Have you ever had the urge to write but didn’t know what to write? Were you looking at the blinking cursor or empty page in front of you, feeling like you were creatively constipated? Finding inspiration for writing can seem like an impossible task at those times.
If that sounded like you, just know there’s nothing wrong with you. This happens to all of us sometimes. In this post, I’m giving you a bunch of ideas for writing inspiration so that you can kick that writer’s block in the teeth. Don’t over-analyse any of the ideas – just start writing something straight away!
Related posts: Why should you use writing prompts – The best writing exercises – Scene ideas – Conflict ideas – Story ideas from Save the Cat genres
An easy daily practice for getting more inspiration and being more creative
Before we begin, you need to know the ideas in this post are nothing but a bandaid. If you want to get more inspiration, you need to get to the root cause of what’s blocking the flow.
In most cases these days, the answer is pretty simple: your imagination muscle has become weak from the constant stream of content.
Stop consuming. I’m not saying you need to quit reading other people’s stories, watching videos, listening to podcasts and doomscrolling in bed for good, just intentionally stop it at least once per day. You do not need to be entertained constantly. You don’t need a constant stream of content entering your brain.
Is doing nothing but staring out the window boring? It could be. It’s supposed to be. Boredom is the space that your brain gets to fill with new stuff. With no space… there’s no new stuff.
So in addition to trying the tips in this post, promise me you give yourself daily content-free boredom time at least five to ten minutes at a time. It’s also good for your sleep.
“But I’ve got ADHD, I *need* my constant stimulation!”
First of all, neurodivergent high five, fellow ADHD-er. Secondly, I’m sorry to tell you this, but this applies to you, too, and actually even more so.
Yes, boredom and lack of stimulation can feel like actual death when you’ve got ADHD. I’ve struggled with this my whole life, especially in school. But the thing is, you don’t want your nervous system running the show, you need to train yourself to withstand boredom. Not doing anything isn’t actually dangerous, and when you gradually add more not-doing-anythingness to your days, the better you can tolerate with it. Your brain learns.
Try the Writing Inspiration SOS Kit
At the end of this post I’m going to give you my free workbook for finding your best story ideas, but I wanted to quickly talk about my Writing Inspiration SOS Kit first.
This ebook has 60 pages of writing prompts, story ideas, writing exercises, inspiration and writing tips for all those times when you’re feeling stuck with your writing. It’s available in my Etsy shop Writer Lifestyle where you can find all kinds of writer tools and resources and you always get a 20% discount when you buy three or more items.
Think we can finally get to those writing inspiration tips? Yeah, I think so too!
Don’t discard any ideas
Sometimes we think we don’t have any inspiration when actually we think we have the wrong kind of inspiration. We want to come up with something to write about, just not that.
What if, just for now, you accepted that “stupid idea” you have? What if you used that overused story idea and tried those tropes you’ve seen a million times?
The good thing with writing is that when you allow your own voice to come through, your writing is unique. It doesn’t matter what you write – no stories are new anyway – because it’s going to be you and that’s what matters.
What makes “unique” stories unique anyway isn’t a totally out-there never-been-seen-before story idea. It’s having a new angle on an old story idea, old trope, old character archetype. Those new angles are a lot easier to come up with than totally new story ideas, and that’s where your unique brain and life experience come in.
Try writing prompts that you DON’T immediately want to use
Although you could use writing prompts just to save time, they can also be used to practise your writing skills and to train your creativity muscle.
Doing the same things and writing the same stories over and over again aren’t conductive to finding more inspiration. You learn more when you challenge yourself and sometimes that means using writing prompts that aren’t your favourite ones. I’m not saying you should write things you hate, but don’t ignore a writing prompt just because it seems difficult or too different.
Here are some writing prompts for you to try, whether you find them easy or not:
- Write about your childhood from the point of view of your home.
- Use this opening line: I had the kind of face that made people tell me about their dead relatives.
- You’re very good at keeping plants alive but your skill comes with a cost.
- Look out the window and write about what you see as if you’ve just arrived on a strange planet.
- Dialogue prompt: “It worked the last time, I swear.”
- What’s you favourite thing in your home? Write about how to use it, excluding the actual way it’s used.
- You can’t explain it but you can communicate with colours.
- Halfway across the world, Hans realises he didn’t tell his wife where he’s going.
- Write a love story that has been centuries in the making.
- Setting prompt: The place where people dump the cursed things they inherit from their parents.
- Find a dad joke and turn it into a dramatic story.
- Write from first-person point of view about someone trying to solve a murder but they’re actually an unreliable narrator and they committed that murder themselves
If you liked these prompts, you’ll be happy to hear I pulled them from my 365 Writing Prompts collection – get yours if you’d like a full year of writing inspiration.
Look at your life for writing inspiration
Have you been to a place? Any place? Talked to a person? Touched an animal? If the answer was yes to any of those questions, you have material for writing.
No, you don’t need to write a memoir. Most people shouldn’t. (Of course, you aren’t like most people, but that’s besides the point here, bestie.) But I’d wager that most authors have used their own life experiences as material somehow. I certainly have.
