5 Great Ideas For How To Boost Creativity In Writing

If your writing needs a boost, you need to think outside the box (or book). Here are some quick tips to show you how to boost creativity in writing even if your well is dry.

Back up and then go in reverse.

Would you keep driving your car if you realized you were going in the wrong direction? Or if you had an engine problem? So stop writing if you feel like you’re headed the wrong way or not getting anywhere. After you take your hands off your keyboard, take a few deep breaths, close your eyes and imagine a beautiful place with you in it, writing with fluidity and ease. Then take the opposite approach you were using a few minutes ago.

If you usually write from the heart without thinking what words are coming next, try outlining. If you need structure, like an outline, mind map, or a tool like Scrivener, which lets you write now and organize later. It’s there running in the background and figuring out where you’re going with a topic even if you don’t know yet. It keeps all your information, including research, in one place while helping your brainstorm.

Mind Maps don’t have to be boring.  I think of them as “instant creativity.” They can unleash creativity you didn’t know you had. They can help you link and group information. Words and pictures help us better retain our thoughts and lead us toward clarity. Plus, mind maps help us link and group information. Like, a character’s strengths and weaknesses. Or 10 ways we can fund a project.

However, if you happen to be a formidable outliner, try writing in flow instead of organizing. You know who you are. You’re the writer who likes to research a subject to death. You’re the one who wants to copy edit each paragraph, even before you finish the paragraph. Take a scene and let it play out in front of you, writing down the details. Or take a character whom you don’t know, and interview them. Or if you’re writing something with your left brain, like a business proposal, imagine the outcome of your efforts. What’s missing in your proposal in your futuristic scene?

If you’re stuck, take a walk. If backwards doesn’t work, move forward.

Moving your body makes your mind move, too, and it makes the writing gremlins move out.  Exercise alleviates stress and helps us produce more endorphins. Recent research takes the benefits of exercise on creativity one step closer. Exercise grows the part of the brain that’s good for creativity, helping our imagination, come up with new ideas, and problem solve. These benefits continue long after we stop exercising, maybe even for an entire day, for the typical writer who exercises with regularity.

Listen to music, doodle, or sign up for dance lessons.

When I’m trying to speed up the creative process in my writing, I become more creative in other areas. Soon enough, your brain catches on that creativity is FUN, and it allows you continue on to the next chapter in your writing. What kinds of creative processes you enjoy doing is up to you. My favorites are listening to music, learning a new piece of music myself through singing or piano, doodling (I wish I could really draw, but creativity thrives on doing, not perfecting, and you, too, can do doodles), or dancing. Even the way I exercise is creative because I’m always thinking of new ways to engage my body. It’s all about changing things up.

Engage your Body, Mind, and Soul.

If you’re always running and never sitting still. Sit. Still. If you spend all day at your desk, get up and move. The key is to engage all parts of you. Your words come from your mind, which won’t be healthy if we don’t engage our body. And our Muse (what I believe to be our Soul or Spirit) won’t respond unless we ask it to through meditation or some other form of energy work. Countless ways exist to engage all three parts of Self into balance, so many that I’ll probably write another blog about it, but the key is to use the one that works best for you. Meditation with music and movement works for me. So does the InVision ® process, which I also incorporate into my clients’ sessions. We must get out of our stories in order to write a new story.

And…the best way how to boost creativity in writing? LIVE!

The best way to write a new story, both for ourselves and on our computer screens for others, is to create a new, real story. We have to live to interest others. “What did I know best that I had not written about and lost? What did I know about truly and care for the most? There was no choice at all,” said Hemingway. I’ve found both my fiction and nonfiction has become enriched by the life I’ve led. It’s not that I didn’t have enough to write about from the beginning. I’d still like to write about people and events that happened around me very early on. However, the living has given me a wiser perspective on it all. So if your writing feels stagnant, go have an adventure. Travel, meet new people, especially ones different than yourself, discover places that seem almost too fantastic to be true, and have fun. You’ll bring all that and more to your writing–if not now, then later.

So next time you’re stuck on a sentence or searching for inspiration, change something, move, and think outside of the words in front of you. If we change, our writing will respond.

If you’re having trouble creating, innovating, and following through with your writing, I can help. Contact me for a brief introductory creative boost.