Chapter Four: Letting Your Imagination Run Free

The purpose of this chapter is to present exercises and ideas for expanding your imagination and your idea creating processes.

It may not seem like the most creative writing assignment available but another way to have something to write about is to pick a topic at random and write a fact filled article about it. If you have an interest in 1960 automobiles but don’t know a lot about them this would be the perfect opportunity to do some research and write an article about it.

The research that you do in order to write such an article as described may in itself spark ideas for future articles or stories.

Here are just a few ideas to randomly choose from:

·           How to housetrain a puppy in less than two weeks

·           Where to find rare items and make a profit selling them on the Internet

·           Does cat litter pose a danger to children’s health?

·           What is the most fuel efficient car in today’s economy?

·           What I would do if I were president!!!

 For more assistance in finding random items to talk about simply make a list of words and then consider what you could write about each one of these. A sample list is as follows: 

·           Dog, cat, parrot, government, politics, food, money, camaro, cameras, pocket protectors, video, movies, popular topics, niche markets, circus, carnival ….

Sit down and make your own list and then set to work on picking one or more to do the research on and write your article, short story or whatever suites your desire.

You may also get ideas by coming up with a sentence ending to such openers as:

·           When all else fails

·           How to

·           How to make money by

·           How to feel better about

·           Escape from never, never land, the story of

·           Just when I thought it was all over

·           Just when I thought that it was safe I found

·           If this is the best that it will get, what

·           If every day was like this I would

·           I tried talking to you, however

The above are just some examples. Play around with them and come up with as many endings as you can. You will be surprised at what you can think of when you put your mind to it.

There is nothing better than to spark an idea than reading and writing about a subject. It will usually lead into other ideas, and as you research the subject you will increase ideas for what you will be able to write about.