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Where to Find Creative Writing Ideas

Below are some ways to find creative writing ideas for your novel or for any other kind of writing. This is just one of many Creative Writing Now pages about about fiction writing. At the bottom of the page, you'll find links to additional creative writing topics and the chance to take CWN's free online writing courses.

Tips for generating creative writing ideas

  • Keep a journal - Record your observations, things that happen to you and how they feel, stories you hear from your friends, curious events on the news, gossip, memories. Any of these can become the seed of a story, novel, or poem. And you can go back to your journal as you're writing to find the details and descriptions that will make your scenes seem real.

Read great creativity tips contributed by our visitors. And publish YOUR tips to help other writers.

  • Eavesdrop - I know it's rude... but only if you get caught. Listen to conversations on the bus, at the coffeehouse or the supermarket. You'll catch fragments of people's lives that you can use in your creative writing. Imagine what each person speaking is actually thinking. Imagine what happened to cause the conversation and what might happen next.

  • People-watch - Writers tend to be interested in other people's lives. (This is a nice way of saying that writers are nosy.) So watch the couple at the restaurant table next to you and imagine their story. Is it a first date? Is one of them bored with the other one? Can you hear what they're talking about? How could you describe their appearance, their body language, their voices, and what do these details say about them? All of this is a gold mine of creative writing material. So put on your dark glasses and go sit in a crowded place.

  • Pick a name from the phone book - Picture a woman named Gertrude. Now picture a woman named Jen, a woman named Shoshana. Chances are, each of these names inspired a very different mental image. Names call up a complex set of associations, and you can use them as the starting point for a fictional character. Then invent a problem for the character, and you have the beginning of a plot. What about a Shoshana trapped inside the body and life of a Gertrude, or vice-versa?

    Read more ideas about inventing characters.

  • Watch the news - In addition to your own life and the lives of people you know, the news is an endless source of creative writing ideas. Take a local news story and imagine the event from the point of view of one of the people who was involved. What would he or she have felt? Imagine the event as a scene -- what would have been the sights, sounds, smells, sensations? What would have happened next?

    The children's book writer Linda Leopold Strauss got the idea for her novel Really, Truly, Everything's Fine from newspaper story about a man in her neighborhood who was accused of a white-collar crime. The story made her wonder if the man had a family, what conversation they would be having over their breakfast table that morning when the newspaper story came out, how the man's child might react to the news of her father's crime, how this would change her life. And so a novel was born.

  • Re-imagine a real event - Start with something that happened to you, or someone you know, or someone in a news story, and ask yourself "What if..." What if your untalented friend had tried to pursue his dream of becoming a jazz musician. What if instead of getting a divorce, you had poisoned your husband's coffee? Create an interesting situation, imagine how it would play out it as realistically as you can, and then start writing.

  • Use story starters - Creative Writing Now has a huge variety of story starters and fiction writing prompts that you can use to get creative writing ideas. Also check out Bryan Cohen's new e-book, 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts, which offers one thousand story starters covering a wide range of topics.

  • Try the CWN story idea machine - A fun and easy tool for generating ideas.

    Get the story machine (Excel file)


Where do YOU look for inspiration?

Share your creativity tip to inspire other writers.

Is there a special place that inspires you? Do you keep a dream journal, participate in a writer's group, or read poetry to get in the writing mood? Let us know!

Congratulations to the winner of our recent Creative Writing Ideas competition, Corrie Ann Gray, for her contribution "Pick-tionary."

Enter the title of your tip (for example, "Keep a Journal")

Visitor contributions

Click below to see contributions from other visitors to this page...

Titles Suggest Stories  starstarstarstarstar
Sometimes I know what the name of my story will be before I know what the story is about. If you have what you think is a brilliant title, then it can ...

Experience  starstarstarstarstar
Imagine this: You're standing at the top of a two-hundred foot tall cliff. You look over the edge and realize how far up you are. You stagger backwards,...

Imagination and Dreams  starstarstarstarstar
I get my inspiration to write simply from my head, my imagination, and my dreams, when I can recall them.

I may be in the middle of housework, or ...

The Voice  starstarstarstarstar
It starts with a voice. I've never had an accent, and voices come easier to me than most- though I daresay if you're a native of a country or region I'...

Tweet Yourself  starstarstarstarstar
I get creative ideas from what I read - fiction, newspapers, magazines - everything. I'm a working mother with a demanding day job and don't get to travel ...

Real Whodunits  starstarstarstarstar
They are in front of us all the time, TV, newspapers, Internet... unsolved crimes. I have found ideas from just listening to the news broadcasts. I always ...

