Original subtitles

- What's up, my friend?

Abbie here, and welcome back to "WritersLife Wednesdays,"

where we come together to help you make your story matter

and make your author dreams come true.

Are you bored with the book you're writing

and you don't even know why,

it's just missing that magic spark

that makes you addicted to writing it?

If so, don't worry. You're not alone.

Lots of writers feel this way, this lack of inspiration,

even if they have all the juicy internal conflicts,

all the flawed characters,

and the great, strong story structure.

You can get everything right and still be bored.

You're not even sure why.

You just don't feel like writing it.

When you sit down to write, you make time,

you have discipline,

and you still just don't feel like writing it.

Over the course of the last few weeks,

we've been exploring writing struggles.

So in this video here, I talked about making time to write

when you feel like your schedule

is constantly getting in your way.

And then in this video,

I talked about finding the motivation to write

when you feel like procrastination and distractions

are getting in your way.

But there's more to writing

than just discipline and time management.

You have to love it.

You have to be so excited to do it,

there's nothing else you'd rather do.

And if you're not feeling that excitement

for your story right now, it's time for some new ideas.

It's time to brainstorm,

to tap into that inner creative genius

and look at your story with a fresh perspective.

That's what I do every time I'm feeling bored

or unenthused about the story I'm writing,

and it works every time.

In this video,

I'm going to share with you all of my favorite prompts,

questions that I ask myself

to get the creative juices flowing

and trigger new ideas, new possibilities,

new ways to look at my story and get excited about it.

I highly recommend grabbing a notebook for this one,

or your Scrivener project, because you're going to want

to write down your brilliant ideas as they come to you.

Let's get started.

Why does your story matter?

Good question.

What if I told you that there's a science

behind every great story?

I don't just teach you how to write.

I teach you how to change the world with your story

and make your author dreams come true.

Before we get started with our brainstorming session,

I wanna tell you to do something

that might sound kinda strange.

Think like a five year old.

Yes, I'm serious. (chuckles)

This is key when it comes to unleashing your creative genius

and inviting new ideas into your imagination.

I recently stumbled across a fascinating study

on creativity in children.

The study was conducted by Professor George Land in 1968.

He tested the creativity of 1,600 children

using the same creativity test he devised for NASA

to help select innovative engineers and scientists.

The assignment was to look at a problem

and come up with new, different, innovative ideas.

Dr. Land retested the same children at 10 years old

and again at 15 years old.

Look at this.

The percentage of children who scored at the genius level

were, amongst five year olds, 98%,

amongst 10 year olds, 30%,

amongst 15 year olds, 12%.

And then the same test was given to 280,000 adults

with the average age of 31,

and the percentage who scored at genius level were 2%.

Dr. Land's research concluded in the idea

that there are two kinds of creative thinking:

convergent thinking and divergent thinking.

Convergent thinking is when you judge ideas, criticize them,

weigh them against ideas that have already been tried

and tested, all of which happens in your conscious thought.

Divergent thinking is when you imagine new, original ideas

that are different from anything that has been done before

and which may be messy to start with,

but this kind of thought originates

in your subconscious mind.

The younger you are,

the more likely you are to think divergently,

and as a result, the more original

and genius your ideas will be.

Fascinating stuff,

but I'm not going to ramble too much about psychology here.

I just wanna show you this

to prove that you are a creative genius,

at least you were when you were five years old.

And that means you still have that creative genius

in your subconscious mind.

You just have to pull it out, dust it off,

(blows) and use it.

So all throughout this video,

as I prompt you with these brainstorming questions,

I want you to think with your divergent, creative-genius,

five-year-old brain.

Don't worry about whether this idea has been done before

or whether it will be criticized or disliked.

Let this be playtime.

Let your brainstorm session be fun and imaginative,

not a method of torture.

Okay, let's get into the what-if brainstorming questions

that I ask myself all the time

when I'm trying to come up with new ideas.

Feel free to pause the video after each prompt

and write down your answers

or any new ideas that come to you.

Remember, don't self-judge. Just play.

What if I add a trope that I know I'm a sucker for?

We all have tropes that we love more than life, (chuckles)

tropes that make us immediately want to read a book

when we find out that this trope is included in the book.

So everyone's tastes are different on this, obviously,

but you should write the book that you want to read.

So what are those attractive, addictive qualities

that you find in your favorite stories?

Is there a pattern?

Is there a trope that you always come back to,

that it makes you immediately want to engage with a story?

