Collecting ideas, if you want to write, may seem like a challenge. After all, ideas aren't just things you can seek out, are they? You have to wait for inspiration to hit you, for the perfect one to come to mind. 

This may be a rosy cliché, but it's oversimplified. Ideas are everywhere, if you're willing to search. If you just wait for inspiration to randomly hit you, it could be a long time before you end up finishing any story you plan to share with the world. Writing takes effort, and that includes learning the art of collecting ideas.

First, you need to come up with a "spark", a starting point for what you want to write about. This can be found everywhere, but here are a few places it's happened to me the most.

- Fiction you've consumed. Fanfiction is amazing, and I totally support writing it. While you can't make money off of it, your primary goal as a writer shouldn't be to make money - if it was, you wouldn't write as well. Your goal should be to write a good story. And fanfiction is an amazing starting point to getting there. You get accustomed to analyzing your favorite characters, spinning the plot of the source material in a whole new way...and maybe even sport a ship or two along the way. 😏 

But even if you don't write fanfiction, reading is crucial to developing your skills as a writer. Read both fiction and nonfiction on things you're interested in. And both can generate that "spark" for your next project. For example, in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Shadow Weaver's insecurity about her facial scars prompted my poem The Invisible Girl, which is about a girl who turns invisible to hide her facial deformities from her lover.

- Media you consume. This is different than fiction. I find that podcasts and nonfiction TV shows are the best source for ideas and philosophies. What are you interested in? Space? Earth science? Philosophy? Politics? Economics? Psychology? Romance? I guarantee you there are podcasts and nonfiction TV shows specifically geared toward your interests. For example, after hearing about the c*ronav*rus pandemic on the news, you might be inspired to write a story about a doctor caring for a sick patient.

- Traveling to new places. When you're on vacation or out in town, take a look around you at the people you meet. The places you visit. Observe all the sights, sounds, happenings. You can even go to your local mall and peruse all the shops (I was especially fond of this before the pandemic). Think about the homeless man and how he might have ended up there. It could spark a story about what mental illness stigma can do to people.

- Story prompts. These are everywhere online if you search them up. You can even generate one with a character, theme, and conflict if you're dry on pure inspiration. Then you can brainstorm more and change the prompt to be completely your own. If you're interested in internal Wattpad resources, justwriteit's old novelette prompts on their book Just Write It are a good place to start.

- Using your skills, or learning new ones. Do you know more than one language? Are you super good at math? Can you crochet like a whizz? All of these, and more, can be a "spark" for your story. Perhaps you want to write a character who enjoys foreign languages because she can learn something new. Or maybe you like crochet because it teaches patience, and you just got an idea for a story about patience and wisdom. And of course, as said above, learning is an amazing way to get a spark.

 - And sometimes, you just get the spark. As soon as you have a spark, write it down in your journal. If the proper time comes, you can take one or more of these sparks, develop them, and come up with a full-fledged story.

Once you have the spark you want to use, the next step is to explore it. There are a couple ways I like to do this with my novels, that I'll list below. I suggest using your general journal for brainstorming ideas, because sometimes you don't end up pursuing the idea into a story. Nevertheless, brainstorming at random is perhaps the best way to explore and familiarize yourself with the writing process. Below are a list of my few favorite ways to explore an idea.

1. Idea Webs

This is my favorite tool when exploring the "spark" and even when I develop my characters. If you're unfamiliar with an idea web, you first put the spark in the center circle of the map. (I'll use the spark "healing powers activated by the moon" from my journal as an example.) 

The next step is to ask lots of questions. For example, who has this power? How does this power fit into society? Are healers the lowest of the low, or the oppressive elite? What's good about this power? Can it be abused? Do people want to be born with this power? What sort of character would make for an interesting story? All of these and more can help flesh out that idea. Draw arrows to the answers to the questions you pose, and don't worry if they make sense or not. Your goal right now isn't to make the clock work; it's simply to oil the gears.

2. The "What-If" Method

This method is very simple. Place your spark on the margin of your journal, or bold it in your phone. Then start asking questions that begin with "what-if". For example, what if people were hunted down for their healing powers and trafficked? What if the moon was worshipped on account of the abilities it grants to the healers? What if an elite aristocrat fell in love with a lowly healer? What if they can save someone from death at the cost of their own life?

Think about these questions and the answers to them. You can even make an idea web out of the "what-if" questions and explore each one on its own. Don't be afraid to spend many pages just brainstorming for a story. The more you have figured out before you write, the more dedication you'll end up having for your project.

3. Combining Sparks

Sometimes you need two sparks in order to generate an idea that you can fully explore. For example, in my conceptual novel trilogy The Fire Mage, I combined the ideas of aliens performing dopamine experiments on the human population with magical powers that come from the planet's atmosphere. Those two ideas led to a whole slew of exploration. What if there was a war between wolf-people and humans? What if a wolf-person fell in love with a human? What about adding AIs into the mix? 

Even ideas that don't seem to mix well can produce a surprisingly good story idea. For example, you could take an idea about a murderer, combine it with a satirical tone, and make it about a sociopathic man whose favorite song is "If I Only Had a Heart" from The Wizard of Oz. 

I urge people who brainstorm to let the work sit for a while (at least a week) after you're done before you write. This exercise, if done properly, can result in less writer's block, since sometimes that can come about from not letting ideas stew for long enough. Much of this book is designed to make the writing process as painless as possible.

In the next chapter, I'll explore how one can teach themselves to brainstorm effectively, using some fun methods.