Friends and Family Members  starstarstarstarstar
Listening to the daily stories and reminiscences of my children, hubby and friends usually provides me with excellent starting points for fiction, essay ...

Listen to your subconscious  starstarstarstarstar
Ideas are constantly bubbling out of your unconscious mind. You don't really need to brainstorm them. Whatever you do, experience, see, or feel automatically ...

Open Your Mind  starstarstarstarstar
Everything begins in the mind. Every skyscraper, every painting, and every custom-made Italian suit were once ideas in someone’s head. Without these ideas,...

Pick-tionary  starstarstarstarstar
Dictionaries are wonderful companions. Perusing the pages opens up a world of entertainment and inspiration. I grab one, take it somewhere I can allow ...

Become Another Author  starstarstarstarstar
I find a lot of my inspiration from my favorite authors, such as Thomas Gavin or Thomas Harris.

What I usually do, if I'm in a rut, is open one of ...

Live Life To Its Fullest  starstarstarstarstar
I always look back at my past. In writing I have found that is where my future is to be!

Reflection  starstarstarstarstar
I sit in a quiet place for about 20 minutes and reflect on the past 24 hours. I write about the thing that most affected me emotionally during that time ...

Look at Cosmetic Name Colors...Ooo LaLa!  starstarstarstarstar
I love make-up and everything associated with it! Lip gloss is my newest guilty pleasure and nail polish shades fascinate me. The names on the colors are ...

Let Nature Lead the Way  starstarstarstarstar
I'm sitting out in the early morning with my journal, listening to the birds sing their beautiful songs. Then I close my eyes and feel the sun on my cheeks,...

Mix and Match  starstarstarstarstar
I have three boxes with snippets of paper in them. One contains male first names, the other, female and the third, surnames. If I ever hear a new name,...

From the Minds of Children  starstarstarstarstar
My children have provided a wealth of ideas over the years because they are filled with curiosity. They provide endless questions to be answered about ...

The Yellow Pages  starstarstarstarstar
When I needed magazine/newspaper feature ideas to boil the pot, I would start leafing through the phone directory.

There are businesses out there you ...

The Internet is God's gift to writers!  starstarstarstarstar
I love getting online and looking up obituaries taken from newspaper archives. Not modern day ones but the old ones from the 17 or 1800s when they were ...

Shop Antiques Stores   starstarstarstarstar
To get a feel for a character, I browse antiques stores and thrift shops. I ask myself what kind of person owns this object? Why did she discard it?

Back Roads and Small Towns  starstarstarstarstar
My husband & I take road trips. When we drive the back roads & travel through small towns, I look at houses & stores & valleys. Who lives there? What is ...

Write Five Sentences  starstarstarstarstar
I write stories for children, but I have occasional mornings when I come to my writing time feeling empty of ideas, positive I will never write another ...

Check out your library!  starstarstarstarstar
You can look at the titles of books in the library (or bookstore) without opening the books. Then make up a story that fits one of the titles. When you'...

Creative Writing Ideas from Music  starstarstarstarstar
Does music help you with your creative writing? A number of our readers listen to music to get inspired.

Using the unconscious for poem ideas  starstarstarstarstar
The other day, I received an e-mail, and the title of the company that sent it to me kept running through my mind. A few hours later, I sat down and wrote ...

Treasure in newspaper articles  starstarstarstarstar
I've gotten ideas from newspaper articles, actual news articles. I just try to imagine my way into the situation described -- how would I feel if I were ...

Buddy up for short story ideas  starstarstarstarstar
Sometimes my sister and I brainstorm short story ideas together on the phone. One of us gets an idea, and then we talk about how the story might go. Sometimes ...

I like to walk at night  Not rated yet
It just clears my mind when everything is quiet but the bugs and owls and other night creatures.

Scrabble Dabble  Not rated yet
If you play Scrabble, make a list of all the words in the completed game, then use each word in a sentence which must relate to every other sentence so ...

Dreams  Not rated yet
Sometimes I wake up in the morning very refreshed because of a wonderful dream. Then later I remember that dream and I start planning the story, plot, characters,...

Translate Mishaps into Stories  Not rated yet
As much as most of us would like to have everything run smoothly - if not all the time, then at least most of the time - we also know that "things as usual"...

Junk shops and thrift stores  Not rated yet
Find an obscure item or a piece of clothing, and take a moment to think about when it was new.

Who made it?
Why was it bought?
What was happening ...

A Story Unframed  Not rated yet
When I'm at a loss for a story line I make a trip to a major art museum. All around you are incredible stories, lavishly framed and waiting for you to ...




See a list of Creative Writing Now pages on how to write a novel.

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