Where do you get your ideas for writing?

[DavidKitson]

Originally Posted by ScalyFreak

That makes no sense. I would have thought Bladerunner, or one of the many Star Trek episodes that talk about the "human rights" or sentient life forms that are far from human, but self-aware all the same. Data, for one.

It doesn't make sense to me either, but as annoying as it can be, it's not really right for me to correct another's perception which is quite valid to them. If they see "The Matrix" when they read it, but enjoyed the story, that's what was important I guess. Sometimes it's just someone who is not familiar with Science Fiction trying to express it with the tools at hand and The Matrix is one of the few stories popular with everyone.

Anyway, for the idea itself? I wanted to explore the question, "At what point can an AI be considered to be human?"

When you start with an idea like that, you bring up a lot of other questions, such as what does it mean to be human? And of course, what kind of test would be necessary to determine not only whether an AI was human, assuming that any sufficiently advanced AI could fool humans into believing it was human, but whether it truly exhibited humanity.

And of course, from a writing perspective, the question becomes "How do I take the reader on a journey so that they discover this answer themselves?"

Some of the ideas then came during the writing. The story lacked a decent antagonist at first, so I adjusted it to create a suitably powerful villain. A few other ideas developed into side-plots or other characters.

That's perhaps the most interesting thing about science fiction - and especially hard-science fiction. If you start with a powerful enough idea, it seems to evolve almost fractally into many other ideas. These ideas also go further.

I'm rather chagrined to admit it, but once I got deep enough, I realised that every idea is essentially unoriginal. I thought I came up with a lot of new and original ideas when I started writing. Since completing the story, I have discovered many of the ideas already existed elsewhere. I just didn't know about them.

* AI Humanity is one of the subjects that came out of the idea I had. It's already being examined on a scientific front: eg, http://www.asimovlaws.com/ -

* The question of using "Virtual Humans" for military simulations ( Military Diorama - A story that I edited out of the final Turing Evolved and then turned into a short story ) presently exists - This I learned well after publishing - And Military Diorama is now used in the Aerospace industry as a concept model to help explain this work to people encountering the technology for the first time. Very unexpected.

* The Plasma Rifles do actually exist - I've taken a LOT of criticism over my Plasma Rifles because people thought them unrealistic. I actually did some research to come up with the idea and have a spreadsheet full of weapons calculations supporting the models and providing small detail - eg, velocity, range, etc. I eventually discovered after the story was complete that the US government declassified research into Plasma Rifles in 1996 and actually built some... Power is a bit of a problem though.

* Milcaps and Fusion Reactors - This was not all that original, but it's nice to see each year it comes a little closer.

* Multi-spectral imaging - I do a lot of research into Night Vision equipment as a hobby. So I extrapolated the current technology and determined where it was likely to be heading... Just in the last few months, the US government has released requests for research into this area and are looking into almost every single area of modifying current technology to do what the technology I wrote about does. I was only barely ahead of the curve there imagination-wise and I expect that we'll be seeing civilian accessible version of this technology in about a decade.

* No longer being able to use wireless military technology because an enemy can take it over and use it against you - In the last month, we have seen the Iranian military take over and capture a US Top Secret RQ170 drone.. This one really surprised me - I didn't expect to see this for another decade...

Overall, the ideas start to form as you form the story. Some are subtle and as you ask yourself the questions, the ideas create a rich and believable world.

* How will abundant power change transportation?
* How else will Nuclear Fusion being common change the world?
* What will society look like a hundred years from now?
* What will public transportation be like a hundred years from now?
* What will happen when people can live their lives online?
* What will happen when people can't afford to lives their lives online anymore?
* How are governments likely to control information?
* How is religion likely to influnce things?
* What will the military be like when weapons can reach more than 100 miles?
* Will there ever be such a thing as battleships in the future? ( ie, Sitting targets )
* When quantum technology goes far enough, what will we do when encryption as we know it is no longer useful?
* How can we have drones when an enemy can use them ( see above )
* What will happen when people start to fall in love with androids?

A story is really only a collection of ideas wrapped up in a framework to allow someone else to understand those ideas. The important thing about a good story ( in my opinion ) is to make sure you have LOTS of ideas. Ideas will form the foundation for your story and even if you spend a day on an idea that only has a three-paragraph existence, the little ideas are sometimes more important than the big idea.

Turing Evolved is set almost 200 years from now, but in reality, most of the technology is here today. It will take about 200 years for that technology to continue to develop to the point that perhaps the story is very possible in the future.

So I guess it's important to get lots of ideas wherever they come from. Even down to the little details ( eg, how does a coffee machine of the future work? )

And if you're ever stuck for ideas, look around you. If you character walks into a bar in a parallel universe, how do they do it? What might be different about it? What might be the same? How does society and the world around the character influence the simple act of drinking with friends? Or with enemies? What are roads made of? What do they use for transport? Are they wealthy or poor? How does society view them?

Ask yourself the question about every chapter, and you'll find ideas start coming out of nowhere... Because you'll find your imagination is pretty powerful

But if you're stuck, jump online and google the question you're having problems with and you'll find others with similar questions and ideas about it

And when that fails, I just look around me and then examine small detail - so I might walk into the kitchen and see the oven and think "How would that work in a world without electricity?" or I'll pick up an electric razor and wonder "What will this evolve to in the next 20 years?"

Or as I've done "What would I use to visit this forum in a decade or so? Or how about a hundred years from now?"

Pretty soon the ideas are flowing

Regards
David