Article - A Thousand Ideas by Brian

Sometimes you'll get this urge all over your body to write. You'll feel so creative, so intelligent, and then you sit down, and blank. Nothing comes to mind, except for black, or the white page/screen in front of you.

I used to go through that all the time: where I would feel so brilliant that I thought I could write anything, and then I sit down, and I can't. I would get so frustrated that I would literally throw objects around the room, regardless of their size or sharpness. After going through this several times, I identified my problem as lack of ideas, although that should have been obvious from the beginning.

So what I formed was a plan, or rather a series of questions, to come up with some idea. I've heard that a lot of people do this, and it basically just goes like, "What is your character's name? What is his/her age?"

First it builds with the simple stuff, i.e., the main character. Decide his/her gender first, then their age, if they are even human, their height, so on and so on. It doesn't necessarily have to be very descriptive, although it has always helped me if it is.

After that, you need to come with a setting. Instead of thinking, "Egypt or Moon?" do something easier like "fields or city?" Then you can decide upon the location.

Eventually, you'll have a good idea of who the character is, and where they live. So all you need is the idea, which actually shouldn't be too hard by now. Just ask yourself, "What does this character like?", "What does this character want?" Then form a story around how much s/he loves ice cream, or desires ice cream.

Hopefully, that helped.