Inspiration

I'd like to know that too, plot is the one thing I never have inspiration for. I've tried reading the donation threads in the nanowrimo plot help forum, and also tried reading collections of plot summaries of novels, but didn't find either method to work very well.

If it was character inspiration that was needed, I'd suggest a visual entertainment such as anime or a movie.

All over. Anything from epic historical intrigue to slush sticking to my shoe. Seriously - both have happened. Sometimes I get a cool sentence in my head, too, and expound upon that until I've got a story going.

Just Jack said:

Usually, I have no problem coming up with a juicy plot for a story. But I've been on a bit of a dry spell. I just can't think of anything. Basically, its writers block.

So where do you guys get your inspiration from?

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Inspiration is a blue moon. I could write on inspiration alone if I wrote once every 2.72 years...

Meh, I think I know what you mean about inspiration. Where the ideas mesh and suddenly you have something worth writing about - I get that. For me it usually happens when I get one or two intriguing ideas, and I figure out how to put them together. That's when it sparks.

Getting those intriguing ideas is just a matter of exploring your world, fantasizing, daydreaming, and asking "what if." Putting them together is a matter of daydreaming some more, turning them around and round, trying to make different puzzle pieces connect.

I wish I could help you more than that...it's a personal process.

-Feathers

My characters almost always come first, then the plot. So my inspiration usually comes from seeing an image (either real or imagined) or hearing a line in a song. (She's a rebel, she's a saint and she's holding on my heart like a hand grenade.)

From there it's just a question of playing with them.

I suppose it's different for different people. It would be easier sometimes to think of the plot first, then find characters to fit into it. As it is, I have to have long conversations with these people to find out where they're from and what they're doing.

I get a lot of ideas from what people would call "low art". You know, stuff that's about half as intellectual as something you're out to write, but is still really fun to read/watch/whatever.

I also get a lot of ideas from science, you know, the science time or school or whatever.

~*~Inspiration comes from within~*~

royalties

My inspiration comes from just about anywhere. Could be a throwaway line in a film or something a friend said in the pub, could be a memory of a friend I had when I was eleven, or it could be a simple what if? For example, the book I've just editing came from what if Britain was overrun by old myths and stories such as giants, fairies and goblins.

What ifs are fun.

I read. Nothing makes me want to write more than when I read a fantastic book. It reminds me why I love writing in the first place.

Chauchat Butterfly said:

~*~Inspiration comes from within~*~

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I say inspiration comes from without. Travelling and doing things out of the ordinary always works for me.

Which is probably why I have been unable to get anything done today...

Observation of others, of life around me, often spurs the beginnings of an idea. Sometimes a character trait I find interesting in real people will combine with a theme I've been interested in (betrayal, falling out of love, whatever), and a mood I get from music, or from looking at art/ out at nature/ striking photography- and my mind concocts this Frankenstein of a character out of these jumbled elements. Then I just want to follow this person around, poke at them and see what they're up to. Delve deeper and discover more, too, because I have to flesh them out from these fragmented beginnings.

Also sometimes I just get an interesting idea for a situation and I try to think of who I could stick in that situation to kind of maximize its potential. Like, whose character flaws, strengths and quirks would make this situation even more complicated and compelling? If the situation requires something specific of a character, of course I'm going to fish around for a character who either can't or won't give it, or wants something else entirely and keeps trying to get what they want rather than what's required of them. Just like if the character comes first and they want something strongly, I'll tailor the situation so they'll have to fight to get it.

That's actually often how I worldbuild too. I try to build cultures around characters that will present them with some difficulty, without of course creating a world designed merely to prosecute my protagonist/s Being a fantasy author gives me lots of room to create worlds that have complicated layers of oppression, opportunity, social role expectations, traditions and trailblazers alike. I mean, writing about the real world would let me work with those things too, only then I couldn't decide what these factors were- I'd just have to keep already-existing ones in mind, which isn't as fun for me.

Cheap alcohol.

Os.

I read books about the subjects I'm interested in and like to write about. For example, Ojibwa mythology. I've built up an entire library of books on the Ojibwa and Great Lakes Indians and now on the Iroquois/Six Nations and ZOW I'll be reading and getting ideas for ages!

When I learn something new about a subject of interest to me, it might not make it into a story, but it sure inspires me. I love learning new things through my reading and writing.

I also like to visit a nearby area that I write about (in fictionalized format). I walk around the place for hours and never get tired! It's like being in my story. Whenever I manage to see a new little spot there it just amazes me. Discovering things just like my characters do.

Life.

It's funny, because I never outline and I never get writer's block. You'd think I would, as I never know what's going to happen until I write it.

Then again, I never think about plot on the first draft. Just characters. They do stuff. I report it. Job done.

I don't know how to relate to that because I've never had that problem since I got serious about writing. One reason may be because I've been hanging on to all these wild ideas for almost 50 years. Also, I don't have any kind of imposed deadlines, so I can be more relaxed and creative.

The one thing I can tell you from experience...don't push or rush it--just let it come to you. That said, you do need to read alot, or find something to get those gears moving.

I used to have the most fantastic Muse! I could be stuck in a plot, character, or what not, and tell her about it. She wouldn't really know what to say, but just having her say anything worked.

I'm writing now...slowly, but once I get the beginning right, everything will flow.

Everywhere. I find my characters first, so usually I'll go poking around the internet for video clips from movies or pictures of actors. Then . . . you know, I honestly don't know what happens next. The characters start talking, I start writing and sometimes it makes sense.

Anything that makes you say "What if". I've had "what if" moments reading stuff for my current WIP or watching a documentary or walking around a local tourist trap.

Experience, observation, drugs, not necessarily in that order.

From life. My inspiration to write Cuckoo came when I was getting checked in as an outpatient at the hospital for a blood test. As the clerk was asking all those personal questions, I thought about what a criminal could do with that information.