Creative writers have learned that “thinking outside the box” can be done effectively by creating your own box to think outside of. By setting your own restraints around something you understand, the mind is then freed up to explore the issue in the way you define. For example, deriving abstract ideas from a metaphor of an object.
- What I know
- What I don’t know
- Looking for the gaps
- Creating my own box to think outside of
- “If my right foot was a house…”
Write about this for 10 minutes then share with your neighbour, talk through how you got there.
- “If my brain was a body of water…”
- Personify a body part
Choose a body part, personify it then ask it some questions as if it was that person, how does the body part reply?
- Where do you live?
- What was your first day like?
- What is the best sound you ever heard?
- What were your last dreams?
- What happens to you when night comes?
- What do you sing when you’re happy?
- What is your name for God?
- What is your sign of the zodiac?
- What is your favourite colour?
- Tell me…
- something you know
- something you don’t know
- something you will never know
- Then describe the results of your exploration as an art form, for example:
- A sonnet
- A limerick
- An acrostic
- A ballad
- A poem
- A haiku (5,7,5 syllables with a nature element)
- An abstract painting