It is currently 2:01 AM.

 

Plot: A divorced banker from Ohio leaves his home town to discover the purpose of life. He takes with him Banjo, his greyhound dog. They take a long train ride to Florida, and on the train they meet a librarian named Catherine. Catherine says she is also going to Florida to attend her cousin's funeral. Unfortunately, the train breaks down, and all of the passengers have to spend three nights together waiting for someone to rescue them. The banker and librarian fall in love, but get into a terrible argument over religion, and never talk to eachother again. The banker arrives at Florida, and goes to Disney World. There he contimplates his situation, and realizes that the purpose of life is to have fun. The end.

 

Very boring? Yes. But it is now 2:04, and I have just come up with a plot. How did I do this? I just let random thoughts flow into my head and recorded them, no matter how idiotic they were. It is like adlibs. A ___ goes to ___ and meets ___. Very easy. Try it.

 

 

Have you tried it?

 

 

Fine. Don't try it.

 

 

Anyway, sometimes having an idea is harder. For example, you may need to figure out how your main character gets out of a sticky situation with the keen use of a cake, a toilet plunger, several small gerbils, and a sock. Or, if you are writing a soap opera, how Girl A figures out the siamese twin babies she is carrying are not actually her boyfriend's children, but are the children of her boyfriend's identical twin alien brother who impregnated her with his psychic powers because he wants to inherit the farm that her dead father left her in his secret will.

 

 

Whatever you need to think of, you can look for inspiration in many places. Look at life around you. Does that new substitute teacher really not have control of the classroom because they are lame, or do they only act innocent because they are hiding terrible secrets about a crime they commited and they do not want anyone to catch on to their real personality? Do rocks know the secrets of Mother Earth? Is you paper delivery boy the heir to a small country in Asia? Do gingerbread men feel pain? You can use things around you to formulate questions you can then answer in your story.

 

Another technique you can use is the 'sit back and let it happen' method. Put a few characters into your mind and let them do what they will. Act as if you are watching a movie, and do not interfere with what they are doing. This may be hard to not purposely try and have them do certain things, but with time you will learn how not to think.

 

One last example is something somewhat vial, but I will teach it to you anyway. It is called ripping off. In this method, you take someone else's idea and steal it. Then, you switch some names and places, mix around the events a bit, and throw it back out to the audience. Most of the time, people can tell when you do this. Sometimes they do not. If you do this, you are a loser. Please, for the sake of everyone, get your own ideas.

 

If you get an idea by yourself and it turns out to be very close to an idea already had, do not panic. Use your idea anyway, but try to make it a little different than your original thought. This has happened to me quite a few times already. Most of the ideas I gave up on, but you should not do this.