Brainstorming
Brainstorming
With Brainstorming particularly, it is one of the easiest forms of writing and getting over writer’s block. There are no rules but the ones you specifically create, usually when you are having writer’s block it is because of the rules that you have created for yourself. Let me explain, when you are writing something either academic or creative you have a goal that you have put in your mind. Seems relatively simple and quite common, but whether the goal is to write a detailed description of the girl at the bar or write a dissertation on Wordsworth’s use of spirituality in his poetry then you are setting rules. Another way to think of the rules is as boundaries. If you are writing a detailed description of the girl at the bar, you are 1) only talking about the girl at the bar, 2) your setting is limited to the bar, 3) it must be relative to the scene, 4) what is her ultimate purpose, etc. You are slowly enclosing yourself to certain requirements that must be found, along with being consistent to the style and tone of the piece. The same can be said about the dissertation 1) its only on Wordsworth, 2) only focus on his poetry (even though that is mostly all he wrote), 3) defining what his spirituality is, and etc. Because of the more rules/boundaries that you create for your work the more difficult it is based off of specificity.
Already you are slowly pushing yourself into a corner, now these may be broad or extreme examples to some, but you get the idea that your goals create boundaries. Now it’s good to be focused and have boundaries because that means your piece will have coherence, but it can be weighty when you find yourself stuck. If you do find yourself stuck it depends on the type of “stuck” you are, it would depend on the type of brainstorming you would need to focus on.
Finding An Idea
If you cannot get an idea going in your mind on what to write about if it is academic then you want to begin to write down what you know about the piece of work, art, literature, or whatever you have to write about. Once you have everything you know about the subject matter then, make a list of details that you know about each one of them. Then make another list of details about that list of details, continually get more and more specific until you have nothing more to say about any of it. Then look back through your listings and see if there was anything that caught your eye as interesting or different, if you have more than one, just choose the one that you seem to be most knowledgeable about (the one with the longest list). If you don’t find one that catches your eye, just choose the one that has the longest list, it will probably be the easiest to talk about since you already know a lot on the subject matter.
With the creative process it is little different, because you may have nothing to base it on. Then you must go for what you like to write about, or what you would like to write about. Usually when you can’t get an idea with writing, it’s when you cannot get a fully fleshed out idea. You know you want to write a romance or you know you want to write about the supernatural, but still have no idea what will amount to any great detail. Start brainstorming. As I mentioned there are two major ways and listing or writing fragments, or doing a web. Here the web would probably be the most helpful. Just place the idea in the center and then branch off anything about the idea that you can think of, in the end, it will be a circle in the center of the page with a lot of lines and circles extending from it, something of a makeshift spider “web.” What this actually does if gives you the beginnings of fleshed out ideas or at least ideas that you can begin to flesh out, and then from there you can use the web tactic again or details to continue brainstorming. Eventually you will get an idea for something, granted you may later hate, but then simply brainstorm again to improve the idea.
Advancing The Idea
Now if you’ve already created the idea but are just stuck on the advancement of it, then this strategy should help whether it is academic or creative. Simply go back first and make a list of everything that you already know about the work. From a paper it could be the previous points and details you made, for a story or poem, it would be the characters, plot, or details that you’ve already discussed. Keep this list as specific or general as you need it to be, if you can’t get too far in this exercise you may have to return to this list and get more and more specific. With these lists, you know exactly where you are in the piece. Now take what is supposed to happen next and begin to make lists of possibilities or do a web of what you could talk about.
By the end of these lists you at least have an idea of where you want to go. Remember the process of brainstorming is to get the juices flowing, does this mean you will create the best idea ever? No, not necessarily, but you will at least have an idea of where to go. Now if you have developed the idea that everything you write must be perfect…well that’s another issue that brainstorming won’t exactly fix. Brainstorming aids you in continuously writing and developing ideas. Get stuck, brainstorm some more. As long as you are continuously writing, you are being productive. I hope this helps. Happy Writing!
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