In my humble opinion, the question you seem to have posed to others was answered according to their experience. If you asked "ME"..."Where do YOU get ideas", I would tell you that clustering is one of the techniques I use and one that works very well sometimes.  I also use "What if" scenarios and sometimes a writing prompt will spark an idea for a story.  I also use real life experiences and then use the "what if" technique to add more drama and conflict.

In my opinion the thing to keep in mind is that not all techniques will work equally for every writer.  For some clustering or mind mapping works, others must outline a story completely before writing, some may write the entire thing and then go back and edit.  Every writer is different!  I feel it's unfair for you to assume that people are lying to you or making things up when they tell you they get ideas from clustering.  If every writer got ideas from the same place, how long would it take before those ideas were being repeated over and over?  Boring!

You may have better luck with your question if you simply rephrase it...i.e. "I personally haven't found clustering or mind mapping useful, what other techniques do you use to find ideas?"  

Try googling your question....try to find writer websites that have random idea generators.  There are at least as many ways of finding ideas for a story as there are writers in the world.  Good luck!

DKelblaine
Do what you love and the rest will follow.
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