I would recommend making a list

of your favorite tropes or story elements,

things that make you swoon or laugh or annotate

or stay up until the wee hours of the morning reading.

For me, that list looks something like this.

Sassy, witty banter, enemies-to-lovers romance,

enemies-to-friends relationship arcs,

brothers who are best friends,

protagonists who are also the comic relief,

heist plots,

sunshine one/grumpy one, (chuckles)

happily-ever-after endings,

anti-hero MC with a tragic past,

and found families who passive aggressively love each other

but never get along.

I could go on and on, but that's my shortlist.

And as you can see, it's all over the place,

(laughs) very niche.

(laughs) Your list will look totally different.

And that's okay. There's no right or wrong way to do this.

The point is just to write down everything

that you absolutely love in fiction

and you love again and again,

no matter what story it appears in.

Then once you have this list, ask yourself,

is there a way to include one or two

or all of these things in my story?

Seriously, think about it.

You're on a mission to make your book the most exciting

and addictive thing to write.

Writing it has to feel like eating comfort food, okay?

I'm telling you, this is going to show through

when you publish this book and other people read it.

They are going to see your love in the pages.

It's going to change the whole reading experience

because you actually had fun.

You genuinely enjoyed the process of writing it.

So if you need to pause the video here and make that list,

go ahead and do that right now.

(vocalist humming)

(upbeat pop music)

Next question: what if I change or add a point of view?

Sometimes you're not bored with the story;

you're bored with the character

whose point of view you're writing.

What would happen if you told the story

through a different character's perspective?

Or what if you just added a point of view

and switched back and forth?

Or what if you wrote it from the villain's point of view?

This has saved my writing life so many times.

I don't think I ever even told anyone this,

but when I was first outlining "100 Days of Sunlight,"

I was originally gonna have it all be

from Tessa's point of view.

Literally, Weston was not going to get a point of view.

Can you even imagine?

Can you imagine how tragic that would've been?

So this is a question worth thinking about.

(cheerful pop music)

What if I made it a sequel or a spinoff

for a different book,

even if this different book wasn't going to have a sequel

or a spinoff?

Maybe the plot and the story structure

and the theme is all great, very solid,

but you're just not clicking with the characters.

Well, what if you borrowed some characters

that you've already created and written and love

and made them a part of this story?

Or what if it follows a side character

from a book that you've already written and love?

Or what if you made it a next-generation story

that takes place 20 years after the events

of that other book, and it's about

those characters' children all grown up?

Or what if you made it a previous-generation story

that takes place 20 years before the other book,

and it's about those characters' parents?

So many possibilities.

(pop music continues)

What if I turn it upside down?

I'm not talking about literally

turning your laptop upside down.

I'm talking about looking at your story

from a totally different perspective.

What happens if you rearrange events?

What happens if you change the whole starting point

of your story?

What happens if you take the end of your story

and put it at the beginning?

Or what if you made the game-changing midpoint

or the disaster point, the inciting incident instead?

Maybe you're writing a dark fantasy romance

where the female MC is forced into an arranged marriage

with the evil king, and that's the game-changing midpoint.

Well, what if you moved that point

to the inciting incident or the hook,

and we start page one on her dreaded wedding day?

Or maybe you're writing a survival sci-fi

where the main character is trapped on a hostile planet

with their ex-lover,

who happens to be stuck on the mission with them.

But we don't start at the starting point

of the blast-off from Earth.

We start in the middle of a banter-filled shootout

against an alien army.

And then we rewind to see how we got here.

The point of this exercise is to color outside the lines,

enthusiastically break the rules.

You can always revise and edit

and rearrange your ideas later.

Right now, it is time to let your imagination run wild

and brainstorm.

♪ Wee, wee, wham, da-da-dum, da-da-dum ♪

♪ Wee, wee, wham, da-da-dum ♪

What if I make it a retelling?

This is one of my favorite what-if questions.

Maybe you want to write a sci-fi adventure,

but it's just feeling bland to you.

Well, what if you made it a retelling

of "Around the World in 80 Days"

with time travel instead of a geographical race?

Or what if your dark academia magical realism

was actually a retelling of "The Secret Garden"

with evil, magical plants

and mystical portals to other dimensions?

Or what if your thought-provoking contemporary

coming-of-age story was actually a retelling

of "Black Beauty" with people instead of horses? (chuckles)

I know it might sound kinda crazy,

but this is the kind of five-year-old genius

that you need to start exploring.

