If You Don’t Know What to Write About, Read This

Don’t overthink it.

Just type a single sentence.

I’m telling you that part upfront because I don’t want you to complicate this problem. The entire history of literature tells me you can start with a sentence. Stephen King began Carrie with a sentence. Shakespeare started A Midsummer Night’s Dream with a sentence. The first line in War in Peace is… guess what? A sentence.

If a sentence is too hard, try using a word.

“I — ”

That’s a good one to start with. You what?

“I remember.”

Amazing. Whatever you’re writing is already loaded with potential. Now, tell us a little more — What is it that you remember?

“I remember her lips.”

Saucy. Now, is this a story about summer romance…?

“I remember her lips wrapped around the purple straw, sand in her hair.”

Or is it a different sort of story altogether?

“I remember her lips, a stab of red on her otherwise white, lifeless face.”

Excellent. Look at the tension you’ve already built. Who is this woman? Why are her lips what you remember? How did she end up at the beach or morgue?

We don’t know. We need you to write more sentences.

I am, of course, painting a scene of Writer’s Nirvana. We both know that between your brain and the keyboard lies a minefield of self-doubt and panic and monsters and mayhem. The demons get loud when your fingers rest just below QWERTY. I don’t know why this is.

Write About a Person You Admire

My grandmother used to yell “Yoo-hoo!” any time we came into the house. She stood in the kitchen with 2 York Peppermint Patties — one for me, and one for my brother. Once I got tall enough, I learned those sweets came from a bowl atop the refrigerator. This was dangerous information. It led to my one and only chunky phase.

I think Grandmommy liked me a little chubby, to be honest. I wondered if she didn’t carry rolls and chicken and green beans in some sort of giant thermos in the trunk of her car. Whenever she was around, we ate.

Eventually I learned to be less selfish (and less hungry), so I started asking her questions. She sat in her favourite chair and told stories. These stories had once been long and unbearable, but now I saw them as epic tales of a time gone by. Once she’d worked a beautiful summer in Cape Cod. Another time she got trapped outside a friend’s house in sub-freezing weather at midnight. She didn’t want to wake anyone up, so she stood there for an hour, stamping her feet and hoping her friend would wake up.

During this point in my life, it occurred to me that my grandmother was not just a grandmother. She was, in fact, a person.

I remember the light in her eyes when she laughed, the lamp behind her casting a halo around her white puff of hair.

Write About a Painful Memory

She died a couple of years ago.

The last time we visited her at Barton House Memory Care, she was sitting in her same chair, a shrunken and shrivelled version of herself. She moved her eyes some, but her mouth hung open. Even if she could have spoken, it wouldn’t have mattered. She didn’t know our names.

Dementia is tough.

The five of us stood around her. I held my wife’s hand. My brother stood between my parents. We sang her favourite song. She didn’t react. Instead, her eyelids closed. Her chest rose up and down slowly.

We slipped out into the hallway, where my brother pummeled me with a hug and buried his face into my shoulder. I was usually the one who cried, so all I knew how to do was squeeze him as hard as I could. Eventually, he choked out a few words:

“I knew she was close, but I didn’t know she would look like…”

He didn’t say it, but we knew. She looked like a skeleton.

Write About How You Feel Today

Today I feel sad because earlier, I smelled peppermint, and the scent reminded me of my grandmother. I thought about the life she led long before I was even born, before my parents were even born.

Even still, I also feel hope: Hope that every person who wants to write anything likely has a story similar to mine. Hope that any encouragement from me can help them remember their own ancestors and feel grateful. Hope that when we write in the face of doubt and fear and demons, the world is a better place.

I also feel grateful. I’m grateful you can finish with a single sentence.