No matter how much I plan, outline or brainstorm, there are times when I don’t know what to write next. Simple things feel like chasms on the page. I used to just sit there, staring at the words trying to figure out something, running through possibilities until I found something I liked. More often than not, a good answer did not just pop into my head. Occasionally I would stumble upon an acceptable answer.

After many attempts to break this frustration, I modified a note-taking technique. It aids brainstorming by keeping the ideas and questions keep flowing. Asking the right question can bring many new ideas.

Here's an example. The hero needs to run to the store for some batteries, because what self respecting hero has enough batteries on hand? In this world, however, aliens have made society complicated and I’ve just realized I don’t know what kind of car the hero has. Oh no!

So I start with a blank piece of paper and a question. What kind of car does the hero drive? Then I write all possible answers that come to mind without culling them for absurdity or whether I like the idea. Sometimes the act of writing gives me more ideas, I write everything down. The idea that he might have a tank, leads to the idea that it could be a military vehicle and I write more bubbles for different kinds of military vehicles.

If I get stuck, I go through each option and ask questions like, “What would this answer mean?” In the case of a military vehicle, it might be, “Where did he get it?” Ex-military? Scavenged? Then if he’s scavenging vehicles, maybe he’s modifying them, or knows someone who is modifying them. That leads to a whole node of custom vehicles and options, and possibly new characters.

Instead of staring at a half written paragraph that ends with “and our hero gets into his…”. I now have a full page of ideas to choose from.