How to Brainstorm a Book: 4 Unique Techniques for Writers

Why Brainstorming Is the Best Part of the Self-Publishing Process

Brainstorming is my favorite Stage of The Writer’s LifeCycle. It is the time when I get to write everything down without pressure or judgment. Every morning, I wake up with a brand-new idea that I want to use, and I have to write it down. In this blog, I share a few methods I use and invite you to try one of them out this summer.

How to Use Dream Journaling as Creative Writing Prompts

Something that I realized over the past few years is that my dreams often go hand in hand with the projects I'm focusing on. When I go to lay down, I ask myself what I'm needing to further develop in my writing projects, and I'll brainstorm, or research. And when I wake up, I usually have more ideas to add to my writing.

I've kept dream journals for years. My dreams are strange, and I like to record them, even if they make no sense at all. I noticed that my dreams connect to the themes, characters, settings, and emotions of my writing projects. And yes, I have both realistic and unrealistic dreams. They often act as a form of brainstorming for my writing.

Oftentimes, dreams will be missing the beginning or the end, which is fine. What I look for are the details that felt the most important, the imagery that I can recall, and the emotions that I woke up to. Each of these becomes a form of a prompt during my dream journaling when I wake up. Sometimes a whole short story comes from one or multiple dreams. I even get dreams that are recurring with the people, places, themes, and use those to create my stories.

Keeping a dream journal helps me to recall, and to later go back and retrieve, what can actually be used as "content."

Writing on Everything But Paper

Ideas don't wait for me to step away from what I'm doing. They show up in the most random places, even the bathroom.

The solution is to keep notebooks, index cards, or dry-erase markers in every room. I keep notebooks and writing utensils in every room, and my favorite rooms to brainstorm and write in are the kitchen and bathroom.

The dry-erase marker is my favorite tool for this, and instead of grabbing paper, I'll write directly on whatever surface fits the idea I'm having. If it's a quick theme while I'm cooking, it goes on the fridge. If it's a quote or something I need to remember, that goes on the mirror. And if it's a character or a plot idea I want to work through, that's what the bathroom tiles are for.

Important Note: Before you try this anywhere in your own home, test the surface first. Some surfaces won't wipe clean easily, the rough texture of a kitchen refrigerator, or tile grout in the bathroom, for example. Testing first means you won't damage anything.

Once you know a surface is safe, it opens up a lot of possibilities. In the kitchen, I'll be cooking and get inspired, so I'll jot down a main theme or topic with a few bullet points on the appliance. Later, I'll snap a photo and turn those quick notes into a more developed brainstorming session.

The bathroom is where I get specific. I keep a bin of dry-erase markers on the counter. The mirror is for my "aha" moments, quotes that resonate with my project, or something I need to remember before I forget it.

Then there's the shower tile writing. I'll write a character, setting, or theme on the top row of tiles and use the tiles below to fill in the details. I call this Tile Mapping. It works like mind mapping, giving you visual organization, and it's useful at nearly every stage of the writing process. What it does for me is let me write bigger than I ever could on notebook paper. Every time I walk back into that space, I'm looking at my most useful content, which means more "aha" moments, sometimes in the strangest moments.

I've also learned to leave space between some of the tiles, especially when I know a section is going to need more room to grow later, and I don't stop at one row either, I use the entire shower wall for this. Surprisingly, taking a shower doesn't erase any of it, as long as the water stream isn't hitting that part of the wall directly, and when I run out of room, I'll even keep going onto the side of the tub.

You can take this further and create timelines for a story, where each column marks a specific point in the story and each row holds the scenes underneath it. And if tile isn't your space, this same idea scales up. Some writers buy chalkboard paint for a wall and work with chalk instead. Others use big rolls of paper and decorative tape to build a timeline straight onto the wall. That gives you a space to write even bigger, and it stays up as a visual every time you sit down to write. To take this strategy further, I study master mind mapping techniques to keep refining how I structure these spaces.

I also utilize symbols in this process. I'll weave in hashtags (#) to indicate important themes, tag symbols (@) to identify people or places, and arrows (→ ← ↑ ↓) to show progress or making a connection to something. These help me brainstorm plotting later in The Writer's LifeCycle.

Cloud Mapping: A Visual Shorthand to Discover Your Story’s Themes

When I first started writing short stories for weekly contests through Reedsy Prompts, this is exactly how I figured out what I was writing about. I'll put my main idea in the center of the page, inside of a large cloud, usually just a word, phrase, or image, and allow myself to draw smaller clouds branching off from it.

Each of those branching clouds acts as its own layer of detail. Sometimes it's a subtopic I need to explore further, sometimes it's a character taking shape, and sometimes it's a setting or conflict that needs its own space to grow. I let the branches keep going as far as they need to, since a single cloud can turn into its own small cluster once I start pulling at it.

