To Authors

[raykim11]

The idea for my published story lived in my wall and ate my washing machine hose - and eventually my dishwasher - causing enough damage that we had to replace it.

I don't recommend adopting this particular route as your "muse" though - proved a little costly. ;-)

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[RVS78]

Hmm, ideas...for me, it's everywhere and anywhere from anything to anyone. I'm quite fond of coming up with a title first then seeing what I can do with it. Sometimes it comes from hearing a unique name. Seeing someone that has peculiar features. Hearing something on television or radio - usually a phrase or a term that for some reason just sticks to your head. So I jot that down for later use. The jot-a-phrase method works well for me and helps me conjure up a tale and build upon that.

Here's an old blog post of mine about the topic for anyone interested.
How to make a monster: http://www.zerotorockstar.com/1/post...-revealed.html

__________
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[Notre Dame]

I'm with RVS78. Ideas come from everywhichwhere. Sunlight on a wave, a whisper of wind in the trees, a screech of brakes, the wail of a child in the distance, the rumble of an anchor chain, the smooth arc of a woman's neck as she turns her head, a policeman slowly walking his beat, an aircraft painting an empty sky with a vapour trail, the smell of new mown grass, the tang of the sea, the heat of the summer sun cutting through my shirt, a harrassed girl shoving a pushchair while frantically texting on her cellphone, the breeze tangling my hair, a great name like Cape Horn - what adventures could happen there? - Mandalay or Timbuktu too, and Aqaba, don't you think Laurence knew? Ravenscar closer to home, a hill called Roseberry Topping, a boat called Two Brothers, or even more intriguing - another boat called Three Sisters. There is poetry in all these things, but even more, there are stories yet to be revealed and told... that's where ideas come from...

[Steve Vernon]

Two words.

What if...

[jumpingjack42]

I daydream a lot. Most of my ideas come from that.

[drewwa]

Mine just occur to me completely out of the blue.

I'll admit to getting some from watching tv or reading books and thinking... "It would have been much better if..."

Cheers,

Drew.

[jdgoff]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

I have been wondering for many years - how do you come up with ideas for your tales? And don't reveal any proprietary secrects.

I don't think there are any secrets. To be honest, this is probably the question authors get the most, and it's actually the hardest to answer. I like what Orson Scott Card said, that the ideas for stories are all around us, but we're not paying attention. There are probably ideas for a hundred stories in a walk to the post office, and a good author might notice three or four of them.

As for me, I think the question is best answered with one of it's own: What if?

That, for me is the genesis of a lot of my ideas. What if God developed amnesia, what if Darwin's theories became the foundation for a new religion, what if evil always won... these are the roots of several idea I've had.

Other times I might get an idea from another author by reading their book, or from a movie. A lot of these ideas won't be worth anything, though they sound really great at the time.


I think it's important to have a method for capturing those ideas when they occur, because often they happen and then something distracts us, and then we forget. I carry a notebook with me wherever I go, and when an idea does occur, I write it down. It makes me a rude dinner companion, but my friends and family have grown accustomed to my eccentricities.

Other times things just pop into my head. It may be something as simple as an idea for a story, or nothing more than a title that suggests possibilities. Regardless, one of the most important elements of being a writer is curiosity, always asking questions, and always learning.

Many ideas come from some new fact in history that I didn't know about that connects with another point of history or science and, voila, story idea. Without that constant probing curiosity it's hard to come up with ideas, but if you can plant that seed, and nurture it, you'll have more ideas than you know what to do with. Writers are, above all else, readers and questioners. We probe, poke, and prod things that most other people take for granted.

Try to find something different, something unique in everything you look at, or as Lewis Caroll once said, "Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Hope this helps.

JDG

[TrineDaely]

On the heels of "What if?" is "Then what?" You see some sliver of a situation as you drive or walk by, and wonder what happens after. Or if they even exist once they're out of your sight.

[V.W. Singer]

For me the process usually starts with "What would I like to see/read?"

I'm a very visual person, so this is followed by a quick mental story board to see if I can go anywhere with the concept.

Only if the idea gets this far do I attempt to block out the concept in words.

[James_Wilde]

Originally Posted by altworld

Just look around, the most amazing stories are just under your nose, then just twist reality a couple of degrees and get writing.

Well, I wouldn't call myself an author, although my local library did when they printed flyers for a planned Story Time recently. I nearly fell off my chair laughing. But Nick's right, just listen to what people are saying or watch what they are doing and think about what it means for the people on the receiving end.

Originally Posted by altworld

PS - Seriously the sitting down and writing part is the hardest part

Nick, you forgot to say 'the first time'. Once your writing muscle has been exercised for a while, writing becomes like a drug, something I'd known for years, but forgot until I 'rediscovered' writing back in 2004, and something my wife has just discovered. She's just started a writing course, and whatever one thinks of these, they're great for getting one (back) into the writing habit.

[AceTachyon]

Echoing the comment on Schenectady. They come from a P.O. Box there. I think you sign up for the program and you get ideas every month for a year.

[Native]

It's elusive to me. After "tuning in" to a topic, we often start hearing a "frequency" that's been there all along. Some can write topically better than others, but for me, depth takes experience, experience takes time, and I need to pay more dues. To paraphrase a passage in Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance - "to write perfectly, one must live perfectly, and then write naturally." In that context, I run out of story very quickly.

[dadioflex]

I think King said in "On Writing" that he wasn't sure where ideas came from but the only place he was sure to find them was at his writing desk.

Charles Stross wrote an interesting post about ideas last year but I can't find it. Basically ideas are ten a penny and you'll discard 99 for every 1 you use. So that's 10 quid per workable idea.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by TrineDaely

On the heels of "What if?" is "Then what?" You see some sliver of a situation as you drive or walk by, and wonder what happens after. Or if they even exist once they're out of your sight.

And you then go to "plot is a verb." After all something has to happen in order for there to be a story worth the telling. And of course it has to be something that is believable. I mean if a guy is on his way to his gf's place and nothing of importance keeps him from getting there and there is no price for being late where is the story? On the other hand if he's been late before and she has told him that if he's late once more they're through, he has a reason to not want to be late. Then throw in some obstacles that are reasonable, a flat tire, a road closed for repairs, a traffic accident, etc. all of which make it seem unlikely that he'll be on time and you begin to have a story that is worth reading.

[Mel Comley]

Quite a few of my ideas come through dreams, also through reading other crime authors. I generally watch a lot of Crime Scene programmes too, that can spark an idea off.