7 Tips to Find Inspiration When Writing

by Lucía Alonso @lucialonso

Alberto Chimal’s best tips on finding inspiration for writing memorable stories

You may think that inspiration comes spontaneously and lets authors write incredible stories without interruptions or hesitation, but this is not the case. To write well, you have to practice, and to find the inspiration, you must know where to find it.

Author Alberto Chimal (@albertochimal) reveals some of his best tips to find inspiration when writing, and exploit your narrative potential.

1. Set aside time to write

Aim to write a little every day, every week, or at least set yourself a realistic goal—that you must keep to and complete—something you can fulfill whenever it is possible. The most important thing is that you respect the time dedicated to writing and make sure others also respect it.

2. Look for the perfect space

Find a space where you can write: at home, in your study, or even in a public place or café. It needn’t be a place you use specifically for writing, but it should be comfortable for you to concentrate and develop your stories.

3. Use your favorite tools

No rules dictate that inspiration comes more quickly if we write with a fountain pen or that the muses won’t visit us if we spend too much time in front of a computer screen. Choose the writing tool you are more comfortable with or your favorite among what you have available.

4. Make some initial decisions

The beginning of a fantastic story can lie in the small decisions you’ll make before you start writing it. Think about the characters you would like to be the protagonists or make an appearance in your script; think about places you would like to explore as the story develops; and about other elements like the storyline, the structure, and the perspective with which you would like to experiment. Try to include them in your work.

5. Experiment

Don’t get stuck with some aspects of your story. At times, making small changes in the story allows the story to come together, with all the elements fitting like pieces of a jigsaw that start to work well as a whole. Take a different perspective, tell about other events, allow yourself to experiment with those, and try other options until you are happy with the result.

6. Think of an ending for your story

Whenever you can, think about how you want your story to end. This will give you a vision of how you want your characters and events to develop. It is often easy to be caught up in the revision and correction of the events we are narrating, so it is crucial to have the ending clear in our mind.

7. Don’t feel bad if, in the end, you are not satisfied with the story

We won’t always achieve optimal outcomes in the practice of writing. We can learn from our mistakes and probably learn more from those than from our successes. All writing is a learning process we each do at our own pace.