It is all fine and good to talk about being open to new ideas and being flexible in your thinking. The problem is that as you write or pursue any creative work, you will have periods of energetic writing when the ideas and words just pour out of you, and other times, when your mind goes totally blank or only comes up with dull or cliché ideas. That’s when you need to have insight.

Insight is the ability to re-see or re-vision the ideas you have in new ways. To do this we need to use divergent thinking skills.

Divergent Thinking

Divergent thinking is being able to rapidly produce many different ideas when you need them. Rather than coming up with one right answer, a person using divergent thinking comes up with a multitude of different, unique, often wild ideas. Some people call this thinking outside the box. But actually, it is thinking without a box. It is after the ideas are generated that the box is created.

Divergent versus Convergent Thinking

Divergent thinking is rarely taught in school. Our educational system and academic testing most often reward coming up with that one right answer. This is called convergent thinking, and we use this kind of thinking all the time when we say this is the right way to do something – like this is the only way to outline your novel, or never end a sentence with a preposition. So, in the beginning, freely and spontaneously inventing wildly different ideas may be a challenge. But the more you do it, the better you will get at it.

And It Is Worth It. A study done with students at Cornell University showed that improving divergent thinking also improved language skills. Another study showed that divergent thinking created positive feelings and convergent thinking caused negative ones (after all who wants to get a wrong answer?)

Because divergent thinking produces new and unique thoughts it is what creates our personal writing voice.

Developing Divergent Thinking Skills

Free thought, brainstorming, and mind mapping are three ways to explore divergent thinking.

Divergent Thinking Free Thought Exercise

This exercise is designed to give mental practice. It can be done anywhere at any time. You do not need to capture the ideas by writing or recording them unless you wish too.

1. Select any object in your environment.
2. Come up with as many different thoughts and ideas about that object as you can. Be silly. Be fanciful. Have fun. Don’t stop until the timer dings. Remember there are no right answers. There is no test. There is no deadline.
3. Repeat with different objects related to something you are writing about.
4. Assess yourself: Do you find it easy to come up with new thoughts? Are some objects easier for you than others? Why?

Repeat this exercise often with the purpose of coming up with more and more ideas in less and less time.

When to use this: For writers, free thought generation works well when you are blocked on a major point, such as when you need to come up with a twist or when you need a new way to describe something or explain an action. It also makes a great prewriting warm up.

Quick Change Brainstorming

Quick change brainstorming is somewhat similar. The difference is you set an idea limit. This is not as freewheeling as a pure freethought exercise, but it works well when time is of the essence. You will find this easier if you have done many free thought exercises.

1. Select a word, cliché, or other story element that is dull and ordinary.
2. List at least six or more alternatives. I like ten as a number. Usually by number 5, you will be starting to have more unique thoughts.
3. Choose the one that best meets your needs.

When to use this: This method works well during drafting when you don’t want to slow down your writing speed and lose the flow, or when you are revising and need to improve your prose.

Mind Mapping or Webbing

This is a divergent thinking tool for people who are visual thinkers.

1. On your pad, write the event or idea you are stuck on in the center. Draw at least six lines radiating outward.
2. At the end of each, write a possible action by the character or solution. (Alternatively, draw pictures or use shapes)
3. Then draw lines from each action showing what would happen or result if the character did that or if you used that solution.
4. Come up with six results or more.
5. Now look back and choose the action-result combination that is most unexpected or best fits your purpose and that will get you to your end goal.

Why it works. Changing from linear to spatially organized thought spurs news way of thinking. You might use this for a paragraph or a scene or even a chapter.

Here’s a Cinderella example.

You can also try digital ways to mind map, though I find this method more constricting because they make you worried about how the map looks. Scapple, SimpleMind, and Coggle, are inexpensive or free examples of some of the numerous digital, mind-mapping programs available. There are many more for you discover if you are interested. Here’s more on Mind Mapping.

Summary

Divergent thinking is a fabulous way to gain insight on ideas and problems you are having with your writing.

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