A story is more than plot, it's twists, turns, and ups and downs, and it's important for an author to understand where this font of creativity stems from. We're a man to build a fountain without regard for where the water comes from, will it flow? Not likely. He might get lucky... But each chapter is a new fountain. And if you do not understand the river from which it draws, you may end up building in the middle of a desert. Then you only have false hope.

Now, inspiration, it is in many ways magic in and of itself. Why? Because inspiration is anything which can EVOKE something from you. Much like the Skyrim school of throwing fireballs and snowstorms, evocation is an important concept. It is what we try to do with our stories, and what we get from inspiration. Now, much like how evocation has many schools, so too does inspiration. And we shall see into them.

The schools of inspiration is primarily divided into the five senses, and these can each have their own subclasses and specializations. You may not think taste is a great source of inspiration... But I wonder where else you could come up with shokugeki no Soma. But it's most likely to come up with food based ideas, but it's not like you can rule out a tasty ham sandwich with a bit of sharp cheddar suddenly gives you a new idea on the same old quill pig. I mean... In the story "no loot here, only puns" there is a CHEESE WIZARD. Explain THAT one. Or maybe you can use Rick and Morty. I'm afraid to comprehend what and why they considered pickle Rick. Or you could go for toriko. It's a shounen jump manga that was turned into an anime adaptation. And all the monsters were basically food. Both before and after a chef got their hands on it. Strange things are inspired by the concept of taste. Possibly even the flying spaghetti monster.

Sight is relatively straight forward. You see it, And your mind extrapolates a different idea from what you see, into what you can visualize. For example within darkest dungeon, which can be purchased on steam, just to say where it comes from, and it's media component, has a place called the farmstead as a level to ... Well... Traverse doesn't feel like the accurate term but it is what I will use. In it was a scarecrow afflicted with some ethereal crystal growth of some sort of become a monster that would fit in with lower Eldritch, undead, and possibly also constructs like golems and homunculi. The concept I extracted from it is turning a scarecrow into a character for use as an mc, in a similar vein as threadbare, which sadly is no longer on royal road, but happily on Amazon, and may(?) Get a sequal. I have no idea if this is true, but it certainly is my hope. But I put this scarecrow mc into a litrpg world with a system of evolution and growth more akin to oblivion online, but perhaps not in a virtual world. Maybe a threadbare world, but an oblivion online system. This allows evolution, and growth, but also mayhap it could be combined with the threadbare mutliclass system. This would provide numerous avenues of growth and the world is still free to be designed however one may wish. You could go for a reincarnation story, or maybe a good touched creation sort of system. Whatever you want. And all this stems from SEEING one monster of many from another source.

Sound... This is a bit more nebulous, but it's hard to say that there are times when you have heard a noise but not seen it's source and your mind has run wild. Sometimes in terror, sometimes with Glee. Whether that noise is a creepy creaking door, or perhaps music you enjoy, sound can be a great source of inspiration as it can use your mind to take the music, noises, lyrics, and turn it into an image you visual during that sound. This can be a wonderful way of refreshing yourself during your story as well. But I will admit, if you choose to listen to it on replay, you may want to get a playlist full of songs that help you in this manner.

Touch, this one may well have much less... Overall impact, but understanding the texture of things can help in your writing, on top of that, it does much more than make your scenes more lifelike, it can give inspiration, the fur of your pet can give rise to the idea of a giant fuzzy beast! The pockmarked rough texture of stone gives rise to a large stone cog, clockwork of cavemen working to power an unknown ancient object. The smooth feel of metal can make you consider things like a golem, standing gaurd, tall, light glinting off it's smooth round armor.

Smell. Smell is also somewhat nebulous for some people. But to consider you can't understand the sight evoked by the smell of manure, or the scent of roses, lavender, so many concepts await your nose to bring forth as something new, something other than perfume. A treant, a wind elemental in a garden, there are many ways to take these inspirations.

Specializations of these can be combinations, or even taking away certain things from the concept utilized by the specialization. Things like nature. It falls under all of them, but you first think of sight, then maybe smell. Utilizing these combinations and using all five senses as and when you can in your story will give rise to not simply a world gazed through a filter, it's a world that is now touched upon by the reader, they can see it, they can feel it, they can smell the world you've made. And it brings them to a whole new land of creativity. Your land of creativity.

So it's important to find what brings forth these images and ideas, consider them, And bring them close if you can. Use them to write your story to a whole new level. :3