This uses elements of matching and mis-matching as well as big picture and detail to produce lots of ideas and content to bring out a full range of creative flexibility you may not have thought you had. What you do with the resulting content is up to you but it’s likely that inspiration for the following elements of your book can all be covered…

• The big idea, benefits or promise
• A title and subtitle
• The main chapter headings
• Your target audience
• Words for the blurb

There are three main ways we sort data in our minds. They are:

1. Chunking Up (where you’ll get all the benefits and reasons why)
2. Chunking Down (where you’ll get all the detail)
3. Chunking Laterally (where you’ll often find the weirdest stuff and metaphors)

This is useful to know because, what most people describe as creativity is really a form of chunking up and chunking laterally – and when you’re not feeling creative it’s almost always because the details are bogging you down.
So here’s what you’re going to do…

1. Get a big sheet of paper
2. Write a theme, topic, audience, main idea or your subject in the centre (draw it as a picture too if you like) – I’ll choose “Being An Author”
3. Draw the lines as shown below
4. Use the questions below to help you chunk in all the directions (up, down, lateral) and negatively (left) and positively (right) from your main theme

Here’s an example of a completed Creativity Matrix…

Now, if you’re more analytical and prefer to work to a proven formula then here are some other useful tools to spark your imagination to come up with potentially profitable and definitely brilliant book ideas…

Choose an overriding theme (you could base this on your prospective target market or your area of expertise) – sum it up in a simple word/phrase and then have a massive brain dump of any words, phrases or ideas that come to mind. This is often better if you have two or more people to bounce ideas off…

I recommend using sticky notes and sticking them all over a wall. Then, once you’re done, take any down that jump out at you and then see how you can combine these ideas to make new connections. Pay attention to any new ideas that pop into your head too – that will be your unconscious mind making links you didn’t see by “trying” to be creative.

You’re not really aiming for a specific end product from this approach but you’ll be surprised what ideas seem to miraculously pop into your head when you do it!

Brainstorming

Pic by jurvetson

If you’re working alone or in a small group (3 or less) then I’d strongly encourage you to use Mind Mapping instead of Brainstorming. However, although it’s an old approach, nothing beats Brainstorming for collaborative creativity.

Here are my rules for getting the best out of Brainstorming sessions

1. Pose a central “question to be answered” or “outcome to achieve” like – “How many ways can an author make money from books?” or “We want at least 30 book title ideas to do with Publishing”
2. Choose one “scribe” or “facilitator” (it’s this person’s job to LISTEN carefully and WRITE down what people say)
3. Write down EXACTLY what people say – “Parrot Phrase” don’t “Para Phrase”
4. Put EVERY idea up – even if you think it’s stupid or a repeat
5. Nobody is allowed to discuss the merits (or not) of ideas going up – they can only add ideas – I like to ban the word “but” or “yes but” when doing this
6. Once all the ideas are up – find a person who’s very detail oriented and critical – and let them make a pros and cons list of all the ideas and rank them in order of importance

Rather than go on about loads of science stuff here (Google “Brain Hemispheres” if you’re really that interested) I’m going to suggest a few activities and games you can play to get your brain working better for you. I suggest that you spend about 5-10 minutes doing this warm up – before you get started with the specific creativity approaches I’ll introduce next.

Brain Warm Up 1 – Juggle – needs hand-eye coordination – uses both hands (hemispheres) and gets them working together – is lots of fun. Try doing it while counting at the same time or if you have different coloured items call the colour out as it passes the centre. If you can’t juggle then learn – it’s a really good brain exercise.

Brain Warm Up 2 - Dance - moving your whole body in time to music is another great way to get your brain working in sync. The more complicated the movements the better but try to feel the music too for that all over brain warm up. Plus it makes you feel good!

Brain Warm Up 3 - Draw – if you tend to be logical detail oriented get doodling. Even if your drawings are rubbish you’ll still get the benefits. It will help re-awaken your latent visual and intuitive side and get it in balance with your already strong logical and pragmatic side.

Brain Warm Up 4 - The Colour Game – Look at the following image and say the COLOUR not the word – out loud. This creates a right brain (colour) – left brain (word) conflict which is great for warming up your two hemispheres and getting them working together.

If you want to know more about the creative power of the right side of your brain then I highly recommend “Drawing on The Right Side of The Brain” by Betty Edwards – you’ll also get pretty good at drawing too!