What shall I write About?
I have 60 years of living an interesting life to look back on so I have no shortage of writing ideas. I’m not going to exhaust those ideas very quickly either. I have many experiences and ideas to call on – sometimes choosing can be a challenge. Don’t be discouraged by this if you are quite young just launching your writing career. Even young writers have a wealth of experiences to dig into to discover those little gems to write about.
I read the following quote a few days ago:
‘If you’ve survived adolescence, you have enough to write about for the rest of your life.’ Flannery O’Connor.
How about a few hints and ideas to get you started?
- Write about your most successful achievement so far.
- Write about a time you were very angry with your parents or siblings.
- Write about the time your parents were very angry with you.
- Write about your most embarrassing experience.
- Write about your proudest moment.
- Write down a list of your strengths and weaknesses.
- Write about your goals, ambitions, dreams and even fantasies.
- What needs to change for you to become a writer?
- Write about the person you admire the most.
- Write about the person who has influenced your life the most.
- Write about the things that inspire you.
- Write about the things that anger or disgust you.
When you have written several paragraphs using one or more of these ideas, think about how you can turn this into an article for a magazine. Perhaps you might use your piece of writing as a starting off point for a fictional story.
For example, say you wrote about your proudest moment. Take that experience and turn it into a short story. Because this will be fiction, you can change the details. Also change the names of people involved – to protect both the innocent and the guilty parties! Let your imagination soar. Give your character problems to solve, crises to survive or conflicts to resolve before that ‘proudest moment’ occurs.
Good writing.
Related articles:
- Short story starters – heaps of articles with dozens of ideas for short stories.
- Writing hints – plenty of articles giving hints and tips for writing.