Writers of fiction, poetry, TV and movie scripts, song lyrics, and even advertisements, rely on their ability to come up with ideas and put them into words. Consistently coming up with ideas for creative writing can be challenging, but there are ways to stimulate your creativity and avoid writer's block. The following steps present some of these methods for generating creative writing ideas. Read widely . Good writers are good readers. Not only can you keep abreast of trends in your writing specialty and see examples of other writers' styles, but you can also find story ideas from what you read, whether in newspapers, magazines, books, or online. Reading a newspaper, news magazine, or news website on a regular basis can provide you with a steady stream of story ideas in the form of news events. The TV shows in the "Law and Order" franchise based many of their stories on recent headlines, and 1 theory on the origin of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" was that it mirrored the life of King James I. You'll have to change some of the elements in the real story for your fictionalized versions. Other works of fiction can serve as inspiration for your stories, as well. Scholars have cited the influence of the Scandinavian legend of Amleth and the Roman tale of Brutus on "Hamlet." For more modern example, science fiction author John Varley took the title of his time-travel story "Millennium" from a novel by fellow author Ben Bova and used the titles of