WHAT IS AN IDEA?

Selected definitions from the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary:

• A conception of something to be done or achieved; an intention, a plan of action. (L16)
• A picture or notion of anything conceived in the mind. (L16)
• A product of mental activity existing in the mind; an item of knowledge or belief; a thought; a way of thinking. (M17)
• A vague or indefinite notion, belief or opinion; a supposition, an impression (E18)

Selected definition from Chambers English Dictionary:

• an image of an external object formed by the mind: a notion, thought, impression, any product of intellectual action, of memory and imagination

Suggested definition for Exciting Writing participants:

• An ostensibly original relationship between two entities (such as people, objects, concepts, ideas).

HOW CAN WE GENERATE IDEAS?

• Think of an entity.
• Think of another.
• Write sentences that describe new relationships between the entities. These are your ideas.
  In short, new ideas are formed from old ideas.

EXTRACT FROM PG’S BOOKLET: PROFICIENCY IN POETRY

An idea’s something new
that comes to mind. It’s formed by bringing two
ideas together in a new relationship.
It’s best explained by illustration.

Start with the first word I can think of: tree.
That’s not a new idea, obviously:
there have been trees
for centuries,
but they were new once.

Next I need to think
of something else that I can try to link
with tree. It can be almost anything.

I’ll choose road.
All we need to do is bring
the words together in an unexpected way
and we’ll be done.

My first idea comes straight
away: a busy road, a great
big oak tree growing in the middle,
traffic racing round
it. Instantly I’ve found
a new idea (at least it seems original
to me) by building a new bridge
between two old ideas.

I could have made no end of different bridges. If I stayed
with tree and road, for instance, I could think
of ten, perhaps a hundred ways to link
them, like:

• an ancient tree that must be felled
  to make way for a road;
• a tree propelled
  along a road as if it was a truck —
  perhaps another, faster tree is stuck
  behind it, in a tree-truck jam;
• or else a tree-trunk used to dam
  a river, with a little road — a mossy
  track — a bridge where animals can cross.