30 Pitches Pitstop #2

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Laini Taylor's Not for Robots writing blog is generally fantastic (big surprise, no?), but for our purposes I'm sending you straight to the ideas & brainstorming post. Laini's a big believer in the power of brainstorming -- not just at this early stage when the world is your oyster, but also when figuring out where a scene should go, when you get stuck in your writing etc. --, and in this post she offers some ways to get ideas: making lists of favourite things, freewriting, and writing prompts in particular. But she puts it so much better than I could here, so don't take my word for it! You even get a bonus insight into the origins of her book Lips Touch Three Times. Tried and tested methods, these.

This week's three (condensed) tips from James Scott Bells's top twenty ways to get plot ideas in Plot & Structure:

1. Issues. What issues push your buttons? Pick an issue that gets you all hot and bothered (not in *that* way), divy up sides, and come up with reasons why people would support either side. Who has the most to gain, to lose, from this issue? Jodi Picoult is crazy good at this.
2. Character First. Come up with a character (visualise the first person you 'see', recreate someone you know IRL, read the obituaries). Write his or her story.
3. Steal from the Best. A modern retelling of Shakespeare or a fairy tale, for example. As Bell says, "plot is nothing more than a story's pattern". Don't plagiarize, but feel free to borrow and rework plots.