Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hello and welcome to
brainstorming for Fiction. My name is Nia Hogan and I'm a multi published
in the author. When I'm writing my own books, I'm helping writers who
are struggling with the same things I faced as
a new writer in the field. Creating store ideas
is something I'd love to do since I
learned to read. Turning those brainstorms into solid story ideas
took years to master. If you'd like me,
you keep notebooks and files full of story fabric. But not every talented writer is spilling with fresh
or usable ideas. This course is for beginner
writers and writers who wants suggestions to help them
create their next story idea. Not writers with an
abundance of them. This course will cover
what brainstorming is. Brainstorming exercises
that you can do, tips and best practices. And how to turn your story
ideas into tangible outline
2. What is Brainstorming?: Without further ado, let's
begin with the first lecture. What is brainstorming? Brainstorming is often
seen as a group activity. It's a Creative technique
that allows small groups and teams to conclude about a
problem or generate new ideas. Well, you can
certainly brainstorm your next story idea
with the group. Brainstorming can
also be done alone. Brainstorming is spontaneous. Idea should flow freely
without a set structure. The idea is to come up with
as many ideas as possible. There may be some parameters
to the brainstorm, but the idea is to create a
safe space for your ideas. I've combined a list of solo brainstorming
methods that we'll dive into in the next lecture. Reverse brainstorming,
stop and go. Brainstorming, brainwriting, verbal brainstorming,
brain dumps, storyboarding, mind-mapping,
star bursting, swat analysis, and wishing. In this lecture, I explained
what brainstorming is. M provided a list of brainstorming techniques
that you can do alone.
3. Brainstorming Exercises: Next up, brainstorming
Exercises. How you brainstorm is
ultimately up to you. The reason this
lecture focuses on solo brainstorming methods is because most new writers
do not copyright. They like to write the
first draft themselves and maybe get help on how
to improve their story. In this lecture, we will cover some brainstorming
methods that you can do without a team. First is reversed brainstorming. This is a technique where
you start with a problem, make a list of
potential conflicts. For example, a car jacking with a baby in the backseat
of viral outbreak, this spreading quickly
across the country or a prize-winning pups
stuck in a burning house. Once you have a
list of problems, start creating a
list of solutions. You can create a graphic
organizer or just create a list. Don't think too deeply
into the logistics. Just think what could
happen to solve this problem if nothing
else stood in the way. Next is stop and
go Brainstorming. You brainstorm or
idea dump for 10 min. Stop. Evaluate what you've written and take note
on your favorite parts. Then you repeat the process
until you're out of ideas. If you're someone who needs
to chunk information into smaller time limits in this process may prove
beneficial to you. Third is brainwriting,
where you brainstorm ideas, then share them out
to get feedback. Whenever I get a new story idea, I tell people like my
husband, for example, and he often ask me questions or make suggestions
that helped me to clarify my ideas forth. You could try verbal
brainstorming. When working alone,
you can start a voice memo or record
yourself speaking. I do this a lot when
I'm driving and can't stop to write
down my ideas. Playing the audio back can help you to transcribe them later, or you can just decide
to keep them as Audio reminders of what
you'd like to write about. If you're better at
expressing yourself orally, this can help you to
quickly collect new ideas. Next up is the brain dumb? This is where you just sit
down without parameters of any kind and let your ideas
freely flow out of you. There are no time
limits, topics in mind, any structure for recording
or collaborating needed. You're just letting
go of whatever ideas are at the
top of your head. Sixth is storyboarding. This is for writers with an existing story
idea that wants to brainstorm some of
the key plot points to carry their story. Traditionally, this would be
done with sticky notes so that you can order and
reorder your scene ideas. Here you are just
brainstorming ideas of what could happen and then putting
them in a logical order. If you have gaps
that need filling, you can add blank sticky
notes in there as well, so that you can add
those ideas later. Mind-mapping is very similar
to reverse brainstorming. But here you start with a theme or a central
question for your story. For example, if your theme is beauty, lies, and simplicity, you'd write down a list of ways or story ideas that could
demonstrate this theme. For example, tech
gurus steps down as CEO to live in a
beach town and focus on finding himself
after the passing of his fiance or spoiled high-school
graduate learns her parents gambled away her college fund and decides to live off the grid during her gap year to figure out what she's truly
passionate about. Another way of mind mapping
is to start with a question. Can people truly be happy alone? Then consider different
scenarios that could answer that question
through story ideas. For example, widowed
mother of nine sends her youngest child
off to college and begins the next chapter of her life or co-dependent entertainer is sent to an isolated
rehab facility and struggles to build
connections with other residents. The next exercise
is star bursting. This is where you create
a six-pointed star and label each point. Who, what, when,
where, why, and how. In the center of
the star you can put anything from a conflict, a call to action, or a Story topic and
answer the questions. I'll use call to action. For example, will
she take the throne? Who? Isabella, what? Takeover the throne when after Queen Nora's burial
ceremonies or complete, where Mugabe, which is
a made-up story world. Why she is the next girl
in line for the throne. How she must leave behind everything she's ever known to rule this part of her country, that our parents laughed
when she was a baby. You're probably familiar with
swat analysis for business. But this works for Fiction to
SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities,
and threats. This works great for
Brainstorming characters. Create four quadrants and
consider the following. What are their strengths
and weaknesses? What opportunities could they
have that are important to their storyline and what threats are hurdles in their journey. Lastly, is the wishing exercise. This works great if you're
writing genres that include elements that cannot
happen in the real-world. This can allow you to
think outside the box and think beyond the
limitations of the real-world. You can dream up anything in a perfect world that you create. This brainstorming exercise can allow you to stretch your brain. If you're looking for a way to challenge yourself as well.
