More Than One Way to Get There

By: Rebecca Irvine

Writing a book involves much more than developing a plot that gets the reader from point A to point B. Everyone loves a good plot twist, but it is not always easy to come up with creative, yet plausible, ones. It helps if authors try to look at the problem presented by their plot in different ways. Here is a list of various strategies that can be used in problem solving; you have probably already used some (if not many) of them. But by trying to use new problem-solving strategies, you might just find new ideas worth writing about.

Build up
Eliminate
Work forward
Work backward
Associate
Display
Organize
List
Check
Diagram
Visualize
Hypothesize
Simulate
Role play
Exaggerate
Understate
Separate
Adapt
Question
Incubate
Dream
Discuss
Compare
Contrast