In this video, I explore one of the most common challenges writers face: coming up with ideas. Whether it’s an observed moment, a snippet of conversation, or even your own deepest desires, inspiration is everywhere—but how do you harness it effectively?
I’ll share a simple yet powerful approach to idea generation and explain why it works. Once you’ve tried it, you’ll never come up with story ideas the same way again.
Hello, Jane Cleland here. How do you come up with ideas? There are ideas everywhere. An observed moment, an article you read, a conversation you overhear, mining your own internal deepest desires that you want to examine or think about. Ideas are everywhere.
Part of why people say they have trouble with ideas, coming up with ideas, is that they are allowing their internal critic to work at the same time as their internal creator is at work, and those are diametrically opposed and really setting you up for failure. Think of it this way: we want our internal critic, our internal editor, to help us sort through ideas. But before they have anything to sort through, we have to come up with a lot of ideas. That’s where our internal innovator comes into play.
When you are coming up with ideas, aim for quantity. Only when you are ready to start assessing those ideas should you invite your internal critic and editor to the party, and they will help you make judgment calls on whether they’re any good. And how they should do that, what kind of model you can use—um, that’ll be the subject of another of these tips.
Um, I know you can do it. Aim for quantity. Come up with as many ideas as you can. Don’t worry if they’re any good; we’ll take care of that later.
How do you come up with ideas? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Put them in the comments. I read them all. And if this tip had value for you, would you like it? Would you share it? Would you subscribe to the channel? That opens up features for us that helps us make these videos even more valuable for you. Thank you.
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