Bring all your ideas to the table, even your bad ones.

Don't be afraid to explore.

Push the boundaries.

Think outside the box.

The point here is to come up with something original,

something unique,

something that you haven't necessarily seen done before.

So don't compare or criticize yourself.

Just have fun.

(playful music)

What if I change the genre?

Maybe you're writing a genre that is just,

let's face it, not your cup of tea.

Maybe you just need to go back to that comfort-food genre,

the one that feels like home.

Or maybe you've been writing in the same genre for too long,

and it's time to change things up, try something new,

try something you've never done before,

try something you think you're not good at.

(laughs) Don't let that hold you back.

Come on. Would the five-year-old you say-

- I can't write that genre.

I shouldn't do that.

I'm not any good at that.

I know that it will turn out bad.

- Try.

(playful music)

What if I combine this story idea with another story idea?

If you've had this problem once,

you've probably had it twice.

Maybe you have two problem stories

simmering on the back burner.

Maybe you should combine those stories into the same pot

and cook them on the same burner.

Even if one story doesn't have the same genre

or setting or time period, would that be a problem?

Or would it just make the story more unique?

Unlikely combinations are so cool

because they force you to put 2 and 57 together

when you were just stuck trying to put two and two together.

Maybe 59 is the perfect answer that you're looking for.

So give it a try. What do you have to lose?

Write down all of your story ideas in fragments

on sticky notes and put them all over the floor

and rearrange them to see which ones might work together.

There are no rules in this brainstorming process.

Have fun. Be creative.

Try new things.

(upbeat pop music)

Theme is the backbone of a good book.

And in order to write a compelling theme,

it has to mean something personally to you.

So perhaps the question you should ask yourself is,

what do I care deeply about right now?

What is the truth I want to scream from the rooftops?

What is it I catch myself crusading about

at the dinner table until my family is like-

- Okay, okay, you're preaching to the choir. Stop.

- It's also important to remember

that the answer to this question is always in flux,

and that's 100% okay.

What you are passionate, moved, and driven about right now

could be different than what you're passionate, moved,

and driven about next month.

That's why certain stories need to be written

when you feel that burning desire to write them.

Follow that creative impulse, that energy.

Trust it to guide you, and it will lead you great places.

Okay, boom!

That's it, my creative rocket fuel

that I use to get my imagination fired up.

I hope these prompts have helped to spark some ideas

and get you excited about trying something new

with your story.

If you're still stuck, don't worry.

Brilliant ideas cannot be forced.

They just have to strike you like a bolt from the blue.

That's how great ideas happen for a lot of writers,

myself included.

Also, it might help to talk to someone else

about your story,

whether that person is your critique partner,

they could be your sibling, your mom, or your kids.

If you have little creative geniuses

running around your house, what are you waiting for?

Exploit their brilliant imaginations!

Remember, good things take time.

If nothing is striking your fancy right now,

just meditate on these ideas, these prompts,

these questions, and see what happens.

Trust that your next brilliant idea is coming to you

in perfect, divine timing.

If you want to grab all of these prompts

that I shared with you today,

you can download a handy printable for free

that is linked below this video,

something to drop in your Scrivener project

for future brainstorming sessions.

Comment below and tell me,

what is your favorite way to brainstorm new ideas?

Let's just, like, load up the comments section

with all kinds of amazing brainstorming methods

and make this page, like, the most brilliant resource

for writers to come up with new, innovative ideas.

Smash that Like button if you liked this video.

And be sure to subscribe to this channel

if you haven't already

because I post writing videos every Wednesday,

and I would love to have you here in the community.

Also, be sure to check out my Patreon

because that's where we go beyond videos

and take storytelling to the next level.

The Patreon community is not only the best way

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but it's also the only way to connect deeper

with the "WritersLife Wednesday" community,

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and get access to my monthly live training sessions.

All of that and more can be found

at Patreon.com/AbbieEmmons.

I hope to see you over there,

and thank you again for watching.

Thank you for being here.

Until next week, my friend, rock on.

(Abbie imitating camera whooshing)

It's that I feel like I'm reading the author's notes

on just, like, every idea they had for this world.

And they just start laying it all out,

and it's so much information.

It's just information overload, and I can't grasp it

because I'm taken out of the mind of the character

that I'm supposed to care about,

and I'm shown so much (chuckles) that I can't...