The value of keeping random ideas.

The value of keeping random ideas.


Gwynn Scheltema

Ever write a story that seemed to go nowhere? Ever thought of a brilliant opening line, but never wrote the story? Ever found a line that you thought might make good dialogue, or a line in a poem, or the premise of an entire novel and lost it?

lights-1254298_640Rummaging around in discarded ideas will invariably turn up something unexpected, surprising, fun or usable.
That’s not to say that every word you write is gold – saleable gold – and that none of it should go to waste. But ideas don’t always come at a time when you are ready for them, and if you have no way to revisit them, then even the good ideas will go to waste.

Increase your wheat-to-chaff ratio with an Ideas File and pop them in there. Actually, have several ideas files:

Ideas Files
  • hard costory basketpy file folder: for ideas scribbled on napkins and other scrap bits.
  • computer file for the same. Make sure you develop a way to easily navigate through them. Naming each one “good idea” won’t be too helpful when you have 400 “good ideas.” Make use of “version” and “date” options if you have very similar drafts of an unfinished story:
    • horrornovel_v2_2016
    • babypoetryRev3March
    • trilogy_idea3

 

Personal coding systemcolored-pencils-168392_640

Create a personal coding system to mark up journals or notebooks for easy browsing retrieval. I use coloured highlighters: I underline or asterisk possible poetry ideas with yellow, novel snippets with blue, non-fiction article ideas with green, etc.

Other people’s ideas

Expand the concept to ideas beyond your own writing

  • In another hard copy folder keep cuttings from newspapers and magazines, old letters or theatre tickets or postcards or photos. Expand to new subfolders as ideas begin to consolidate.
  • In computer folders, keep ideas suggested by blog posts, or anything internet related, including email copy. Be sure to include URLs if you want to reference later.
  • Create a Pinterest board. This is especially useful in the early stages of a novel. Pin pictures of faces, buildings, landscapes, objects, or anything that stirs up ideas or cements a visual for you. Here is one I started for my MG novel.

pintrest board

Of course, having all these ideas is pointless if you don’t do something with them.

Here is a creative exercise to try:

Take these twold bicycleo random pictures and write a scene that will somehow link them together.ticket-153937_1280

 

 

 

When pairing ideas, don’t worry if they seemingly have nothing in common when you begin– that is the point of the exercise. The struggle of creating the link is what gets your brain going.

 

Tasting the Page:  Beyond the Five Senses

Tasting the Page: Beyond the Five Senses

With Gwynn Scheltema

In this one-day workshop:

  • challenge your reader’s perceptions and assumptions
  • deepen your powers of description
  • learn new descriptive techniques to give greater weight to your narrative voice.
  • master how to add description without slowing the narrative.

Don’t let your fiction be left on the plate. Prepare it gourmet style and your readers will beg for more.

Have fun experimenting with creative writing exercises that make your writing live. We’ll munch our way through a smorgasbord of fiction foods from image and emphasis, to movement, theme, and syntax.

Come prepared to go new places and try new things.

As past participants have said, “You provoked me into thinking of new ways of approaching my writing,” and “Your exercises were great—inspiring, short, but effective. You let us try lots of different things.”

Watch Your Language AND From Inspiration to Publication

Watch Your Language AND From Inspiration to Publication

Gwynn Scheltema and Ruth E. Walker are at the Ontario Writers’ Conference.

Gwynn is offering an advanced class: Watch Your Language. Dialect, foreign languages, accents and other linguistic touches provide diversity and authenticity to dialogue. Gwynn will help participants avoid character stereotypes so that what is being said is not overshadowed by how it’s being said. Gwynn’s popular workshops at the OWC are consistently highly rated and fully booked.

Ruth’s beginner workshop From Inspiration to Publication invites new writers to play with words through hands-on exercises and fun activities. Participants will risk a little and try on different forms of creative writing. Useful handouts offer tips on submitting material to the right market. Ruth will also serve as a Blue Pencil Mentor, offering helpful feedback in one-on-one discussions with writers about their manuscripts.

Gwynn and Ruth have been at the OWC since it launched, facilitating workshops, mentoring writers and enjoying the many speakers and learning opportunities that a comprehensive conference like this has to offer.

To register, visit the Ontario Writers’ Conference.

On-demand Workshops

On-demand Workshops

Gather your group. Pick your topic and your date. And we’ll bring Writescape to you.

From beginning writer to seasoned professional, we’ll customize sessions to suit your programming themes and audience needs. Choose from Writescape’s Workshop Catalogue 2016 to help you and your colleagues hone writing craft and develop new skills and techniques.

“I came away with an understanding that will stick with me … great handouts and examples.”

From two-hour evening sessions to week-long programming, you tell us what you need and when you need it. Writescape will supply professional workshop leaders, hands-on exercises and practical handouts, and a creative, supportive atmosphere for an excellent learning experience.writing-828911_960_720

“…a safe place to be vulnerable with my writing and to risk trying something new.”

Writescape facilitators have delivered workshops and presentations across the Greater Toronto Area, as well as Ottawa Region, Durham Region, and Northumberland, Kawartha, Haliburton, Muskoka, Simcoe and Niagara regions, Southwestern Ontario and into the U.S.

startup-594090_1920 (1)Step 1: talk to your group or colleagues about what you need

Step 2: choose your program from our Workshop Catalogue 2016

Step 3: contact:
info@writescape.ca
905-728-7823
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