So you have this senseless human yearning to create, and all you know how to make is words. But you have nothing to say, and no good ideas. Your brain feels like a chunk of fossilized poop. Everything you read for advice says the same things: “go do something else,” or “read a book,” or “take a walk,” or “think of a childhood memory.”

Let’s say you’ve tried this. And it seems that, while doing other things, reading books, or taking walks may result in cleaner toilets, hours of entertainment, or a slightly nicer butt, it doesn’t seem to result in ideas. You can’t think of a childhood memory. You can’t think of any memories. You’re not even sure how old you are or what you did yesterday. Your brain is a frickin’ coprolite.

What now?

I may have been in this position a few times, and I have a few suggestions. I don’t know if they will work for you. But they have, on limited occasions, helped me.

Method #1 (mostly for fiction): Take an existing story and change it so much it becomes a new one.

I can understand a bit of resistance to this idea, as it initially seems like you’re cheating. But consider: Romeo and Juliet was a changed Pyramus and Thisbe, The Lion King was a changed Hamlet, The Hunger Games was a changed Battle Royale, and the 2000 Brendan Fraser movie Bedazzled was a remake of a 1967 movie of the same name which was, ultimately, based on Faust.

Plus, most of what you know came from someone else’s work. Someone trained you to do your job. Someone taught you to read. Someone taught you a specific way of managing your own waste, and you probably haven’t deviated from that out of pure need for creativity.

My point is, everything comes from something else, even if the “something else” it comes from is just a little kernel. But that kernel can grow a thousand variations, and a single idea can lead to wildly different stories.

So, pick a story, and then start changing things. A lot. Some common ways involve flipping the protagonist and antagonist, focusing on a minor character’s POV, changing the time period or setting, switching genders, changing the outcome of the story, removing or adding lions to the story, and so on. But you don’t have to stop at one of those options. Make it yours by making it weirder, or sexier, or more full of spiders. Make everyone be turtles. Make people reproduce by budding. Just keep doing stuff and see if it leads you into an entirely new direction that you like.

Method #2 (mostly for non-fiction): Pretend you are three.

Find a bit of writing someplace. Start reading. After every sentence (or paragraph, if preferred), ask a question. “Why?” “How?” “Who is that guy?” “What if that’s not the only ___?”

This alone may or may not lead you to an idea. Asking a question of every sentence could be a bit much, especially if your brain is a brick of ancient feces. Maybe the thing you’re reading answers all your questions, or you can’t think of any. That’s fine. I have a way to simplify this:

While you’re reading the sentence, pick out whatever words you feel like, and ask “what is ___?” Like “What is a species?” or “What is a penguin?” or “What are teeth?”  Even if you think you already know – pretend you are a very small child and you don’t know anything. Some of the seemingly easiest questions end up being super hard to answer, and you can go on a while trying to explore it.

Method #3 (could go either way): Random formula, or random pairings.

Find a piece of writing. Go to the fourth paragraph. Scan to the sixth noun. Write down the noun. Now, in front of it, write the adjectival form of your most recent physical ailment. Now make a story out of it.

I got “gassy acolytes.” I’m sure there is something I could make of that. Pythagoras had some sort of fart cult, didn’t he? I mean, I’m sure that’s wildly inaccurate, but I could go examine what the hell is in my memories that made me write that sentence…

Anyway, you don’t have to use that particular formula. I pulled that out of my butt, just now. You could make up your own, or change the numbers, or adapt the Stripper Name formula, etcetera.

If you do not strike absolute gold like “gassy acolytes” with the formula above, and cannot make your fusty excremental brain come up with another, you could also try heading to a site that generates words or pictures like this one here. Pick two random words, pictures, phrases, dinner ideas, truth or dare questions, etcetera, and try to link them. I wouldn’t do more than two, as I could easily go on forever clicking through random inputs, but your mileage may vary.)

Okay, I Have an Idea, But It’s a Big Nothingburger Without a Point. What Now?

I have very often been in situations where I have an idea that sounds good, but I struggle to actually make anything good out of it. No point, no cohesiveness, no plot, no conclusion, no climax, no answer to the “so what?” that begs to be asked of it. Just a bunch of nonsense badly woven together like a basket made out of dog hair and packing tape.

Now, sadly, I often do not manage to solve this problem all that well. I may come up with ways to address these, but it often gets so tangled in my mess of a brain that it becomes positively Gordian in its knottedness, and I end up just quitting instead of trying to unravel it. But I do have some ideas for moving forward, even if I can’t get all the way to the end of a thing. That is, however, a topic for another post…