Finding inspiration.....WHERE?!

[Fractured_Chaos]

Maybe it's the nature of the horror writer, but I just read the following two news stories, and a frightening idea for a novel popped into my head...

Hundreds of African Boys Missing in UK (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/crime_britain_africa_dc)

Police Arrest Two Suspected Human Skinners (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050513/od_nm/skinnings_dc)

:scared:


Anyone else get inspiration from bizarre places?

[MacAllister]

I get ideas from visual input, I think--although the random news story often triggers associations, too.

Out walking the dog, happening across an abandoned old shack, with signs that someone has been squatting there...a snapshot straight into my brain, and I start imagining the possible stories.

[rich]

I've never found that a good idea had any use unless I was willing to tackle it.

[sthrnwriter]

I'm still kind of a newbie when it comes to horror writing but most of the ideas I've gotten so far have come from horror movies and books plus I have my Ghost Stories blog that help give me ideas when I'm researching for a new post. Right now I write mostly contemporary and I get quite a few ideas from news stories. I know there are people out there that do some weird things.

[Fractured_Chaos]

Well, this looked like as good a place as any to post this link....



Completely, and utterly creepy! (http://www.flashvaults.com/e107_plugins/coppermine_menu/displayimage.php?album=13&pos=0)

:Wha:

[sthrnwriter]

I have to agree..that seems a little freaky.

[DiscoDan]

I get idea pretty randomly, anything can trigger inspiration. Although I'd say my best ideas come from dreams.

[aspiringwriter]

Most of my inspiration strangely enough come from dreams I have....Not that I have bad dreams all the time, but you get the point...:)

[preyer]

probably my most consistent source of 'inspiration' (trust me, being a hack, in my case that word deserves to be in quotes) comes from music. i've been told time and time again that i've got a very visual sense of storytelling, which is fortunate because that's my goal. :) that's probably also why i like a lot of classical music and rock 'n roll, one has got the energy i like without being quite so directionless as thrash and the other tells a story with music that i dig. if i have a dream i might incorporate it into a story, but typically it's not the story itself.

i'd heard that if you keep a journal by your bedside and wrote down all you could remember from your dreams the very instant you woke up, you'd start to remember more and more. well, it started to work, which wasn't a good thing, lol. apparently, i've got some pretty messed up dreams, ones worth forgetting, so i quickly decided it best to let dreams remain forgotten lest i lose my sanity, occassionally deriving what i could from the errant ones that slip by (i've got good dreams, too, of course, but those aren't the ones that woke me up, lol). as a source of inspiration, dreams are good, but i can't say i'll ever go back to well on purpose ever again. think about it: would you really want to remember every dream you had? you probably don't. :)

a good book is another awesome source of story ideas. i love books of facts and history, lost artefacts and treasure, ghost stories (non-fiction) and things like alchemy and pirate legend.

[BlueTexas]

My best ideas come from playing "what if?" Coworkers are great fodder for this.