Creative Writing Ideas - How To Have Them

by Steve Gillman

Combine Stories For Creative Writing Ideas

There is a technique called 'concept combination' which is to create new products to sell. Use it to create new stories, and it is usually good for a few laughs and a few ideas as well. All you have to do is imaginatively combine old stories into new ones.

For the most creative ideas, use stories which are unrelated in their theme. Suppose you start with the biblical story of Adam and Eve, and combine it with the movie, 'Star Wars.' Perhaps in the new story a man and a woman are placed alone on a new planet, as an experiment to see what will happen over the centuries. Would they or their future offspring develop our same ideas about God and morality?

Get crazy if you want. 'King Kong,' and 'Romeo and Juliette' could become a story about when apes learn to speak, and the first human-ape romantic relationship develops. The couple is of course rejected by ape and human society. How about 'Frankenstein' and 'Gone With The Wind?' Start dreaming up those new creative writing ideas.

More Ways To Have Creative Writing Ideas

Make a list of what is most important to you. Take anything from that list, and find a story in it. For example, if honesty is important to you, create a story populated with characters that are defined by how honest or dishonest they are, and show the consequences of this trait. If there is some political principle that is important to you, imagine new stories which show what happens when this principle is followed - or when it isn't.

Make a list of the stories you most like. Start with any story you really like, and think about how you would have told it, or how it could be told. The start writing to see if the idea 'grabs' you. Romeo and Juliet has been successfully retold a hundred ways in books and movies, under many titles. Why not find a formula you like, which has been proven to work, and write your own updated version?

Watch the evening news and make a list of the stories. This source is mined by television shows all the time. Try to add a twist that will get the story read. For example, take a real life issue that is in the news and approach it from a different perspective. Perhaps it could be a story of a businessman who profiteers after a hurricane, but you find a way find a way to make him the good guy.

One of the best ways to get ideas is to write anything right now. The English writer Graham Green attributes his success to a simple habit: He forced himself to write at least 500 words daily, whether he felt like it or not. Creative inspiration can strike at any time, but it strikes more often when there is work instead of waiting. Just start writing and you’ll have more creative writing ideas.