How to spark creativity

Do you remember the last time you had that great idea?
In a flash, you had the whole story laid out in front of you and your mind's eye.
But now you're looking at a new story and not sure where to go. Below are a few ideas on how to get started with a new story in how to spark your creativity for writing a new short story where the beginnings of a new novel.

Try jotting down ideas on a piece of paper. This is similar to what some people call mind mapping. Start in the center of the paper with one idea, usually a sentence. Draw a circle around that one sentence and start brainstorming ideas off of that. Draw lines from the first idea to the second idea, see how they relate. Possibly, there will be offshoots of your first or second circle. This is great! This is what you want. You want to have many ideas related to each other. Some of these ideas may be the main storyline for your story, while others will be subplots for the story. And some of those ideas will go off on tangents and might not be good for the story and save them anyway, you might need them later for a different story.

Many writers take a drive to clear their minds. They may take a mini recorder with them while driving as the silence and the scenes spur creativity.

Some writers like to sit in coffee shops and observe others which gives some great insight into characters and will give them great ideas for a character driven story.

The most important thing to remember here is that you may have to take a step away from your computer or your journal and get outside of your normal thinking patterns to come up with great stories.