Category Archives: Blog

General blog posts by Adam.

Blog

How to Use Real Life to Write Your Story

How to use real life to write your story

The most personal stories can be the most powerful

One of the most challenging questions aspiring writers have is where to look for ideas.

Well, we’ve spent plenty of time over the last few weeks exploring that question. And why, it can easily be solved.

Ideas are everywhere. And the more you think about storytelling, the more you will be bursting with ideas. When you implement a few practical tools for harvesting ideas, you will never run out of ideas for stories.

That’s, honestly, the easy part. The hard part? Crafting a story that is unique, sincere, and will resonate with a reader.

Last week, I detailed how real-life events can be jumping-off points for stories. The fact is, some of the most popular movies, books, and series were based on real life. It gives your work a kind of credibility (even if you don’t put in the line “Based on a true story”) and give a story a foundation from which you can experiment.

But how can you make a story more authentic? In an age when so many people are producing content—most of which is shallow and clickbaity—how can your stories feel real and meaningful? How can you make sure your story is going to connect with a stranger, to the point where they want to care about it?

You gotta get personal.

Continue reading How to Use Real Life to Write Your Story →

Blog

Real Life can Inspire New Ideas

How art imitates—or inspires—your next big story

Over the last few weeks, I’ve explored how writers get ideas for their stories.

I tackled why that’s such a daunting question for some writers. Then, we explored various ways writers (or any kind of storyteller) can harvest new ideas. I even provided a few practical tips and tactics you can use to make sure you never miss a moment of brilliance.

Where can you get ideas for writing? Everywhere!

The biggest hurdle I see from newbie writers is that their idea for a story just isn’t original. “But it’s been done before!” is their common refrain. My friend, yes, it’s been done before. But not by you. If you want to write and finish a story others will hopefully enjoy, you have to let go of that fear.

Because, honestly, it’s just an excuse not to take the plunge.

Once you get over that, you have an entire world to explore for ideas. Even then, it might be hard.

Let’s start with what we know best: what’s really happening around us.

Continue reading Real Life can Inspire New Ideas →

Blog

Where Do Writers Get Ideas?

Where do writers get their ideas?

Part 3: Crafting a Process for Harvesting Ideas

The dreaded question. Where do writers get their ideas?

I’ve been exploring this the past few weeks. I believe that writers don’t like to answer this question because—for a busy, accomplished writer—getting ideas is the easy part. Their creative subconscious is always churning out new ones.

But for someone that hasn’t been writing since they could hold a pencil, this seems like a daunting task. Especially in an age where there is so much media out there, it feels like all the good ideas have been done.

You can overcome that hurdle by taking risks, combining ideas into a new thing, and creating a process that nurtures and harvests new ideas.

For some writers, all of this is second nature. But for many, they had to learn a process so they could write consistently.

Because, and this is the rub my friends, if you’re not writing consistently, you’ll never finish your story.

Continue reading Where Do Writers Get Ideas? →

Blog

Where Do Writers Get Ideas?

What inspires you to be creative?

Part 2: The Things that Inspire you to Write

For some reason, writers don’t like to talk about where they get their ideas. And to the outside observer, it seems like writers magically get their ideas from the thin air.

In this series of posts, I hope to break down some of this mystery and maybe help you stop worrying and start writing.

In my previous entry, I said that writers don’t like to answer this question, because they’re busy doing harder tasks. Writing a story—that’s both entertaining and coherent—is far more difficult than coming up with an idea.

But to newcomers who want to jump into the craft of writing fiction, getting a fresh, original, and interesting idea can seem daunting.

So, let’s start out simple: what do you love?

I’m not talking about big things like family or God, but the things that inspired you to write in the first place.

Many accomplished writers started out very young. Long before they published a book, they were writing as children. They’ve been writing for so long, they don’t even think about how they get ideas. Their creative subconscious is so used to churning up new combinations of things, it’s second nature.

But you have to start somewhere. You might as well start out with the stories you already love.

Continue reading Where Do Writers Get Ideas? →

Blog

Getting Used to Writing Badly

1 Comment

Getting used to writing badly

I don’t know much about Jennifer Egan, but she’s credited with one great quote:

“You can only write regularly if you’re willing to write badly. You can’t write regularly and well. One should accept bad writing as a way of priming the pump, a warm-up exercise that allows you to write well.”

This is so brilliant, that it bears an entire article to unpack and talk about.

I’m a freelance writer. Been writing for a living for about 4 years. Long before that, I was simply an amateur fiction writer. I would spend free time working on a short story or manuscript. But it wasn’t until I started writing for money that certain things clicked into place.

When you’re aspiring to be a published fiction writer, it’s easy to put off work (i.e.: writing). You probably have a day job or school—and numerous other responsibilities and social obligations. Setting even ten minutes aside to work on that idea or continue to story can be impossible.

But, for me, that luxury went straight out the window—when writing meant I could pay my bills!

Freelance writing, or at least the kind I was doing, requires that I write. A lot. Often about things I either don’t know much about—or worse—don’t even care about. In order to earn enough to support myself, I had to churn out mountains of content on a daily basis.

The only way I could survive and then thrive was to be satisfied with writing badly.

Continue reading Getting Used to Writing Badly →