Where do you get your ideas?

[evanaharris]

Most of us have figured out this idea thing by now, but for those that haven't, and for those (like me) who just like to read anything Neil Gaiman writes, check out this essay:

www.neilgaiman.com/exclusive/essay03.asp (http://www.neilgaiman.com/exclusive/essay03.asp)

[Yeshanu]

Evan,

Thanks. It's a great essay.

[Betty W01]

Evan, thanks for sharing that essay. I'm going to go look for that dusty little shop now. :gone

[Betty W01]

In all seriousness, I write mostly non-fiction articles, book reviews, and poetry. For the first type of writing, I get ideas many places: magazines (already-written articles that inspire others, cool titles that trigger a completely different idea, and even ads sometimes), web sites (see above), books (one of my favorites is Marcia Yudkin's Writing Articles About the World Around You), and people I meet or hear about.

For ideas of books I can use for book reviews, I cruise bookstores, libraries, book catalogs, web sites, and newsletters.

For poetry, I collect things I like. I have a folder of bits and pieces: lists of words (all the words there are for the color red, for example, and a list of all the words used when doing woodworking), pictures torn from magazines, snapshots, great words with their definitions, poems I've read and really liked, words that rhyme, stray thoughts, and so on. I also have actual items I find interesting, dotted around my office:seashells, a maple tree seed, a pewter heart, a tiny pine cone...

And when I do write fiction (rare), I usually am inspired by a prompt or idea given to me by someone else.

Ideas are everywhere. The trick is to collect them, record them, and then actually use them somehow in your writing, when BIC becomes paramount.

[Terra Aeterna]

Great essay. I'm still tempted to answer with "They're beamed into my head by aliens", though.

[Jamesaritchie]

I used to tell everyone I got my ideas from Idea Monthly, a magazine only available to pro writers afte rthey had made so many sales to top magazines, or had sold a novel to a mainstream publisher.

I had to stop because way the heck too many new writers believed me, and I received several letters and e-mails saying how unfair this was to new writers.

[maestrowork]

I got my ideas from IKEA.

[ChunkyC]

Idea Monthly
:ha

[HConn]

You could make a mint with a magazine like Idea Monthly.

[evanaharris]

You could make a mint with a magazine like Idea Monthly.

*thinking very seriously about this*

Perhaps someone would like to invest some money in a sure-fire scheme?

[aka eraser]

The idea of an Idea Monthly is a good idea. As is the idea of making money from realizing the idea of actualizing an Idea Monthly.

I think.

[LiamJackson]

I had to stop because way the heck too many new writers believed me, and I received several letters and e-mails saying how unfair this was to new writers.
James, you're kidding, right? Right?!

[Jamesaritchie]

No, I'm not kidding. Some of the letters and e-mails were downright nasty, and wanted to know the address of the publisher so they could flood them with e-mails. It was the number of folks who believed me and got mad that amazed me.

Maybe I'm just a real convincing liar. An essential quality for being a fiction writer, I guess.

[HollyB]

I think we should run with this magazine idea... you could market it to desperate suckers ::ahem:: I mean, newbie writers like myself.

I can just see the cover page (grouped around a headshot of Liam):

8 Basic Plots that will move your story... Guaranteed!

Frolic with Your Thesaurus: 20 far-fetched adjectives to make your story out of this world!

Sultry story ideas that will make your editor purr.

Exclusive: Entire New York Publishing Collective subordinated by soul-stealing aliens determined to seal off access to unrecognized yet unbearably talented new writers (you read it here, first!).


(Actually, this magazine already exists, now that I think of it).

[scarletpeaches]

Oh, I go to an ideas shop in an out-of-the-way street in town. For a nominal fee they give you three basic ideas for a story; every third visit to the shop gets you one free secondary character and a sub-plot. That's no lie.

[Thekherham]

They pop into my head when I am driving. Then I have to pull over and jot them down in my little notebook so I can play Good Idea-Bad Idea at home.
I also dream my stories.

[jackie106]

Oh, I go to an ideas shop in an out-of-the-way street in town. For a nominal fee they give you three basic ideas for a story; every third visit to the shop gets you one free secondary character and a sub-plot. That's no lie.

Do they have a mail-order catalog?

[scribbler1382]

I have little fairies that visit authors who make me jealous when they're sleeping and suck out their ideas. I also have some elves that spend the summer filing the serial numbers off the ideas for me. For some reason they're not available in the winter. :)

[icerose]

I get my story ideas from everywhere. Conversations, staring out the window, listening to boring speeches, when I'm writing, dreams, I mean everywhere. I have so many ideas I think I could hold up that magazine for about 6 months on just the stored ones, if not longer!

[Carlene]

All one has to do is read the newspaper daily to get more than enough ideas.

Carlene

"Friends help you move. REAL friends help you move...bodies."

www.crdater.com (http://www.crdater.com)

[Mike Martyn]

All one has to do is read the newspaper daily to get more than enough ideas.

Carlene"

I cut strange stories out of the newspaper. Unfortunatly many real life stories are too far fetched to make believeable fiction.

So far I haven't used any of then as the basis for a novel.

The wip I'm currently working on gets its inspiration from a black and white photograph I took thirty years ago when I went hiking in the mountains. It's of a forest scene with a creek and a lot of tangled under brush. I blew it up in my darkroom and it hung on a wall of our rec room for all those years.

Two years ago I took it off the wall to admire it since my father had been by that weekend, looked at it and told me I was a "damned good photographer'

Since praise from my father was an exceptionally rare thing, I got out a magnifying glass to take a close look.

In the brush to one side of the creek, partially concealed by an overhanging cedar branch, was a corpse in an advanced state of decay.

I sipped an excess of scotch and contemplated this terrible image and the more terrible thought that this cursed photograph hung on our walls for all those years.

The phone rang as I gulped down my third scotch.

That's when things got wierd.

[scarletpeaches]

Do they have a mail-order catalog?

They even do email deliveries if you have a credit card!:idea: :)

Seriously, though, I get my ideas from situations in which I find myself, or overheard conversations rather than actual real people, which is strange given that I prefer character driven novels; you'd think I'd dream up the population of my writings first...

It seems to come from, "When such and such happened, I wonder what the outcome would have been had I done this/that/the next thing differently?"

Then it evolves into "I think a person with X, Y and Z qualities would have done this..." Which gives me the barest bones of something vaguely resembling a 'story'.

After that I just start writing and see what comes out. As Hemingway said, "The first draft of anything is ****."

I think in my case it all stems from a desire to rewrite history, control everything and impose my will on the very fabric of the universe. Or maybe I just like telling stories. I have to emphasise that the finished product bears no resemblance to the original event/conversation/situation that inspired it (don't want to get myself into trouble, eh?). I start off with a beginning, a main character and an end, with only a vague idea of how to get there. Usually the end stays the same but the journey takes all sorts of twists and turns I didn't know were inside my twisty turny little head.