up our magnifying glass and search for clues that will lead us to find that story. So go on out and round up those ideas! Good luck!