4. Tips and Best Practices for Brainstorming: Hopefully you found
one or all of those brainstorming exercise is beneficial to your
planning process. In this next lecture, I
will share some tips and best practices to conquering
the brainstorming process. Here are six tips
and best practices for solo brainstorming. Number one, start
with a warm-up. Our brains are tools and
just like we warm up our engines in the winter
and pre-heat our stoves. It's a good idea to warm
up your brain as well. This warm-up can
be a free write, your reading over ideas you
brainstormed in the past, or even using a
writing prompt to get your creative
juices flowing. Number to create a goal. If creating good writing
habits is important to you, creating a goal for your
brainstorming session may help you out rightly. Maybe set a time limit. I will brainstormed
for 10 min today, or I will be done brainstorming when I
create ten new ideas. Goal-setting helps us keep
track and removes our excuses. Number three, focus on
depth and variety of ideas. When I say depth, maybe this
brainstorm session is taking ideas from a previous
session and asking yourself, how can I go deeper
with this idea? When it comes to variety? I mean, don't limit yourself to Brainstorming one type of idea. If your brainstormed takes
you into multiple genres, time periods, and across
many topics, that's okay. Number four, find
inspiration around you. There is story
fabric everywhere. Your life could even serve as the topic for your
next brainstorm. Maybe you watched a show or a movie that sparked a new idea. I also highly encouraged
eavesdropping. Gossip can provide rich content for your next
brainstorm session. The more you read, the more
ideas that will come to you. Number five, if you enjoy
sharing your new ideas, encourage positive
feedback only. Of course, it's important to get honest critiques
on your writing. But remember that these
are just story seeds. They haven't grown or
developed into anything yet. If someone doesn't
like a story idea, they don't have to say
anything about it at all. This will keep you
encouraged and find out what your
strongest ideas are. Number six, remember
that there's no such thing as bad ideas. You may not be able to use every single idea that you brainstormed for a
short story or a Novel. But remember that ideas can grow just like seeds into
something beautiful. With time, patience
and a revisit. Don't be afraid to
write something down because it doesn't seem
right in the moment. In my course Outlining
Fiction for beginners, I go into detail about the
process of Outlining and even provide a free resource to complete a complete
Fiction outline. If you're looking for more
guidance in that area, feel free to enroll in
that course as well. For now, let's focus
on how to take a brainstorming session and
turn it into an outline. First, if you used a
brainstorming activities such as stop and go, brainwriting, verbal brain
dumping, or wishing. Take your list and rank your story ideas from
favorite to least. If you used reverse
brainstorming, storyboarding, mind-mapping, star
bursting, or swat analysis. You'll work with that idea that you've already began developing. Next, it's time to consider the following
elements of fiction. Premise, which is your
stories logline, theme. What is the message or
takeaway for your reader? Setting? What are
the major places your characters will navigate? Protagonist, who is your lead
character and antagonist? What is the opposing force
or character working against the protagonist?
Main conflict. So what are the main conflicts
your protagonist faces? The beginning, what are
major opening plot points and the main problem of
the story, the middle. What are the major
middle plot points and the climax, the ending. What are major end plot points and the problems resolution? Once you're able to
determine these things, you can either consider a more in-depth Outlining option to help you better understand what you want your
story to look like. Or you can use this as a
loose guide to begin writing. The choice is really up to you. In this section, we
covered ways to turn your brainstormed ideas into a tangible outline to begin
your writing process. I hope you found
this inside helpful
5. Conclusion: In this course, you learned
what brainstorming is. Brainstorming exercises you can do tips and Best Practices for Brainstorming
and how to turn your story ideas into
tangible outlines. My hope is that you feel
more confident about your ideas and how
to express yourself in a way that it's helpful to your thought process and
style of expressing yourself. Your ideas are valid and I
don't want another day to pass where you sit on Golden ideas that could
potentially be a bestseller. If you enjoyed this
course and found the information
included helpful, please leave a positive
review to help future students find
the value in it. If you have any private
questions or concerns that you don't want to leave in the discussion section
of this class. Feel free to e-mail me at Novel Writing for
beginners@gmail.com