How To Use ChatGPT To Beat Writer's Block

Ideas On Demand

April 24, 2023

“You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”

~ Jack London

Welcome to The Pen Pivot!

In case you’re new here, every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, we show tech-savvy writers how to use AI and new tech to write better content, faster.

In today’s email:

  • AI Tool Of The Day 🛠️ - Achieve any goal

  • AI Writing Tip Of The Day🖋️ - This ChatGPT prompt will make sure you never run out of ideas. Cure writer’s block once and for all.

AI Tool Of The Day 🛠️

GoalGPT (beta)- A self-governing AI robot that’ll help you achieve any goal by generating the tasks required, carrying them out, and learning from the outcomes. (link)

AI Writing Tip Of The Day 🖋️

ChatGPT Prompt - “Idea Spark”

My mind felt like the Atacama desert.

Barren, dry, and devoid of activity. I’d officially run out of ideas for my old blog.

Writer’s block can feel like being in quicksand. Slowly sinking, with every attempt to break free only making it worse.

At the recommendation of a friendly writer, I tried pulling myself out with a framework for idea generation - the “5W1H”.

The framework revolves around asking six questions in the context of your niche or topic; Who, What, Where, When, Why, And How.

I came up with a huge number of topic ideas within a couple of hours.

It worked like a charm.

Last week, I tried supercharging this glorious framework with ChatGPT and the results were pretty astounding.

This is now going to be the prompt I use whenever I need a huge number of topic ideas within seconds. 

Fill in the blanks you feel would be most relevant. As always, you don’t necessarily need all of the parameters.

Copy and paste the template into ChatGPT, and watch the magic unfold.

“I’m a writer. Let's work together to generate a list of content or topic ideas using the 5W1H Framework. The ideas should be relevant, engaging, and appealing to the target audience. Please use the following information to help you come up with suggestions for each of the 5W1H categories:

Niche: [insert niche]
Target audience: [insert target audience]
Any specific themes or subtopics to focus on (optional): [insert]
Desired outcome or goal for the content (optional): [insert]”

5W1H Categories: Who (People), What, (Objects and Concepts), Where (Places), When (Time) Why (Reasons and Motivations), How (Processes and Techniques)”

If you wanted to, you could even ask ChatGPT to format the results into a neat table for you. I often do.

Here’s an example. I used this Idea Spark prompt to generate topic ideas for the gothic architecture niche.

I wanted to choose a particularly random sub-niche to see what would happen.

The results were great.

Zoom in if you have to.

Try the prompt whenever you feel stuck with your writing.

I do have other ChatGPT prompts I use for idea generation, but this one is my favorite right now.

I’ll definitely be going through the other ones in future newsletters.

And that’s all folks!

See you on Wednesday. I’ll be showing you a ChatGPT prompt you can use to intensify your words with powerful emotions like urgency, excitement, and even fear. It’ll hook and engage your readers.

Misya, The Pen Pivot