In each cloud, or even on the bottom of the page, I'll tag keywords with a hashtag (#), the same symbol I use on the tiles. It sounds like a social media thing, but it works because it shows you which words or ideas keep appearing in your brainstorming sessions. Those are your themes, and many new writers may not even know what theirs are until they utilize this method. They tell you what the story is really about, even if you had a completely different plan going in.

I'll also tag people or places with the @ symbol, the same one I reach for on the tiles when I need to mark who or where a scene belongs to. It's the same shorthand no matter which surface or method I'm using, so once you know what a symbol means, you know it everywhere.

Cloud mapping doesn't always give you a perfect outline right away, but it helps you recognize patterns in your own brainstorming and writing stages.

The M.A.S.H. Technique: Using Randomness to Break Writer’s Block

Do you remember M.A.S.H.? Mansion. Apartment. Shack. House. You played it as a kid on a folded piece of notebook paper to predict who you would marry and how many kids you would have. I use the same spiral and cross-off mechanic to build characters and story worlds from scratch, and I pair it with a second tool that works the exact same way, a randomized spinning wheel.

Here's how it works. Instead of listing out housing options like the original game, I build categories around what a story needs. You list several options under each category, then either spiral and cross off the M.A.S.H. way, or load them into a digital spinning wheel and let it land where it lands.

• Setting: where the story takes place and what shapes it, pulled from options like a Ghost Town, an Old Asylum, a Harbor Town, or a Carnival. 

  
  

• Character: who the story follows and what drives them, an Artist, a Detective, The Orphan, or The Trickster. 

  
  

• Conflict: what's standing in their way, a Betrayal by a Friend, a desperate Race Against Time, a Hidden Identity, or The Heist gone wrong. 

  
  

• Arc: whether they end up succeeding or failing, and where they land by the end that's different from where they started, a character who goes from Coward to Hero, Bitter to Forgiving, or Isolated to Connected. 

Whatever you're left with is a story you didn't plan. That's the point. The randomness pulls you somewhere you wouldn't have gone on your own, and you're not writing the idea you would have chosen; you're writing the one you landed on and figuring out how to make it work.

I use this for short story brainstorming especially. It's genuinely fun and also kind of hard, because there's no second guessing or swapping it out for something more comfortable. That challenge is where some of my most interesting stories have come from. Try it. Give yourself a time limit and commit to whatever your spiral or wheel lands on.

If the M.A.S.H. Technique is the one you want to try, I put together two downloads to make it easier. The M.A.S.H. Technique: Drawing Cards gives you all fourteen categories already to be printed, ready to cut apart and draw from the way I described above. The M.A.S.H Technique: Story Wheel Workbook has the same categories in checklist form, so you check off what sparks something, then load your picks into an online spinning wheel and carry the results straight into a seven-beat story structure. Both are free on my resources page, along with the Dream Ledger. 

Which Creative Brainstorming Method Will You Try First?

You don't need to use every method in this post. Pick the one that already sounds like how your brain works. If you've been paying attention to your dreams lately—or want to start—try keeping a journal by your bed this week. If you're someone who thinks better with a marker in your hand, grab one and see what happens on your fridge or bathroom mirror. If a blank page and a cloud in the middle of it sounds more like your speed, try cloud mapping and see what themes keep showing up. And if you liked spirals and folded paper as a kid, or you just want the randomness to decide for you, the M.A.S.H. and spinning wheel method is where I'd start.

Brainstorming isn’t just about getting it right the first time, it's about getting it out of your mind. Try whichever one of these methods that is calling to you and let it show you what you’re really writing about.

If dream journaling sounds like something you want to start, you don't have to figure out the format from scratch. You can grab my FREE Dream Ledger to record your own brainstorming sessions after your nights of vivid dreams. It includes 7 nights’ worth of space to capture the details, imagery, and emotions you wake up with, so nothing gets lost before you have a chance to turn it into content.

Let us know in the comments below which methods you’ve tried from this post, or your own brainstorming methods you’ve found to be useful. We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Sources:

Tapping into Your Subconscious: Dream Journaling for Writers – Author’s Pathway, Lisa Tener, March 7, 2025

50 Dream Journal Prompts to Unlock Your Subconscious – Timeside, March 24, 2026

100 Magical Journal Prompts for Creative Inspiration – Dream Dash Journal, Kristen, April 4, 2023

Journal Prompts for Dreamers – Writing Forward, Melissa Donovan, November 21, 2024

Glossary (Mind Mapping) – The Graduate Center, The Writing Center

Master Mind Mapping Techniques for Effective Writing – Behind the Draft, Daniel Redbird, June 8, 2026