what to write when you don’t know what to write

When you don’t know what to write but feel like writing (and perhaps using your lovely stationery), pick up a book and open it up to a random page.

You can use this technique for commonplacing, journalling, fiction writing, and even studying.

The Random Book Method

Open a book to a random page.
Skim over the page until something catches your attention.
Copy out an excerpt (possibly into your commonplace book).
Look up unfamiliar words (and follow etymological links).
Consider associations with other words, ideas or projects that are active for you.
Follow your curiosity, even if it leads to another book, or a different subject.
Make notes on your findings, as though you’re investigating evidence.

The Simplest Commonplace Book Setup

by Eva, in category Commonplace

I’m confident that this is the quickest, simplest, and most versatile system for setting up a commonplace book.

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Commonplace Book Setup

Write the number ‘1’.
Write your entry.
Write your source.
For your next entry, number it ‘2’, and continue giving each entry its own unique number.

Commonplace Curriculum

by Eva, in category Commonplace, Ideas

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Here’s a fun writing game to unlock new fields of interest and create a study course that can help fill your commonplace book.

Write a numbered list of 10 descriptive words (adjectives, adverbs, etc.) that you love or find evocative.
Write a numbered list of 10 subjects, disciplines or classes that interest you, that you’d like to know more about, or that you’re attending at school or university.
Roll a d10 for your subject list.
1. Subdivide your chosen subject into 4. These can be further divisions of the subject, rubrics, particular schools or branches of the discipline, or any other subcategory.
If you like, repeat #3 for more combinatory power.
Roll a d10 for your descriptive word list.
Combine the results into a “super subject”, thesis or field.
1. Imaginary fields are also great fun and can even lead to very “real” insights.
(Optional) Use the “study ideas” list below to explore your new field.

☞ You can also create a list of all the subdivisions for all the 10 subjects from #2. However, if you plan to roll two d20s to determine the result, remember you’ll need to start your numbering from 2 (because you can’t roll a 1 with two dice), and that you’ll need to remove one item.

How to Plot a Mystery & Plant Clues

by Eva, in category Plotting, Story Scholar, The Making of a Gothic Novel

My mystery plot was just some scattered notebook notes until I tried this method.

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In this video, I use:

a mandala chart,
the One Page Novel story structure,
and a worksheet from my Manuscript at Midnight collection,
to outline the mystery subplot of my dark academia novel.

Write Like Brontë

by Eva, in category Story Scholar, The Making of a Gothic Novel

As I’m working on my own Gothic novel at the moment, I thought I would read Elizabeth Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë for some inspiration, and it instantly re-ignited my admiration for both Brontë and for Gaskell.

Today I thought we could take some prose examples from Charlotte Brontë’s writing, analyse them, see what makes them work, and how we can apply them to our own writing.

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In this video, I look at several passages (from Mina Laury, Jane Eyre, and The Professor), and draw from them both stylistic and structural inspiration.