Where do you get your ideas?

Kalsik

Kalsik
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I worldbuild, and once I've built them, I ponder what sort of characters or stories could emerge from them either naturally, or as a threat to that world. Organic creativity. You have to build the sandpit before you can play in it.
 

Jason

Ideas bounce around in my head
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I've been consumed a lot lately with a WIP, and that came from a conversation I heard students having on a break in a class I was teaching a few weeks ago in Madison, WI...so, for me I'd say just being an observer of the world and posing the "what if?" question to various snippets pulled from your real world into an alternate reality (the WIP).
 

owlion

Absorbing inspiration from the moon
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I just get a couple of vague images appearing out of the back of my mind, then think on those for a while, gradually expanding them until I feel like I have enough to work with - and that I want to work with them. Some ideas I end up never using because they just don't quite catch my interest as much as others.

There are tips for getting ideas which include things like going for a walk or having a shower. Those are also just nice to do, so if it helps great, if not you haven't really lost anything by trying.
 

KaiJu

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For me, it's vivid dreams and frustrations I get from consuming other media. I guess I want to tell stories I haven't seen before and break tropes. When I consume a lot of the same stories, narratives become predictatble and it takes out the fun when you can see what's coming later down the line. So my ideas spur from those things.

The dreams I have feel nostalgic to me, like being emersed in a world that doesn't exist. It's a strange feeling to know a world in detail but have no real way to describe or present it. So I'd like to make the worlds I've seen in my dreams into something more tangible through my work. Especially the imagery.

Also, ideas tend to come to me when I let my brain idle. When I'm thinking too much or I'm preoccupied with other creative work, the juices don't really flow. (I really like road trips and spacing out with music.)
 

The Black Prince

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I have ideas all the time but its useable ideas that matter. I constantly have ideas for characters, scraps of dialogue, situations, quirks, scenes etc rattling around in my head, then one day I have what I call the framing idea. It's typically an idea that kicks off a story, but I immediately see how a bunch of my other ideas go really neatly with it and I can almost feel them clicking into place. Suddenly I have the bones of a plot with two or three main characters and even some key scenes and dialogue. I'll typically write furiously at that stage to get 30 - 40pp out which are all about mapping the plot and maybe even an introductory few pp. All my books have started that way, including the three or four not yet published.

Funny thing is, despite being very much a plotter/planner, I ALWAYS come up with a better ending when I actually get there. No-one has ever guessed the end to my crime novel Straight Jacket and I think it's because I wrote the book working towards two different endings - both of which were being carefully set up - then when I got there I had a much better idea which made perfect sense within the logic of the story.
 

Dave.C.Robinson

... with the High Command
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Ancient Aliens.

I'm writing pulps and a lot of my ideas come from listening to some of the nonsense they spout and going, "what if it were true?" Then I just dig into it and come up with a 1930s adventure plot.

I also use titles to spark my mind: Air Pirates of Krakatoa grew out of its title. Attacked beneath Antarctica was originally going to be Trilobites of Terror, and while the title didn't fit I still want to write that story someday.
 

Sarahani

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"Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don't bother concealing your thievery celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said:" it's not where you take things from, it's where you take them to."
Jim Jarmusch
 

Prince_Alecksiiz

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Put me down as one of those 'from anywhere and anything' types...

I'm quite a 'current' individual, so if a piece of media I'm enjoying/consuming at a particular point in time generates an idea, I may or may not run with it, recalling stuff from elsewhere.

First and foremost, though, is the world of the aforementioned Prince Alecksiiz... think X-Men, Star Wars smushed together... that was how it started twenty years ago, and it's become simultaneously dystopic/idealistic/cynical (don't ask), become markedly different in tone and philosophy from those two franchises, and incorporated timelines going forwards of 500 years (so far... still need to find the best point at which to introduce the aliens...(!)) and backwards of 600 years with technological and biological evolution, but all started by a childhood of Saturday mornings watching the 90's X-Men cartoon.

Anyway, most of what I write are standalone stories set within this continuity (the core main story centred around Alecksiiz is a septet, but eh... less about that for now), and inspiration mostly comes from history, as it goes, and it mirrors the real world, none too subtly (albeit with two divergences). But bits and pieces from virtually everything I read/watch (be it anime, manga, novels, graphic novels, TV series or movies) will find some way into what I write...
 

sideshowdarb

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As a teenager, I wrote a TNG/X-Men mash up fan fiction that was EPIC. And I'm sure quite horrible.
 

tharris

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I wish I knew. I’m not very prolific.

I guess my answer is: dog walks. I seem to have most of my ideas coming to me as I’m walking the dog.

I have taken ideas from dreams, scientific news articles, overheard conversation. Sometimes when we travel I try to remember great little details about whatever new town we’re in and I think about what kind of story would be set there. For short stories I try to think of a narrative hook (I’m a little gimmicky with my short stories).