Brainstorming Ideas for your Novel

The first step to writing a novel is brainstorming for the perfect idea.

Most likely, you already know what your novel has to be about. You have already thought about the characters, the setting, and the plot. Yes, you even know what the ending is going to be like.

Ah! You even know what your main character is going to be like—the way he looks, his demeanor, and the like.

Well, good for you!

However, things may be otherwise.

You are probably screaming:

“Help! I don’t know what I am going to write about!”

You know that you want to write a novel, alright, but you have absolutely no idea what you are going to write on. All you care about is that you want to write a novel. Your dream, perhaps, is to write that novel that everyone would want to read, fight to read, kill to read….

The greatest novel of all time….

All novels, great and not so great, start with Brainstorming. The would-be author has to sit down, gather his ideas together and plan on how he is going to go about writing his book.

So how do you go about the brainstorming process? How do you get that perfect idea for your book?

I have come across a number of intriguing suggestions.

Some would suggest reading a book, watching a movie or a play, or listening to music. As you do so, they say, the “perfect” idea might just hit you.

True, true, true….

However, I’d recommend doing more than that.

Get out of your chair and go outside. Take a look at the world. Talk to people. See how people interact with each other….

But don’t end there.

When you return home, take a cool look at your family. See how your family members go about life. See how they handle stressful situations.

See what I am getting at? Ideas are all around us, under our very noses. There is so much insanity swirling around us that it is not true that one can have nothing to write about. There is indeed a wealth of ideas out there. All you need to do is keep your eyes and ears open.

For example, yesterday, I escorted a friend of mine to the bus station. As we sat there, waiting for a bus, a few acquaintances joined us. An interesting conversation issued, and the topic was the barbarism portrayed by the people in my community. They talked about the school teacher who shamelessly goes out with a small—tiny actually—girl, young enough to be his last born, and they talked about how parents shamelessly consent to this stupidity, without so much as batting an eyelid.

As I sat there, listening, I realized how intriguing a setting for a story my community with its narrow-minded people would be, and I just realized how exciting the plot would be if I included all the nasty stories I had heard. I wonder if I would have had such a brilliant idea if I had stayed at home, staring blankly at my computer screen.

Now let me venture to reveal to you that most writers choose as a setting their hometown, their country, or some other place they know very well. And even their characters have traits similar to people around them. All this is because they keep their eyes and ears open, and realize that there is stuff to write about in their daily experiences and encounters.  

Actually, some people use their very experiences to write their books. Their idea or inspiration comes from what they have gone through.

The first book I ever wrote—School Trouble—is actually derived from the things I saw, encountered, and heard everyday as I went about my life at school. Actually, I use my former school—Luanshya Trust School—as a background. The characters in this story, though ficticious, have got traits very similar to people I met and encountered, and the main character—sober Luis Jones—perfectly reveals how I perceived myself and the world around me.

School Trouble will soon be available. Just keep your eyes open.

When it comes to brainstorming ideas for your book, the best way of going about it is to keep your eyes and ears open.

I once read a book that discussed the difference between ‘seeing’ and ‘looking’. It stated that seeing is more than looking. To see means to notice details, interpret these details, and see how they relate to each other.

For example, imagine that you are staring out of your window and that I ask you:

“What are you seeing?”

How would you answer this question?

Probably you will say:

“A bunch of commuters….rushing by….”

But if you so answer, then you are not seeing, but actually looking, because your focus is not on anything in particular.

But if you answer:

“There is a school boy of about seven or eight, trying to cross the road, but the traffic is too heavy. He seems like he is in hurry to go to school. He is probably late, and he has started to cry!”

Ah! Now that is what I call seeing! You paid attention to one particular detail, interpreted it, and if need be, that detail must just be the idea for your novel!

So, to come up with great ideas, you need to do more than just make passive observations. You need to pay attention to details!

But please, don’t be nosy! That’s very different from being observant! Just be keen on interpreting the stuff that you see or hear and note how you can make them into a great story.  

Most people will tell you that they can’t write because they are waiting for inspiration—that perfect idea to hit them and get them writing.

When we talk of inspiration and idea, I reckon we are talking about the same thing. But when we speak of inspiration we are talking of that which drives you to write. In other words, if you are inspired by an idea, then that idea is so great that you feel excited about it, and that excitement drives you to write.

However, it is not just a matter of seating indolently and waiting for that inspiration to hit you. Do more ‘seeing’ than passively looking around. You are bound to get inspiration faster that way.

Brainstorming is not so easy a process, but sooner or later you are bound to get hit by that great idea. For others, however, finding a perfect idea or inspiration is not the problem; the problem is that they are bursting with too many perfect ideas—so many that they do not know which to start with.

To those hit with an avalanche of ideas (fortunately, I happen to be one of these), here is my single piece of advice:

Concentrate on only one idea, preferably the one which excites you the most, and work to develop it.

And that is just the question: how do I develop that idea into a book, a novel?

Yes, having an idea is one thing, but turning it into a story is quite another. Just how do you do that?

Watch out for the answer in the next article.
 

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