Brainstorm Your Way to a Book! Simple List-Making Technique Works for Fiction or Nonfiction

A book could be just a list away.  This week's exercise encourages you to start a simple list in your writing notebook:  possible topics you could write about. 

Ask yourself, What could become a scene or section or small moment in my book?

Your challenge:  add three items to your list each day this week.  Watch your book build.

Go wild:  Allow yourself to include things that don’t seem to fit, like a color, image, snapshot memory, dream, desire, smell, favorite meal. Use your own special shorthand and descriptors to jot these ideas down. Choose image-rich words, if you can, so your imagination will be triggered when you read them. The most successful brainstorming lists immediately put the writer into a scene full of senses.

Examples from my current novel's list:

red stain in the carpet
nighttime trees in the orchard behind Molly's (main character's) house
Molly saying no to Lisa--finally

Do Book Writers Need the Right Brain More Than Other Writers?

How do you use your right brain as a book writer?  The right brain brings a writer ideas for theme, emotion, and deeper levels of meaning in a book. The challenge is to activate it.

This week's writing exercise:  Take five minutes to watch this amazing video.  Let your right brain follow the shapes and movement, then write for 10 minutes.  Do new levels emerge?  Does your writing change (and your blood pressure lower)? Click here to try this exercise.