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January 2005
The second
part of the ‘Ideas’ series is where do ideas come from. The
first question that you should consider for yourself is what
sparks ideas for you?
Ideas, both
elusive and plentiful. How can they be both? Easy, you may
have dozens of ideas but none of them may apply to what you
want to write about. The dozens of ideas would put them into
the plentiful category, but not finding one that you want to
write about would make them become elusive.
Well, where
do ideas come from? The first matter to consider is how
your mind notices the world around you. How do you think?
How do you feel? How do you interpret what you hear or see?
It is from your senses that most of the ideas come to us,
and every person is different. I am often a proponent of
using all six senses in helping to find the buttons to push
to get you writing, and this is no different. Ah, now I hear
some of you crying, "Six? There are only five senses!" While
the ones who do incorporate the sixth sense are just
grinning. Yes, there are six senses. There are times
when the sixth sense do not come into play, but let me
assure you, the sixth sense does come into play
within our writing. Stephen King, Dean Koontz and Mary
Higgins Clark are just a small selection of authors that do
actively incorporate their sixth sense to help them write.
But we will cover this specifically later in the article,
for now let’s take each sense one by one.
‘Sight’ is the
first sense we will touch on. Sight let’s us have a visual
image to pull on for our ideas. A child playing, the colors
in the scene and what he, or she, is doing. A squirrel
running up and down the tree. The green of trees. The jagged
peaks of a distant mountain. The blinding white of snow. All
of these are visual idea stimulants, and each of these will
probably, at one time or another, it will come into play in
your own tale. These and many others sights. When you don’t
actively think about your sight, you are not aware of how
much of an impact it makes in your life, including your
writing. What sights did you see today that might be the
spark for a story? Doesn’t what you read allow you to see
what the characters are seeing? What you see daily leaves
subtle story ideas playing around, waiting for you to
discover how to bring it to a story, either one you are
already writing or one of its own.
‘Sound’ is the
next sense. Sound allows us to have an auditory stimuli for
writing. What does a train sound like? How do you describe
it? How about the sound of a child’s voice? A car revving
its engine? The bark of a dog, or chirp of a bird? Rain
falling on the roof, or ground? All of these are elements
that can come into a story, but beyond that, they are also
stimuli for ideas for stories. Sound makes such an
impact, it allows you the ability to accurately portray it
in a story. How often have you read a story, good or bad,
that has incorporated sounds into the tale and you can
hear what the characters in the story are hearing? What
sounds can you actively think of that have brought a story
idea around?
‘Taste’ is our
next sense. This one is a lot harder to incorporate into the
tales, or is it? Taste is elusive in words to describe, but
it is possible. The sweet, but slightly bitter taste of
chocolate. The tartness of a cherry. The fresh, cleanness of
ice. It is possible to bring taste into the story and
when it is, it adds another layer to your story. Even if you
can’t accurately describe it, just putting what they are
eating without trying to bring in the exact wording for the
taste, most can taste what the characters are tasting. Such
as "She bit the apple, allowing the sweet juice to run down
her chin." What story have you read recently that drew you
to taste what the character was tasting. What you taste can
influence what you write about, how often have you purposely
included, or excluded, a particular food or taste from your
story?
‘Smell’ is
next on our list. How can you use smell as a way for ideas?
It is easier than it sounds. Smells are famous for
triggering memories. What does the smell of cookies baking
bring? Or cinnamon? How about lemon or roses? Just as they
trigger memories, these memories can play into your stories,
creating powerful sensory images for your readers. You can
do this several ways, but the two most popular is to
physically smell the scents to bring the emotions or
memories to mind, or you can remember the scent and do the
same. What smells can you discover to bring up ideas and
memories to give to your readers?
‘Touch’ is the
next sense. Touch is such an integral part of our lives. How
often have you closed your eyes, just so you could run your
hand over something? Something that was soft or course, wet
or dry just to feel it without any other sense getting in
the way? Our touch sensory can bring many ideas out to play
for stories. How about the chilliness and wetness of snow?
The soft fur of animals? The roughness of bricks or rocks?
Each element that has touch can easily invoke ideas or
sensory details in stories.
‘Intuitive’ or
the ‘3rd eye’ is the final sense I will cover.
Many people do not realize how much of an integral part of
storytelling the 3rd eye brings. When writing we
tap into hidden worlds. This is what author’s such as I have
listed at the beginning of the article have reported. They
have told of tapping into world’s and reporting on what they
are seeing. Have you ever had a gut intuition...known deep
down that what you are writing is an important piece of the
stroy, but not sure why you feel that way? These inner, or
outer, world’s that we tap into as writers bring many the
ideas that we see. Trust your instincts to let you know what
is good and what won’t work.
Now, after
having listed these six senses, we come to the problem that
some people do not have one or two of the senses, does this
mean that they cannot tap into them? No, it does prove
slightly more challenging for those specific senses. But
those that cannot access certain senses themselves, such as
taste, touch or sight, the other senses become more alive to
them. And they can access those senses to even greater
depth. But also you will find that those who are lacking a
sense or two, that they also have a greater touch for the
intuitive sense.
One activity
that I employ often is to pull out a piece of paper, or a
computer, and write down each sense, don’t forget the
intuitive! Then under each sense begin writing keywords.
‘Sight; trees, flowers, child, cat, butterflies...’ ‘Sound;
cars, plane, water rushing, laughter, buzzing bee...’
‘Touch; rough brick, cool grass, breeze blowing...’ ‘Smell;
cinnamon, cut grass, baby powder...’ ‘Taste; apple, bubble
gum, cola...’ ‘Intuitive; faerie playing under the hedge,
pegasus flying above, unicorn grazing by the water, alien
landing in spaceship, parralell world...’ Once you have all
the keywords listed down, you can begin to tie into your
ideas. ‘In a parallel universe, your look alike is playing
near the unicorn that is grazing near the water. While a
playful faerie is watching from under a bush eating an
apple, wondering what mischief it can get into. The breeze
is blowing the scent of cut grass around...’
Let your
senses lead you, don’t lead your senses and new worlds and
ideas will be open to you.
Happy
writing!
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