One question most often asked by would-be creative people  (which I do believe is most of us) is ‘where do you get your ideas from’ as if there was a sort on ideas depository that you could visit, request one in the shape and size you fancy and it would be delivered to you. There isn’t of course, but actually creativity is a skill and you can develop it by becoming more of a creative thinker: that is one who is able to see concepts and connections, put random things together and make something else from them. It’s about looking below the surface  of things – one of my favourite occupations – and coming up with new possibilities and wider options than you had before.

The following exercise is taken from Edward de Bono’s great book ‘How to Have Creative Ideas’ and will help you ‘think outside the box’.  First imagine that a murder has been committed and several clues have been given. What you are going to do is make a hypothesis of might have happened – oh and you are also going to create the clues.

Here’s what to do:

1    Choose two random words – the first that pop into your head
2    Use those two words to create the scene, setting or story for a murder but do not indicate how it took place of who did it
3    Choose three more random words – these are your clues
4    Construct a reasonable hypothesis using the clues to show how the murder might have taken place and who might have done it.

Clear? Here’s an example I made up earlier: first two random words – chocolate and cat (no surprise there to anyone who knows me) … which could read ‘the elderly lady was found lying under a bush, watched over by a placid tortoiseshell cat and with a small chocolate easter egg clutched in her hand.  Next two random words – foot and garden – hypothesis could be … “she had gone into the garden to hide the easter egg for her grandson but had heard someone calling the cat. As she went to look, she was struck from behind and caught her foot in the grass and fell forward, but still holding on to her egg. The man who had been watching the house, moved out from behind the tree he had used to hide him, checked that she was dead, and made his way into the house to steal her valuable silver collection.”

Over to you, and enjoy the process. If you would like to know more about the Catalyst Newsletter then visit http://www.catalystonline.co.uk/