Imagination and ideas

[Maplin]

I find it hard to start Ideas and unique ideas at that... once I get started with an idea I am usually ok... any one got any tips?

[Jamesaritchie]

I'm not sure there is such a ting as a unique idea. Ideas are the easy part, and most can gather enough in a week to last ten years.

It's what you do with an idea that makes a book worth reading. The talent, the skill, and the knowledge of a given writer are what matter.

[emeraldcite]

your characters will make it unique. let them make the plot interesting.

[Gala]

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I find it hard to start Ideas and unique ideas at that... once I get started with an idea I am usually ok... any one got any tips? <hr></blockquote>

Great question.

A few methods for finding ideas off the top of my head:

> Eavesdrop on conversations in the grocery store, or any other public place.

> Pick up a book, open to a random page, point. Write the sentence on a blank page. Writer about it.

> Close your eyes and listen to the radio. What do you see as various music plays, or people talk, or the news come on?

In other words, play detective (in a good way).

> Sit on a bench at the mall, and make up stories about people who pique your interest.

> Take a character from a favorite movie or book, and write your version of their story.

What I'm suggesting is you notice what grabs your interest. What makes you angry, happy, hungry? Each of those events are an idea.

> Use your life. Write about the first time you ?

Have fun.

[Joanclr]

Great ideas, Gala! I might try some of those!

[veingloree]

Big non-fiction books with lost of pictures and interesting facts. I always peruse the library in areas like parapsychology, archeology and mythology.

[Terra Aeterna]

A very talented writer (who also teaches creative writing at a university in California) told me once that there are no new ideas, the trick is to tell the story a new way. Your way. :)
Probably there are some original thoughts left somewhere but I don't claim to be intelligent enough to think them.

So my way of spurring my imagination is to play what if games. What if that chick on the Honda Valkyrie at the 7-11 is really a valkyrie cruising the streets of my hometown looking for the tarnhelm? What happens next? Where would that pesky tarnhelm be? In Glen the meth addict's backpack? What will happen when they meet?

[Oliveman]

Just like to bump this message, since I've been after those elusive original ideas. Anyone who has thoughts on how to evoke them, go for it!

[Shadow_Ferret]

I'd like to hear them too since my biggest fear is one day the ideas will just dry up and blow away. Then what?

[aadams73]

Just like to bump this message, since I've been after those elusive original ideas. Anyone who has thoughts on how to evoke them, go for it!

*shrug* For me my ideas just breed. I twist them and turn them and scribble them in an ideas folder until I'm ready to do something with them.

In my experience the more ideas you use the more you get. A bit like muscles.

[Bubastes]

I've never had problems generating ideas (my brain is like a malfunctioning popcorn popper). I'm a shameless eavesdropper and people-watcher, so that probably helps. I scribble all my ideas down on index cards and toss them in a box. Whenever I need a writing prompt, I grab a card.

There's a book called "The Writer's Book of Days" by Judy Reeves that gives you a prompt a day. That might help you too. Good luck!

[MidnightMuse]

How do you STOP ideas from jamming in there? That's what I'd like to know.

Make them take a number or something, sheesh.

[scribbler1382]

Ideas are a dime a dozen. Execution is hard.

Orson Scott Card runs a workshop periodically called "Thousand Ideas" where he'll lead a talk and produce a thousand ideas (okay, maybe just a few hundred) by the end of it. Mostly just by asking "how else/what else/who else" after every suggestion.

If you're really concerned about it, keep an idea journal. When all those ideas are bothering you while you're writing something else, instead of being distracted, just quickly note the idea down and get back to work. Pretty soon, you'll have a box of notebooks full of ideas.

[Shadow_Ferret]

How do you STOP ideas from jamming in there? That's what I'd like to know.

Make them take a number or something, sheesh.

OK, it's an irrational fear. But a fear nonetheless. :tongue

[KiwiChick]

I find it hard to start Ideas and unique ideas at that... once I get started with an idea I am usually ok... any one got any tips?

Here's something to try: start with something that fasciates you, anything, even something very simple. Ask yourself, what is it about that thing that fascinates you? What might be related to the thing? Who might care about? What trouble might it cause? Where might it be... Basically, anything to do with that original concept.

This might not work for you, but I've found it helpful. The story that results might not even have anything to do with the original idea, but who cares.

[MidnightMuse]

I like to amuse myself while people or nature watching by asking What If?

What if that duck was packin' heat?

What if that woman suddenly pulled a knife from her purse, stabbed that guy in line in front of her, then ordered her soy latte without battting an eye?

What if all the cars suddenly, inexplicably vanished.

What if that poodle ordered a soy latte? In Portuguese?

What if that elevator opens and a Yak steps out?

Okay, so sometimes you can't build a story from your What If's, but sometimes you can :D

[Carrie in PA]

I like to amuse myself while people or nature watching by asking What If?

What if that duck was packin' heat?

What if that elevator opens and a Yak steps out?


Step awaaaaay from the ducks and yaks!!!!! :roll:

I do like watching people and doing the "what if" game with them...

What if that guy is really an undercover CIA agent investigating that lady over there?

What possessed that woman to wear *those* pants? (Possible explanations include aliens, demons, double dog dares...)

[smiley10000]

Keep a dream diary. Every morning before getting out of bed jot down notes on what you dreamed the night before.

there are also some sites that online that hand you ideas like:

Stupid Plot Tricks (http://sff.net/paradise/plottricks.htm)

Writing Fix (http://www.writingfix.com/rightbrain/storystartersentences.htm)

Ideas are a dime a dozen (although we did have a discussion a while back and someone mentioned you could by them for less at discount barns ;) ) It is what you do with the idea that is important.

Good Luck!
:D 10000

[Shadow_Ferret]

I don't dream. Sad, but true.

