What to Write, When You Don’t Get an Idea.

I’ve had many days in the past where I can’t get enough ideas to write on Medium. I was left blank, with no idea, no stories, no views, no reads, and finally no money. Struggling a lot.

Writers say in their stories that you have to write every day, but how?

Even without an idea of how we can write a great story.

I was lost, depressed, sick.

It was of no use to become a writer without ideas. Then I went to research a lot about it and tried different strategies. Tried and tested it some succeed and some failed.

So I am going to write the ideas where I got succeeded. And I think that you don’t have to totally depend on Writing Groups to promote your stories.

Every writer struggle with What to write, Where do you get better ideas? It’s a little bit tough question but I am going to answer it here.

Ideas can be the substantial concept of writing and the whole story depend mainly on ideas. As a writer, you know how to write a story but don’t know what to write and we are discussing completely about it.

Readers love Crime, Humor, Informative and Critics

Do we try to write in our own way? Right, now try to write in a reader’s way.

I have written a story to express my feeling towards Vocal and it went semi-viral.

Then I wrote about 5 Simple Side Hustle and it is performing better than I expected.

Even I wrote about Machine Learning and it got the most reads on Vocal.

Many of you will be going to click any of the above stories, right because you love the topics.

Similarly, write the topics, a reader wants.

A simple strategy that works for me is that — When you right for a specific niche, go and search on google about it. You will get a lot of posts. Are you reading them all? No, the best one.

But how? By reading the title.

The title engages readers to read it, the post engages the reader to share it and it leads to making a post-viral.

So you have to also do this. Write a better post and engage readers from the title.

But Nitin, you told me about ideas? Yes, my friend read it further.

You can get ideas from anywhere.

Ideas can be anywhere, each writer can get ideas in different ways, at different times, and in different places. Yes, we can get an idea anywhere maybe at libraries, attending the meeting, taking part in discussions, watching TV, reading newspapers, reading books, traveling to an incredible place, or even sitting at home.

But we don’t want to get ideas in this way. So take a look at the below ones. Before going ahead you have to be well versed about what you are writing, maybe it is your expertise, or you have a hobby in it. Expertise simply means suppose you are working as a Software engineer so you can write freely about it because you know more about it.

1. Using Google Trends

According to wordstream.com, Google Trends is a search trend feature that shows how frequently a given search term is entered into Google’s search engine relative to the site’s total search volume over a given period of time.

Google trends will help you a lot to get ideas just search the topic about which you want to write stories and it will show the topic is trending or not.

For example, you want to write about Digital Marketing, search about it. And you will get to see that the graph is increasing and it’s time to go ahead and write about it.

You can search for anything. YES, I mean Anything.

2. Using Quora

Quora had more than 300 million active users in 2019. And it will be going to help you a lot. Search for the trending topics in Quora and write for them.

Want to know more? Then visit Ubersuggest and search for Quora. In the left sidebar, go to Top Pages and you will be going to see the most viewed questions i.e trending questions in Quora. From this, you can get an idea about what to write.

3. Reading Books

Last but not the least, writers mostly spend reading books and increase their productivity and creativity. You have to digest the book completely to get an idea.

Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg read books to get an idea and grow their business.

We have Ideas but not stories

Our mind is constantly popping different ideas but we are not able to catch them. Ideas are there and we lack to generate stories out of them.

We have to concentrate on creating stories from our ideas.

The best way is by using your mobile phone. We all have mobile phones right now why not use them efficiently.

When you get an idea write it inside notes, save it into drafts, send it to your friends.

And when you want to write and publish your stories take a look at your notes.

Now it’s time to go one step ahead. I have written above, Ideas are important for sure. But formatting it into a superior story will be the second most important.

Before You Publish, Read Carefully

Why we are writing? Obviously, For readers. But we are always so quick to publish our stories that we don’t format them in a reader’s way. Our writing isn’t for us — it’s for readers. Write stories that readers particularly enjoy.

Yes, Title, Subtitle, and Image will help to get more views. The first paragraph will create curiosity among readers. But the entire story, its intention will generate your earning as well as fame.

Your helping attitude towards the reader creates more curiosity and get more followers.

Readers want something out of our post.

Read at least 5 times your stories before publishing them. Send it to your friends, take feedback. Then only publish it.

What should be your goal as a writer? The reader should enjoy it.

Just because we enjoyed writing something doesn’t necessarily mean someone else will enjoy reading it — Lindsey Lazarte

Punish Yourself

Aim to write an incredible story, it may be below 500 words, it’s ok. I have written many 4-minute stories and the Medium even curated that.

Try it in a different way readers like it. Write some unique ideas which Medium often curates.

Don’t expect to publish an article every day. It’s even better enough to publish 2–3 stories per week. But make a strict goal.

If you make a goal it’s only to complete it. If you complete your goal reward yourself.

If you don’t get succeed punish yourself. It will help you to get succeeded. For example, if you are not succeeded to complete your goal send that month’s earnings to your parents or your friends to punish yourself.

Originally published at Medium.