The Art of Brainstorming Story Ideas

Welcome to Combining Ideas: A Creative Writing Workshop!

This class is designed for new writers looking to sketch out some story ideas, or experienced writers looking to shake up their creative process. Whether you write fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, or a combination, this class will get your engine running, your wings flapping, and your car flying!

Class Overview

Using your own memories as a starting point, you’ll discover multiple story ideas. You’ll choose two of these, and boil them down to their essence using simple drawings as a thinking tool. Then you’ll combine the ideas to synthesise something unexpected. This can lead to deftly mixing styles and genres.

You Will Learn

- To find the essence of an event or idea, then build out from there.

- To work with story ideas visually, breaking the wall between words and pictures.

- To work with ideas as visual artists do, handling them like flexible sketches until you’re ready to develop some in detail.

- To combine ideas into a scene, and combine scenes to make a story.

Why You Should Take this Class

Combining ideas is fundamental to creativity, and one of the best ways to do this is by combining mediums: in this case, writing, drawing and speaking aloud. It’s also great to work with story sketches, trying ideas out before committing to developing some of them.

Who This Class is For

This class is open to writers and storytellers of all levels and genres, so whether you're a beginner or an experienced writer, you'll find something valuable in this class. If you love creative writing and storytelling, you’ll find this to be worthwhile. You don’t need any previous experience for this class.

Who This Class isn’t For

If you’re looking for a traditional writing skill-building class, with breakdowns of the difference between setting, plot and character, this may not be for you. This is more like an idea factory.

Materials: For supplies, you’ll just need lined and blank paper, as well as colored pencils, markers or paints.

By the end of this course, you will have a better understanding of how to boil down ideas, and combine them into stories. You’ll have a collection of story sketches that showcase your unique style and perspective. From there, you may be inspired to develop some of them further.

Join me and let's create together!