Thursday, July 26, 2007

Using Google for Writing Prompts

Here’s a tip for finding somewhat obscure writing prompts: ask Google for ideas. I clicked over to Google’s hot trends for today. At first, I was struck by how out of touch I am with the world of celebrity. Next, I was surprised that so many people managed to spell Beowulf correctly. Then an odd search phrase caught my eye. I clicked on it to see what the results looked like and a pair of story ideas sprang to life.

I wrote one of them and sketched out the contents of the second. In theory, they are SEO-friendly and well-written enough on this apparently oft-searched topic that I’ll get a stellar offer from AC. In practice, well, let’s just say that I’m not holding my breath. I know have enough story ideas floating around that I’m going to have to take some time away from exploring new avenues just to get them written.

If you are anti-Google, or if you just want another avenue, wander of to the Yahoo! buzz log. Their list is less interesting and almost exclusively celebrities, but there are one or two interesting additions for those of us who don’t know or care who Chrissy Popadics may be. For instance, apparently grilled salmon has taken a 799% jump in searches over last week.

There are also the Lycos50, AOL Hot Searches, and plenty of sites that purport to offer topic-specific popular keyword lists. I see no reason why any of these could not serve as an equally useful source of writing prompts, even if the keywords may not be as successful on Google. If you’re looking for a topic, sometimes the inspiration for a great article is worth more than climbing the search list.


2 comments:








Sephyroth

said...

Hi, I'm reading via the Bumpzee No Nofollow | I Follow | DoFollow Community RSS feed. :)

I love how all the top searches right now are the songs that were on "Don't Forget the Lyrics". Who needs Nielsen Ratings to verify your viewership when you can just check out Google's list and find your content at 1, 2, 3, etc.?

Sephyroth
http://www.sephyroth.net





Unknown

said...

I've "seen" you around. Thanks for swinging by again. I wondered where some of those search terms came from. I don't watch enough TV, apparently.