[PeeDee]

I've never had problems generating ideas (my brain is like a malfunctioning popcorn popper). I'm a shameless eavesdropper and people-watcher, so that probably helps.

I like the popcorn popper analogy, because that's me. I generate ideas like nothing else. Some of them come out of nowhere (though they probably come from somewhere deeper in my head, really) and some come out of the fusion of two or three different ideas. Sometimes, I want to write a story based on a title, a word, a song, a phrase, a feeling and I just think about it until something comes to me.

It can be a million different things. They can be complex and massive storylines that have built in your head, or they can be as simple as What if a werewolf bit a goldfish? or Dracula combined with Our Town, what does that give me?

[Jenny]

I try to read widely (like Veingloree says) and I actually write down anything that interests me (often including a full reference just in case - just in case what I don't know, but clearly long forgotten uni tutors drummed in the whole footnotes thing). If I'm really stuck for ideas, I read over my old notes. It's surprising how often this works. I also keep a book where I scribble a few quick notes if an idea (but not enough for a full story - yet) comes to me. I'm not really a people watcher (although my insightful comments on other road users can be colourful ;)). The only way I know to definitely chase down an idea (good, bad, indifferent) is to sit down with pen and paper and the absolute conviction that butt cannot leave chair until an idea is on the paper.

[PeeDee]

I watch people, but even the unique and interesting things I see very rarely turn up usefully in any story of mine. Mostly, I watch people because it interests me.

I kept a dream diary for a month, some years back. The thing is, I don't always consistently dream, or dream coherently (I tend to go through cycles) so on the mornings when I had no dreams, I would just open my eyes and write for ten minutes or so, whatever came in my head.

A lot of it was gibberish. Some of it was interesting. Very little of it was useful, however.

[Scrawler]

I like to imagine: what's the worst that can happen... and make it worse.
Also, I once thought my eavesdropping was kind of cheezy, but now I call it "research".

[smiley10000]

I don't dream. Sad, but true.

If you sleep, you dream. You just don't REMEMBER your dreams.

There is a difference.
(I don't remember most of my dreams either...)
:sleepy: 10000

[Anthony Ravenscroft]

Ideas are limitless.

Some are just absurd. I wrote a story I'm still quite proud of because I happened to be listening to a Gilbert & Sullivan piece, & noted the term "Light Opera Company" in the liner comments. So, as my wife-at-the-time was in the Army, I briefly wondered what sort of military unit a Heavy Opera Company would be. In a couple of sessions, I had a story about the Army deploying orchestras at the front lines of a major war.

Some are corrective. Often, I read a short story in one of the magazines, & the last few pages make me fling the whole thing across the room (lacking a fireplace). It's not that the story was bad, but that it succeeded in holding my attention, even getting my interest, then fell apart. Into my notebook goes ideas on how to steal the premise &/or skeleton & do it right.

Some are imagic. Years ago, I recalled a story I'd read many years before (whether factual or fantasy, I don't know) about crabs with glass-like carapaces. I wrote a description of them, dancing in the late afternoon sun. Working backward, I came up with a story that led the reader to them. Lately, I finally got a beginning that almost satisfies me, so now I get to finish it.

Some don't even exist. I walk to the bank, then to the coffee shop, on a nice summer's day. I wonder what it'd feel like if I were fearing for my life from an unknown threat, replay it in my head, & suddenly every shadow, every pedestrian, every slowing car needs to be noticed.

I could probably go on like that for another thousand words. Anyway, ideas are all around the writer. I wouldn't mind having a few more nights where the words "what if" & "why not" leave me alone a little more.

[Flapdoodle]

I find it hard to start Ideas and unique ideas at that... once I get started with an idea I am usually ok... any one got any tips?

I don't have a problem at all with ideas - I get them from reading newspaper, magazines and other stuff. A story in New Scientist recently spawned an idea for a short story... The McGuffin, really, as Hitchcock would say. Sometimes I get flashes of an "image" that leads to a short story, or visit a building or place that inspires a short story (A recent holiday in Lanzarote proved incredibly good for this). I even wrote a story recently when I found an old concert ticket in a drawer... I've written a short story based around a "Jar"... Anything that speaks to me. Another recent short story I've been working on is based around an archaeological di g in Coventry...

Sometimes the idea isn't good enough to support or story, or I struggle to find some characters that want it... But I write 'em all down, anyway.

Annoyingly, most of the rejections I get commment on the ideas being original or unique, but I'm usually let down by plotting or something else.

[NightWynde]

I like playing the "Why" game. It's kind of like the "What if" game mentioned earlier, but I noticed a long time ago that newspapers answer the "Who, What, When & Where" of a story, but never the "Why." By trying to answer why person A killed/injured person B with that particular instrument (some from my notes I still haven't done: drill press, metal hair pick, and a salad fork) I end up with some rather interesting characters.

I also have fun with the "Dumb Criminals" and often ask "What could this criminal/group of criminals done differently and have it actually work out?"

[brainstorm77]

I have taken most horror ideas from my dreams.

[littlewriter]

give yourself 2 minutes to come up with 5 ideas. even if they are terrible ideas, at least they are ideas. then you will find that more will come to you. look back over your ideas and develop on them.

there is a great book called how to get ideas, by jack foster.

[Soccer Mom]

A dreamless ferret? I don't think so. You have a new avatar almost every week. You worry about your imagination running dry? I've seen your blog.

I don't think so. Silly ferret!

[Oliveman]

I recently came up with an idea for my novel, it involves dreams... this could be good. Think I came up with that elusive idea I was searching for.

Been having a creative drought lately, mind has been all over the place. Someone posted a link about fogged brains and I could definitely relate.

[Kate Thornton]

I eavesdrop on conversations, then play "what if"...