For example, I love it when my friends tell me about weird people they know because I can give those weird habits to my characters. One time I was bitten by a cat and I put that event in one of my stories and actually I think it led to one of the most poignant scenes in that book.
Think of your life, the lives of the people you know and anything else you’ve ever seen, touched, smelled, heard and tasted. What could you pull out from real life and use as the starting point of a new story? What could you use to enhance a story you’re already writing?
Think of something you’re good at and use that in your story
Generally speaking, people love reading competent characters. Too many writers end up writing these insecure, bumbling characters who just drift through life not taking part in much, but that’s not actually very interesting to read about.
Specificity makes stories and characters interesting. An inexperienced writer might think it’s better to write a character who could be just anyone, but readers don’t actually want that. Okay, fine, there’s always someone who only reads stories about characters who are exactly like them, but that’s the minority.
The point I’m trying to get to is this: your character will be more interesting if they’re good at something even if it’s something very niche that your readers don’t have experience with. I recently read a book about a pilot and I don’t even like flying. Don’t be too hasty to discard something as not interesting.
So maybe you’re a dancer or very good at knitting. Perhaps you used to do gymnastics or you just know a lot about plants. You can give all that to your characters. Maybe you’re really interested in crystals, and do you know how many people love reading about little shops? Write a story that takes place in a crystal shop! It’s that easy. Use your imagination.
Or just steal from others
Okay, I’m not encouraging you to do actual stealing or pretend that other people’s life experiences are yours, but you can still borrow from others.
Read memoirs. Watch vlogs and reality TV. Read Reddit posts. Don’t just borrow those experiences but what they felt like. How the people reacted to what happened to them. What other people said about it.
Okay, maybe don’t use a minority experience (like what it feels like to experience racism) as the focus of your story if you haven’t experienced it yourself, you do need to use some tact here. But maybe something weird or interesting has happened to another person that makes you go “hmm, that would make an interesting story” and you should totally use that to your advantage. Maybe you could even combine it with something that actually happened to you, to make it more complex.
Take ideas from existing media and expand on them
Am I saying you should write fanfiction? No, unless you want to! But if you’re suffering from a lack of writing inspiration, why not borrow from something you enjoy?
How to get ideas from TV shows
In one of the episodes of Call the Midwife, the elderly nun Sister Monica Joan goes missing and the police finds the body of an old woman at the beach (who turns out not to be the Sister). This got me thinking, what if I wrote a story about someone going missing and a different body turning up? Perhaps you can also think of a plot even from a TV show or move that you could use as an entire story idea?
A single like taken out of context could also inspire something new in you. In a more later season of Call the Midwife, there’s a sex worker who says this about a client: “He says I’m his favourite, he always chooses me.” I had to write it down because it was just so chilling how in a different context it could have been romantic, but in the context of the actual scene it was said with fear and repulsion.
Changing the genre and/or the context is a great way to make an old idea new. Maybe there’s a line of dialogue or even a scene in a comedy that you could use in a horror story, or the other way round? Can you take a line from a gentle lover and put it in the mouth of a hardened criminal? There’s so much you can do here.
Find writing inspiration from music and song lyrics
And what about songs? What if you wrote a story about the song you’re currently listening? (I’ve currently got Reich Mir Die Hand by Blutengel playing and I have to admit my German isn’t good enough to understand what it’s actually about, but hopefully you’ll have better luck.) You could also take the title of a song or a really cool line from the lyrics and use that as the theme, title or first line of your story.
Here are some cool titles from my Spotify liked songs that would make interesting story titles:
- Wishing on a Scar
- White Night Fantasy
- The Most Radical Thing to Do
- (I Just) Died in Your Arms
- The New Thing Dies
- What Was I Made For?
- Who the hell is Edgar?
- Endlessly, She Said
When you’ve got a title first, you get to decide how literally you use it. Maybe “Endlessly, She Said” is actually a story about a one-night stand that never goes anywhere. And what genre do you think about when you hear a song title? What if you chose something different from your initial thought? “White Night Fantasy” could be a fantasy story or it could be romance, even smut. What if it was historical fiction about the first people who tried to reach the North Pole?
What is the song actually about? Could you use that? “Who the hell is Edgar?” is actually a song criticising how badly songwriters get paid but the lyrics are about getting possessed by the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe. I mean, how is that not an interesting story premise? Can you look at your own song library and find an interesting story there that you could borrow?
Lastly, think of what a song feels like, even if it doesn’t have lyrics. How would you go about writing a story that feels the same? If it makes you think of a specific time in your life, could you use that somehow?
What should you write a novel about?
If you want to write a novel but you don’t know what it should be about, I’ve got just the solution for you. In Your Best Story Idea workbook, you use the things you already enjoy and love and mine for the right story idea like you’re looking for gold nuggets (and of course, you are). Best of all, it’s free!
If you still need more writing inspiration, let me know. I’m here to help.
Protagonist Crafts is a blog about writing fiction, written by a published author and creative writing teacher. You can find more writing tips and inspiration in the blog and you can get the best author tools at Writer Lifestyle on Etsy.
