Everything in writing starts from an idea. Ideas are the very heart of what we write, and everything we write needs at least one idea behind it. At the beginning your idea will probably be a glimmer, not something fully formed – but if you treasure it and nurture it, that spark of an idea might take your creativity further than your wildest dreams. Let’s explore more about those ‘lightbulb’ moments and how we can get them…

Before you put pen to paper – or fingers to keyboard – let’s consider the importance of ideas.

Ideas are the most valuable element in a writer’s toolkit. They’re what makes each writer unique. Think of the stories you’ve read, and the ones that you love. Each writer started out with an idea and worked their socks off to bring it to life. You can have all the creative writing techniques in existence – all the effective use of language, all the plotting skills and ability to bring a character to life – but before you can deploy any of them, you need that one, wonderful, original idea.

This step in your creative writing journey is all about finding the ideas for your writing – that creative spark that will send you to the page burning to get words down, and then keep you going through the process of taking the piece of work from idea to a finished, written, story, poem, article, playscript, or whatever it is you want to write.

But where do ideas come from? That’s what we’re going to explore, and work on creating an idea-generation practice that will ensure you’re never short of ideas to work on in your writing time. Because ideas are everywhere. They’re all around you, and once you know how to look for them, it means you’ll never, ever be short of something to write about.

So to start offwith, have you got an idea in your mind of what you’d like to write? A tantalising sense of something taking hold of your imagination, so that you’re burning to get words down on the page?

Or not? Or are you wondering what to do with an idea? Don’t worry if that’s the case. Once you’ve worked your way through this section of the guide, you’ll be bursting with ideas and have a good idea of what you’re going to want to turn them into in writing!