BRAINSTORMING LIKE A BOSS - Techniques and Tools

A Writing Craft Workshop from RWA Conference 2019

Falguni Kothari and Nisha Sharma

What is brainstorming?

·       The process of generating creative ideas and solutions through intensive and freewheeling group discussions

·       The process can be as holistic or logical as you want it to be

·       Ideal will be to have a group to bounce ideas off, which is why critique groups and writer communities play such an important role in a writer’s career

Why is brainstorming important to writing?

·       Whether you’re writing your first manuscript or your 200^th book, every writer needs to come up with ideas

·        You need to have your brain firing on all cylinders at will because DEADLINES

·       You must have an idea of where to start, what comes in the middle and what happens at the end

·       Even if you’re pantsing, you must have rudimentary knowledge about your story, characters and setting, and of course, the plot

But what if you don’t have access yet to such groups, or have the time to reach out? How do you brainstorm when you’re alone?

Exercises (solo)

-        Write a letter to your main character

-        Interview a character in your story

-        Create a fight scene between your antagonist and protagonist without any dialog

-        Create your character’s genealogy

-        Start a Pinterest board that includes setting, character descriptions/clothing, and images that represent elements of conflict

-        Ask the question game. What if? Finish each ‘what if’ sentence with the opposite of what your character would want

-        Freewriting and Galumphing with a list of random words (noun, adjective, verb)

-        Read a poem and write a narrative that goes along with it

-        Occupy yourself with mindless activities like washing vessels, walking, showering and let your mind gallop free with ideas

Exercises (partner)

-        Write down a theme, a character, and a setting (thirty seconds), then switch with a partner. Free write using those elements for 5 minutes. Share your work

-        Pretend you are your character, going to a therapy session. Have your friend be the therapist and ask questions about your choices

-        Grab a packet of post its, and after sharing each other’s premises, write whatever words come to mind. Take turns writing on post its, going back and forth, and sticking them to a wall (or each other!) When you run out of words, gather them up, and use your post it pile as prompts

Technology Resources for Brainstorming

-        Scapple- an app by the creators of Scrivener

-        The Brainstormer- provides trigger words/situations/scenarios to help you get ‘unstuck’

-        Mindnode- a mind-mapping tool

-        Lists for writers- provides writer prompts and lists for brainstorming elements of a story

-        A novel idea- A place to write your ideas if you’re stuck in an inconvenient location

Printed Resources for Brainstorming

-        Fool-proof Outline- Christopher Downing

-        Ultimate Novel Planning Workbook- Worksheets for Writers

-        Writing the Breakout Novel- Workbook

-        GMC- Deb Dixon : a book for plotting and for elements of a novel, but can also be used to understand story (use this in tandem with the List for Writers app for best results!)

-        Fire up your writing Brain - Susan Reynolds

Falguni and Nisha’s Tips

-        Start with a character. Develop a character completely before writing a story. Free character guides are available online if you want to use a template (Google: ‘character sketch/template for novels’ to find the one that suits your needs)

-        Start with a setting. Google Maps, Pinterest again for bucket list locations, or local news

-        Start with the title. This one is a bit more organic that has to do with the concept you’re dreaming about

-        If you’re stuck in the middle of the story, back up 30 pages. You got off track 30 pages or less before the point of disaster. Rewriting from an earlier point will help you get control of your novel again

-        If you’re stuck halfway through, it’s also a good idea to remind yourself what your character’s goal, motivation, and conflict is. Create a Punnett square (or Google a GMC grid) and take some time to reflect on where you’d like to go

-        It’s also a good idea to think about what your character is most afraid of, or what would be the worst thing to happen to the couple in your story, and make that happen

-        Each heroine should have a strength and a weakness, and each hero should be some form of/embodiment of that weakness, and vice versa

-        Read outside your genre for inspiration: this includes memoir, non-fiction, screenplays and poetry

-        Write out of order! Scrivener is a great tool that can help you reorganize your book using the index card function, if you’re tech savvy and want to try this method

 

Nisha Sharma

-        Twitter/Instagram: @nishawrites

-        Website

-        ‘The Takeover Effect’- Avon Books

-        ‘My So-Called Bollywood Life’- Crown Books for Young Readers

Falguni Kothari

-        Twitter/Instagram: @AuthorFalguni

-        Website

The Story Behind The Object of Your Affections

The Story Behind THE OBJECT OF YOUR AFFECTIONS

I’m a STEM girl to the core. Nothing excites me more than new technology that improves our quality of life. We’ve come a long way from our cave-dwelling hunter-gatherer ancestors to an era where Space X is about to take us to the moon and back. With the advances we’ve made in medicine, we are living longer and reasonably healthier lives. And while new diseases are being discovered every day, so are their treatments…all pointing toward a positive progress.

Let’s look at what medical technology has done for fertility, in particular, through birth control, in vitro fertilization and surrogacy. These days, women (and men) can take their fertility into their own hands and are no longer bound by a biological clock or a faulty reproductive system. They can choose when to have children, whether to have any children at all, and most importantly, how to have them.

In the last decade, surrogacy has been slowly climbing the fertility charts mostly because movie stars are opting to have their children through surrogates. In India, big-name directors and movie stars are eschewing traditional family models to become single parents through surrogacy and adoption. In the last three years, two single (by choice) men have chosen to fulfill their dreams of fatherhood through surrogates. They were tired of waiting for the perfect life partner to appear and decided to get on with their lives.

Reading about these single dads, I was struck by the fact that the need to nurture wasn’t just a woman’s prerogative. Fatherhood is as strong a calling as motherhood—I’ve seen his firsthand in my husband too. Conversely, the desire to put one’s career or self above everything else isn’t only a man’s shtick. The single dads also got me thinking about gender roles and societal myths that propagate motherhood as being a woman’s “true purpose in life.” That’s not to say that it isn’t or can’t be for a lot of women. But, what about the women who don’t wish to be mothers? The women who are fulfilled just as they are—childless, yet happy—surrounded by the people they hold dear, and the work they thrive on? Should these women be forced to have a child against their will because their spouses want children or society deems it so? And why should the spouse who does want a child be deprived of his desire either when medical advancements allow for a satisfactory compromise?

And yet, how many women (and men) end up compromising to societal mores? We live in a world where judgments have become as commonplace as breath. Our appearance, our intellect, our choices, our beliefs, nothing is exempt from comment. We judge others or are judged by them with the frequency of a status update. The larger the step off the beaten path, the harsher the judgment. And then there’s the guilt of either conforming to the rules and betraying yourself or following your heart and disappointing loved ones.

In The Object of Your Affections, I’ve attempted to address these issues and the stigmas attached to them through the points-of-view of two strong yet vastly different women who are best friends. In Paris, we have a protagonist who is happy just as she is…except she knows her husband wants a child, and has given up his dream of fatherhood for her. To assuage her guilt, she finds the perfect solution to the problem by asking her best friend, Naira, who is going through her own life upheavals, if she would agree to be a gestational surrogate. Of course, such decisions and intricate relationships are never without a cost, and both women come to realize it through the course of the novel. As in life, fictional stories must be fraught in tension.

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More links: https://falgunikothari.com/