By Cassandra Carmichael
Blank pages can be scary. Sometimes it’s hard to pull an idea out of nowhere. We all need a little inspiration to get the gears moving. Try out these 5 tips for filling a blank page! If you like these tips or want to learn more on how to expand your writing techniques, consider taking Dr. Ford’s Creative Writing course here at our campus. You’ll learn more techniques like these and so much more!
1. Start with a name
Names have a lot of power. The meanings of a name or even the sound can start a whole train of thought. Starting with a name can help you build a character and a story around this name. Picking a name from a baby book or generator can spark some ideas. Say you randomly pick the name Dahlia. Maybe Dahlia is a small ginger girl with bright blue eyes. Maybe Dahlia is a very innocent and kind girl but lives in a big, dirty city with many mean and two-faced people. A flower in a field of weeds. Have fun with the meaning of your name and twist that story around it. Maybe your character has a pet dog they rely on for comfort and safety. This dog could be named Apollo, referring to the god of healing. Names can be a good start to a short story.
2. A Memory
Every story has a little bit of truth and a little bit of a lie. Try starting out with the truth. Think of a memory that either happened to you or someone you know or even on the news. Once you have that memory find the part you can exaggerate or change into something completely different to take the story on a different path. Change names or settings or dialogue and see where this new memory will take you. Say you had a memory about going on a boat trip with your dad. Nothing that exciting happened, but you can make it exciting. In the middle of the night, while the boat rocked under the moonlight, a mermaid came up to the side of the boat. You talked to the mermaid and decided to trade places for the night. With her magic, you become a mermaid and she becomes human. It didn’t really happen, but it started with the memory of your boat trip with dad.
3. Your Dreams
As college students, sleep isn’t that high on our things-to-do list, but everyone dreams sometimes. Dreams can be the perfect starter to a story. They can be completely wacky or tell us a lot about our inner selves. Maybe you had a dream about a gorilla sitting on your living room couch. You could write about how earlier, you had visited the zoo and secretly fed the gorilla your mom’s gross tuna sandwich. The gorilla loved it so much that he snuck into the back of your dad’s van and came home with you. The weirder the dream, the better the story.
4. A Picture
Any kind of visual can help you stir up a story whether it’s a painting, photograph, sculpture, or any form of art. Maybe a scenery or unique architecture can tickle an idea. Let’s say you see a picture of a cemetery flooded by water from some sort of storm. The coffins are pulled up from the ground and floating all around the field bumping into each other. From this visual build a story around it. Write about how everyone in Heaven was freaking out because their clothes are all wet and they don’t know why. Maybe a spirit from Heaven volunteers to investigate and travels down to Earth. After discovering what had happened to their poor graveyard, this spirit must find someone to restore the cemetery! But who will listen to a ghost? Anything that catches your eye is a great prompt starter.
5. Trade Shoes
If you’re an adult male and always write from the point of view of an adult male you are limiting your creativity. This might sound odd but think about your own writing and what you tend to lean towards. Most likely your own gender and age because that’s what you know the best. You know what a person your age does and doesn’t do. You know the advantages and disadvantages of your gender. But try trading shoes with someone else and see what new pathways you can take. This also leads you to research and exploring new ideas. Try branching out into new viewpoints to see what possibilities you can take.