There are many different forms of brainstorming, last time we covered two of them, now we will cover a few more. The next aspect of brainstorming we're going to cover is list making. Yes list making, it's not exactly the same as using word association but close. Simply thinking about a setting, or a character or a part of your story you already have, then listing every single thing associated with it in an effort to keep originality.
So say you want to find a job for your character, making a list of jobs, no matter how crazy they may be of whatever you can think of can really help with making an original character that will drive your story. Make sure this is something you're into of course, or something you are willing to learn a lot about. I don't think I need to mention this but nothing worse can happen to your story than simple disinterest of something as big as a character's job.
But this isn't only for your character's job, this can be the same for settings, themes, or genres. This is for anything you may be stuck on in terms of your story or comic.
Another more simple thing to do is to write the story you want to read. But this could be a bit difficult if what you want to read is say something totally original, but if it's similar to an existing story that already exists it makes things somewhat easier. However a good rule of thumb is not to just take your influence from one source, maybe more than two or three sources because if it's from one source then you're copying, if it's from more than two then you can mash them up in anyway you want. Add the situations you want, add the things you want to do.
If you're really stuck, and have no ideas still, this could be a good exercise, take an existing story and rewrite it with your own characters or situations, or whatever in the way you want. This of course won't be able to be published however, (unless you alter it beyond belief like what happened with Twilight and 50 shades of Gray for example), it's simply an exercise to help to get the juices following.
This is a bit more unorthodox, but something I've used in the past to help that that is music. Not just music in general, but songs that may help you generate a mood or a feeling or a sense of story. This can help also with brainstorming as well as writing in general. It gives a atmosphere for what you are doing and continues to feed into the narrative as well as any kind of style or method of writing you may be feeding into the story. I talk about music a lot though, and probably will in the future too so stay tuned!
Finally, image boards can help a lot if you can unfortunately not draw or need inspiration to draw. You can use pinterest or even just make your own and print it up in your room or something. I find pinterest kind of cumbersome but that's just my opinion. It doesn't matter if these are other people's art or what, this is just for personal use inspiration. If you do happen to see something you actually want to use in your story though commercially make sure you contact them before using any of their art!
That's it for brainstorming for now, next we'll talk writing, see you soon!