The writers of Family Guy are Manatees?

Virtually what we've been doing but with manatees instead of students.

Watch from 10 minuets 30 seconds in!

What other ways are good to generate ideas? In my opinion, couldn't anything work? Obviously you can't just sit there waiting for an idea to pop up without a pen and paper! so what methods are there?

There's brainstorming/ mindmaps/ explosion diagram (mindmaps, in this 'P C' world we live in), everyones done a mindmap at some point and for me they never work, especially on my own. I just seem to sit there with the title of the brief in the middle with a circle round it and one line coming off it which goes nowhere.

Group ones work well because you have more people working on them, which means if you have no ideas to start with, but someone else dose, then you can expand on theirs.

This website below is saying the opposite to me (mindmapping alone is better than in a group) which goes to show that it doesn't work for everyone!

http://www.mindtools.com/brainstm.html

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Another website had a top 10 list of ways to generate ideas, one of witch was, carry a note pad everywhere you go, something you may see that inspires you might be forgotten if you don't write it down or take a picture of it. Then looking back at the note pad weeks, maybe years later, you might use it for something or it might branch out to create a story or a character ect.

This is the website (its number 10 in the list)
http://www.powerhomebiz.com/vol7/brilliantideas.htm

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The last website i looked at did a survey which came up with these results..

"I asked the group to tell me under what circumstances did they have their best ideas. Their responses really surprised me. Here’s what came up:

“When riding my motorbike”
“In the bath”
“When I’m on holiday”
“When reading fiction”
“While cycling”
“When I’m swimming”
“When I’m painting”
“When I’m deeply relaxed”
“When I’m playing with my children”
“At the Opera or a classical music concert”
“In the shower”
“When I’m out walking”

Notice anything really interesting here? Not one person said it was when they were working! I was stunned. I thought one or two people at least would have said their ideas came while at work."

So obliviously being in a working environment doesn't work as well as if you were doing stuff which relaxes you, something you like to do, Hobbies?

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You can also get ideas from events that mean something to you. Something personal to yourself could be a good start and could be expanded into a story.

Song writers in the 60's got inspiration for songs of the Vietnam war and the event that happened in America because of the war, like the Draft, which meant many Americans from the age of 16? had to go and fight in the war. Also Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young had a successful folk/rock song called 'Ohio' which was in response to the Shootings at a university in Ohio during the Vietnam War.