Writing is one of the most satisfying and at the same time debilitating human activities. You get a blank screen and a flashing cursor with a blank page and your mind going to a million ideas — and nothing happens. Those words you had just so clear in your head just a few moments ago are gone and you’re left with a quiet “hummmm, hummmm” from writer’s block. If you’ve ever been there, then a random sentence generator is the non-conformist that you have been looking for, every writer has.
In one sense it seems the concept is a little crazy. How we can a machine-generated sentence can be used for the inspire creativity? Isn’t that cheating? The short answer is: No — and the longer answer is: very interesting about the process of creativity.
The “Pure” Creative Process is a myth
The idea that there is a kind of organic quality to great writing, as it comes out of a writer’s mind, without being influenced by other people, is a romantic one. That’s never been the case, though. Overheard words in cafes, words scribbled on the napkins of men at table, words half heard at the dawn of day have been sources of inspiration for writers throughout the ages. In fact, the muse can’t be picky when it comes to the sources of inspiration.
Random sentence generator are nothing new; they are just the updated version of the technique of giving an “oh, crap!” moment to trigger something within you that had already been there. It doesn’t write for you. It talks to you — and your response to it is where writing starts.
Discovering the Power of Creative Problem Solving
The worst enemy of good writing is not laziness it’s habit. Our brains are pattern recognizers and writers get into ruts. You use the same openings as you use in your stories, same story structure and the same emotional beats. To you it seems like it’s becoming like a formula.
Random sentence generators do not abide by that pattern. In a few instances, their brain is challenged to think in an unfamiliar way, such as when a tool offers you a message like “The lighthouse keeper gathered all of the mirrors he could, but never looked into any of them. The premise is too weird, too particular, too surprising: You can’t rely on your instincts. Original ideas are on the side and you have to look there.
There is plenty of research in the field of creativity that shows this type of lateral thinking. It is called “conceptual blending” in the field of psychology, and is the process that the mind uses to link two seemingly unrelated ideas to create a new one. A random sentence gives you half of the equation and you use your imagination to fill in the rest.
A Handy Handout for All Stages of Writing
Random sentence generators are not only for beginners or individuals with a blank page. They can be helpful during the entire writing process.
They provide a pathway in for first drafts. You don’t agonize over the perfect opening line; you pick one that’s been generated, and respond to it, argue with it, or use it as a starting point. The fear of the blank page is quickly erased.
For fiction writers, they are character and plot goldmines. One weird sentence can bring about a character you would never have thought up on purpose, or one can force a plot in a direction that you hadn’t intended. Many of the most popular story ideas in fiction originated in crazy, accidental ways — the way a random generator does it.
For essayists and bloggers, these are the tools that aid perspective shifting. If you’re writing on a familiar subject, a random sentence can provide you an angle that you hadn’t thought of. It may take you 20 minutes to debate the sentence you’ve generated, and by the middle of the debate, you may realize that you’ve written your best paragraph in months.
For poets, the tools almost made for them. Poems live on surprising encounters, strange images, a surprise in the language. A random sentence gives you the raw material that’s already working in an interesting way and you just need to work it into a form that is interesting to you.
Embrace the Absurd to overcome it.If you’re afraid of the Absurd, embrace the Absurd!
There is a online free web tool which is called Random generators are not very popular among writers because they generate ridiculous sentences. Clouds taste like old furniture—it’s what a mailman said. Where am I going to use that?
However, this pain is the key. The ability to use crazy, flawed material is a crucial writing skill. In real life, your best ideas will seldom be ready when you turn them on. They’ll arrive in pieces, as paradoxes, as things that don’t seem to make sense. A writer who is capable of taking an absurd idea and discovering the truth in it is a writer with a never ending supply of material.
Random sentences are the exercises that build the muscle. It helps you to understand that there’s a possibility where others see nonsense — and that’s true for all other things you write.
A Daily Creative Habit: How to Make it Happen Booklet
Writing is all about consistency and random sentence generators will make it more sustainable to write daily. You don’t have to come up with a prompt every morning, you have a place to start. Now set the timer for 15 minutes, grab your sentence and start writing! No more editing, no more second guessing, just forward movement.
This discipline builds up over weeks and months to something amazing. You will discover your voice is becoming more and more flexible, your sentences more and more surprising, your confidence in taking risks on the page increasing all the time. The generator is no longer a crutch and more a sparring partner to push against your comfortable ways and make you better.
The Bigger Lesson
At the end of this informative article, there is a very important and main thing about using a random sentence generator is that it’s an aspect of a larger process. It’s about being open-minded, thinking that the inspiration may be from anywhere, that any idea is too crazy to pass up, and that it isn’t the writer’s place to wait until something is perfect before taking the plunge.
Yet when you consider them all must be there from within you, whole and brilliant, the blank page becomes frightening. Writing isn’t that way. It never has. The great writers are those who are always curious, adaptable and surprised.
In the same quiet mechanical fashion, a random sentence generator teaches you that. Allow 15 minutes. What you’ll see on the other side may come as a surprise.
