How to Get Ideas for Writing Article?

How to get ideas for writing Article?

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

‘Ideas rule the world.’ Hence, they are omnipotent. As a writer you frequently come across ideas and deal with them according to your will and pleasure. Ideas brings out a writer from you, enlighten you, making you more resourceful, competent and versatile. Sometimes, as a writer, you feel embarrassed when you are bereft of ideas and struggles to write. When writing is your passion, you cannot remain dormant just because you are lacking in ideas.

As a writer, your brain is the powerhouse as well as the storehouse of ideas, information and knowledge.

When you are a creative writer, ideas emanate from your brain.But your brain needs to be constantly updated and refreshed so as to keep you as a resourceful person. In fact, your natural ability as a writer and your writing skills are honed up by the combination of factors, like your personal experience and the knowledge that you acquire by your voracious reading and from the experience of others.

In the modern times, when people were constantly on the look out for means and ways of salvation from this birth, it was Henry Thoreau who offered a very simple solution ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is Within You!’ Similarly, as a writer if you are constantly on the look out for ideas, it can be said: ‘The source of ideas is within you.’ Having said that it does not mean you are omnipotent and always bubbling with the ideas.

Ideas that emanate from your personal experience:-

Your personal experience as a child, as a teen, as a lover, as a parent, as an aged person, as an employee or employer, as an artist, as an actor or actress, as a politician, as a victim of any kind, as any other professional and even as a criminal or culprit etc are all providing you with a gamut of personal and practical knowledge gained by you in various roles and capacities.

What you have to do as a writer is simply to open the storehouse or treasure trove of your brain and run the time machine backward or forward to recall and search from the invaluable information to look out for ideas for writing available therein.

Ideas gained from the experience of others:-

Apart from the personal experience gained by you, you can also have invaluable information from other people from various walks of life, by interacting with them or by interviewing them. The essential prerequisite for gaining knowledge from the experience of others is that you have to keep your eyes and ears wide open and as a writer always on the look out for new ideas and look at things from a different perspective than an ordinary person looking at it. Likewise, when you have a chance to hear the conversation of others, it may contain the seeds of a short story or an article or even a novel. What you require is the application of your mind to the given facts and triggers your creative talent.

Ideas gained from other external sources:-

1) By reading the writings of others:-

As a writer, you should always be a voracious reader. If you are concentrating on any particular genre of writing, say fiction, it is always useful to read the works of other writers so as to get inspired, besides learning different styles of writing. You should not only read classics like Shakespeare and his contemporaries but also modern writers, so as to keep yourself abreast of current trends in writing. Similarly, in case of non-fiction writings like essays and articles, you should read others as much as possible that may serve you with new source of information and ideas.

2) By reading News Papers and Magazines, fiction and non-fiction:-

Part of the wide reading process, as a writer, you should also read a number of newspapers and magazines so as to update your knowledge on current affairs; even a strange incident or episode may also catch your attention and inspire your imagination to write a short story or novel or that may become a source of an article or blog. Reading newspapers and magazines also help a writer to learn the current linguistic trends that prevail in a particular region. Similarly reading the fiction and non-fiction works of other writers provide a great source of inspiration and ideas.

3) By browsing Internet :-

Internet has shrunk the world so small; it facilitates easy and faster communication to every nook and corner of the world. Irrespective of your status as a writer, whether you are a newbie or a renowned and established writer, Internet has become the mainstay of your profession and inspiration. The plethora of information provided by the Internet Public Library, British Library, dictionary.com, reference.com etc, the search engines like Google.com,yahoo.com, web fetch.com,ask.com, the newsgroups like Google groups,http://groups.google.com, alt.journalism, alt.writing, misc.writing, screenplays and writers newsletters like Dan case’s Writing for Dollars, absolute write, Writers Weekly, ezinearticles.com news letter and Pearl Luke’s News Letter are a few samples that serve as source of information and ideas to writers.

Number of Forums in various web sites like Indus ladies.com, Helium.com, Triond.com, Boddunan.com, ezinearticles.com, provide excellent source of information and inspiration providing ideas for writers.

Exclusive websites meant for writers like Writers Digest.com, Writing.com and Writing World.com etc provide useful writing tips for writers, besides guiding you towards a number of poetry, short story and essay competitions. The monthly magazine published by the Writers Digest is a must for a full time writer, to keep you updated about the Writers World.

Writing prompts provided by the Writers Digest and Writing Prompts.com etc are great source of ideas and inspiration to the budding writers as well as the established writers.

Various freelancing sites like world freelancing.com, elance.com, Getafreelancer.com, and Guru.com provide ideas and freelancing opportunities to writers.

Besides there are a number of article submitting directories like ezinearticles.com, which are quite useful for writers. In particular, the ezinearticles.com is a premiere article directory that classifies writers into three categories like basic, basic+ and platinum on the basis of their writing standard and their eligibility to submit a fixed number of articles. Writers in the platinum category can submit unlimited number of articles. As a writer if you wish to have some ideas for writing, you will not be disappointed when you browse thousands of articles in the site. Apart from that, the site also offers some innovative article writing training through on line that further sharpens and inspires a writer.

Sites like Triond.com, which has a number of subsidiary web sites like web upon, quazen, authspot, sports tale, socyberty, health mad etc, accepts and publishes writers articles and post them in the relevant site on the basis of their category. You have also an added advantage in the web site. Triond highlights the current trendy topics to its writers besides giving them an opportunity to browse them to have an idea  about them .It is for the writers to take their own initiatives and to avail the opportunity to have an idea of them and get updated. In fact Triond does not impose any restriction in getting yourself updated and writing articles. Another highlight of the site is the Hot Content list that not only helps the best articles that have been published to get highlighted but also enables writers to get inspired and have ideas for new articles.

Thus there is no dearth of ideas for writers. In fact ideas are galore and they are omnipresent.