Does anyone have any thoughts on the subject of “generating ideas”?

[The Backward OX]

Does anyone have any thoughts on the subject of “generating ideas”?

I know a chap whose mind constantly bubbles over with them. By comparison, I sit and stare at the wall with my mind in neutral. This might not be such a bad thing, except that I’d like to write fiction for a hobby, and lack of ideas is a death knell in that field.

Okay, I’m not stupid. When I was younger my IQ was up around 125. But I simply don’t understand why one person can generate ideas and another person can’t. I must be failing to do something that leads to this skill, and I don’t know what it is I’m not doing.

Put another way, where do ideas come from?

Thank you for any productive comments.

[lifetimelearner]

you are not failing !!!

why are you so eager to be able to generate ideas ?

maybe that's not one of your stregnths -
everyone has their stregnths and their 'weaknesses'

YouTube - Strengths-Based Thinking & Application - Marcus Buckingham

[The Backward OX]

Originally Posted by lifetimelearner

why are you so eager to be able to generate ideas ?

Read my post again

[lifetimelearner]

I have read your post -you want to write -
and I will say again
maybe its not one of your stregnths
did you watch the video ?

[alekseykravtsun]

what ideas you want to generate? if ideas for fiction, read other fiction books, watch fiction movies, read online. If you want ideas for your PD, try to pick up ideas from others, apply to you, see your reaction, make ajustments, see results, if positive, share with others, this is your ideas.

[themaster]

Ideas actually usually aren't generated as much as "downloaded"

I think you should follow your excitement in doing so the ideas will come to you in their proper timing.. to me it sounds like you aren't.. you maybe forcing/ego'ing that you have to write this book, be like your friend.. you are a unique individual and there is no wrong way to get the story's/excitement you want..

[Tanja]

Originally Posted by The Backward OX

Does anyone have any thoughts on the subject of “generating ideas”?
I know a chap whose mind constantly bubbles over with them. By comparison, I sit and stare at the wall with my mind in neutral.

If you'd like to write fiction I suggest you start writing, i.e. practicing. Take any simple idea/story plot you can think of and run with it, write one page every day.
If I were you, as a form of exercise, I'd take any problem/issue and brainstorm ideas how to solve/do it differently, some ideas may be crazy but do not be critical, just write them down.
Look at any everyday object and think how else it could be used or improved etc.
Jump-start the process.

[ssandra]

I find that ideas for me come from not limiting my thoughts. (although this can be very disturbing for people I share those thoughts with )

For examply... tomorrow you are walking in the street and you see a car waiting for a crossroad.

Now you say... what if that car didn´t have to wait?
Simplest option: There are no other cars. Why are there no other cars? Is this the last car in the civilized world? Why? Gas prices have gone up? Is there any gas left? Maybe cars are illegal now because of the environment, and the great grand son of Obama is the only one driving.
That means that this is him! Ok, what is he going to do now? What if he is on his way to be crowned king of USA, but never gets there? What if he has lost his memory?

etc.

For me, ideas come very very easily. It is the working out that I sometimes have issues with.

If you ever need an idea just sent me a pm

[CoolBee]

Check out SCAMPER

Scamper Creativity, Scamper Checklist – Mind Tools

OK, so the way it's written implies products, but you could just as well use it for fiction ideas!

Like the suggestions above, just write. I can't recommend highly enough the concept of just writing about anything for 15 minutes a day for unblocking. Writing is a discipline and even if you just write 'I can't think of anything to write' 500 times or your shopping list, it's ok. Eventually, something will emerge!

Or actually try 'journal jar' - that's great too. Just google "Journal Jar" and get loads of links. You don't have to download anything and make up jars if you don't want to - just pick a topic at random and start writing. i'm always amazed that the most unpromising-looking title will bring forth a couple of thousand words!

[Shane]

Two things:

1. Practice thinking in categories.

2. Have a place to "put" your ideas in different categories.


Why nr. 1? Thinking in categories is a way of focusing. Don't try to come up with ideas in general or even ideas for stories/books. Categorize into ideas about a character/character traits, story elements in different genres, the meaning of different historical times when used as a backdrop for a story and any other kind of category you can think of.

Why nr 2? Because I've experienced that often, I only get good ideas once there is a "place" for them. For me, this place will be either a text-file on my harddrive or a note in Evernote. It could also be a page in a notebook or whatever.
So, for example, I have a a folder with martial arts related texts. In there, I have subfolders and text files. One is about general, philosophical guidlines for training martial arts. Another is for techniques to simplify and streamline the training. Another is for exercising basics like balance, reflexes, hand-eye coordination etc. I have several files to gather specific techniques to be used with specific weapons.

You get the idea. I've split everything up into small, clear categories. Since there is a "space" for ideas in each of these categories, I know where to put them, once I have them and it just seems that I am more likely to have ideas about something that I have created a category for.

Try it out.

[Brutha]

Okay, I’m not stupid. When I was younger my IQ was up around 125. But I simply don’t understand why one person can generate ideas and another person can’t. I must be failing to do something that leads to this skill, and I don’t know what it is I’m not doing.

I don't really believe that there are people who don't have ideas.
The difference between a person who "generates ideas" is that the person doesn't react the ideas he gets into his head automatically.
The fear that an idea might turn out to be a mistake lets people not follow through on their ideas and then those people complain that they don't have ideas.

[lifetimelearner]

Originally Posted by Brutha

I don't really believe that there are people who don't have ideas.
The difference between a person who "generates ideas" is that the person doesn't react the ideas he gets into his head automatically.
The fear that an idea might turn out to be a mistake lets people not follow through on their ideas and then those people complain that they don't have ideas.

I agree with this

[lifetimelearner]

I didn't mean to say that you couldn't generate ideas ox I mean to say that maybe you just do things in a different way

when I was in art class in high school I wanted so badly to be able to draw like my friend -she was excellent at realistic sketching

but after all those years of being jealous I realized my talent in art lies elsewhere- I am a good abstract artist using charcoal



good luck

[KtotheB]

I receive wonderful ideas on a regular basis and they always come when I am NOT trying to think of them. What's particularly helpful is busying your conscious mind with a repetitive task that doesn't require much effort (for me that's sewing) and then the ideas pop into my head. Meditation helps too. Good luck xo!

[The Big D]

I think most good ideas come from "playing" with all sorts of things.

For example, I just had an excellent business idea. Unfortunately I can't say what it is (sorry), but it came to me while a friend was cleaning out his huge collection of business cards, and a started screwing around with the throwaways and noticed something interesting. I wasn't trying to invent a business. I was just ****ing around with some business cards, and boom. I don't think anyone every had an idea staring at a wall.

In my experience ALL ideas come from either that process or what I call the engineering/analytic process which uses very straight forward methods - state the problem, list all possible solutions and related ideas, explore/analyze each one, take the best - that sort of stuff.

The "play" process is good for coming up with innovative ideas. The "engineering" process is good for forcing yourself to accept ideas that you already knew about, but had some aversion to even though they're really best.

[MyNoteTakingNerd]

Here are some quick suggestions....

As we get older we tend to live inside of our own little boxes and we become exposed to less and less new information.

So do the following:

1. Read a few pages of a fiction book that you are not currently reading everyday for a week.
   
2. Read a few pages of a business book everyday.
   
3. Read a few pages of a phylosophy book everyday.
   
4. Play a sport this week you haven't play in a long time.
   
5. Read blogs daily.
   
6. Listen to a business program on your ipod for about 10 minutes everyday.

I promise if you do this ...You will be full of IDEAS at the end of the week.

Let me know how you do

MyNoteTakingNerd

[SamBeaven]

Good ideas, for me, come more from linking things than from random inspiration - take two boring, uninteresting facts - say, the fact that a piece of metal moving through a magnetic field generates an electric charge, and the fact that although Jupiter's satellite lack magnetic fields they get magnetized as they orbit Jupiter - and you can develop this into an interesting scifi idea, which has consequences for the world design itself (does the world only become magnetized at specific times? Does this effect electricity generation on the world? Are there other ways to generate power? etc).

Anyhoo, whether or not idea generation is a 'death knell' in fiction depends on what you're writing - maybe in literary fiction that's important, but genre fiction is more about entertainment. If you look at epic fantasy for example you'll see dozens of books with the same core ideas as Lord of the Rings, but people keep buying them because they read for character growth more than intellectual curiosity. So I'd say just write - Nanowrimo's coming up, so choose a junk idea, build it into an outline, and get writing (Hell, I'm writing about zombies and robots).

[moonrambler]

Originally Posted by The Backward OX

This might not be such a bad thing, except that I’d like to write fiction for a hobby, and lack of ideas is a death knell in that field.

Do you write fiction now?

[The Backward OX]

Originally Posted by moonrambler

Do you write fiction now?

Eh?

[moonrambler]

Originally Posted by The Backward OX

Eh?

You said you'd like to write fiction, so I couldn't tell if you're already writing it or not.

As someone who's had many short stories published, I just wanted to mention that if you really get going writing some fiction on a regular basis, the ideas will start coming. You'll wind up with more ideas than you know what to do with. If you do hit a blank spot, there are all those helpful ideas mentioned by other people in this thread, and they can be a great jump-start.

I like writing words on little pieces of paper and then randomly combining three of them and writing that way. So if I get the combination "jaguar blue wolf" I might write about real animals, or another planet where blue jaguar cats exist, or about a guy who works at a car dealership called Blue Wolf Jaguar.

[The Backward OX]

Originally Posted by moonrambler

You said you'd like to write fiction, so I couldn't tell if you're already writing it or not.

As someone who's had many short stories published, I just wanted to mention that if you really get going writing some fiction on a regular basis, the ideas will start coming. You'll wind up with more ideas than you know what to do with. If you do hit a blank spot, there are all those helpful ideas mentioned by other people in this thread, and they can be a great jump-start.

I like writing words on little pieces of paper and then randomly combining three of them and writing that way. So if I get the combination "jaguar blue wolf" I might write about real animals, or another planet where blue jaguar cats exist, or about a guy who works at a car dealership called Blue Wolf Jaguar.

It's something new for me. Thank you for the comments.

[Gene]

Originally Posted by The Backward OX

It's something new for me. Thank you for the comments.

The advice I have repeatedly heard from accomplished professional writers is that someone wishing to hone his/her skills must write between one and two million words before they are ready to routinely write high quality, sale able content.

It is like so many other skills. Start writing and keep writing in the genre of your choice.

[The Backward OX]

Originally Posted by Gene

The advice I have repeatedly heard from accomplished professional writers is that someone wishing to hone his/her skills must write between one and two million words before they are ready to routinely write high quality, sale able content.

I wish I hadn't read that. It's a tad demotivating to a 72 year-old.

[The Backward OX]

Then again, it is only the internet.

[Thekla]

Originally Posted by The Backward OX

I wish I hadn't read that. It's a tad demotivating to a 72 year-old.

Look at it this way, Ox, you must have written lots of words in your lifetime already, even if they're not fiction And likely have read a lot too. Not to mention, people who are older have more experience and perspective to bring to bear when they write.

[Thekla]

Also, I have some great creativity/idea book suggestions for you:

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles | IndieBound
The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity | IndieBound
A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative | IndieBound

I know you have ideas. It's just a matter of finding out how you can let them out.

Good luck and have fun!