Coming up with ideas?

Life.

Sometimes they come from other stories (movies, TV, books, magazines); usually an element that catches my interest that I can see a different twist and different setting, characters, etc. As scarlet also said--life.

My current WIP developed from an element of another story I wrote, a small thing--a character's personality that I liked but wanted to put into a completely different situation. I made a new character with a "normal" background but a similar personality and gave him a totally different situation and setting. I made him the main character and borrowed from mythology and --Poof!--a whole new story.

Inspiration comes from different sources. It's a matter of putting those elements together in new ways.

Uh-oh! It's The Question!

How do you get your ideas!

From the fantabulous, wonderiffic Ide-o-Matic Machine, which I stole from some Sneetches (with stars upon thars) on beaches. I also robbed that no-good McBean chap and kicked sand on him.

I liked that post from Rachel. It's a great idea, and when my Ide-o-Matic breaks I think I'll try it. (Seriously, I think writing a hook is a fun way to flesh out an idea, and if I didn't have so damned many ideas already, that's what I would do. )

How I do it.

I try and take a weird idea that I KNOW has never been done before. What I have at first are loose "strands" of plot.

Then I start asking questions:

How can these strands tie themselves together?

How can Character A get to this point and Character B get to that point?

It's a lot of mental wrangling--a lot of "connection" as Forster might say. But I'm convinced that if you build everything around an original "hook," all else falls into place.

I can't answer this question, because I don't know!!

Ideas bite me on the ass several times a day. I guess it is a habit of mind that I tend to think 'what if?' and try embroider upon the many facts, possibilties and mysteries life presents.

I get bored. 'Bout it.

I'm not someone to whom "ideas" come easily. Alas. So when the ideas -did- strike, I'd try to write them. This didn't work out so well, because I'd often realize I didn't particularly care abou the pieces. Consequently, it's been a very tough slog (as all writing is) that hasn't been rewarding, and when the going got tough I took a powder.

The solution, of course, was to figure out what I -do- care about, and write about that. So I spent a fair amount of time plumbing the depths of the stuff that means a lot to me, and then permutating that list into story ideas.

If the "thing I care about" is "freedom of expression", frex, then I might springboard that into ideas like: a town where freedom of expression has never existed-what's it like?; what happens in a house where freedom of expression is not only encouraged but mandated?; where f.o.e. is legally permitted but socially discouraged, what happens to those who express themselves in ways contrary to the group?; what's the value of f.o.e. in a group, and what are the drawbacks?; is there ever a situation where f.o.e. is the absolute wrong thing? What happens when someone uses it even though it's wrong, on principle?

etc., etc. Not so much story ideas as things to explore in a story, if the distinction makes sense... Maybe these get combined or contrasted off of one another, or maybe they're each separate stories. Maybe elements from one find their way into another. Whatever makes the brain spin...

I live my boring suburban-mom life with "what if" playing in the background. And I watch and listen, especially to people unlike me.

Maryn, wondering what if she pressed Post Quick Reply

I take something somebody else did that I really like and file the serial...er...nevermind.

I just got an idea for my next project from three words in a song from my lifelong favorite band -- The Clash. I wrote it down and will start working out the details shortly. Or I do the "what if" thing.

I'm not sure - it seems like they just turn up. Sometimes it's a what-if thing, in which case it's probably the start of a plot or just some little thing that would be a cool concept to include in a story. But then, I've had a whole world inspired by something as mundane as a fan turning, so I really can't pin down a single idea source.

My plot ideas usually arrive when I try out combining a bunch of previously unrelated plotbunnies because they look like they might work together, and things fall into palce - an element of this idea becomes the motivation behind that one, that one becomes an explanation for why this is happening over here - etc.

I don't have to come up with ideas; they seem to find me.

Usually, my starting point is a character who comes along with a story to tell. I'm working on a series of novels centered on one such character.

At other times, it's a single, compelling scene that demands a story be built around it. I have a novella (that may end up a novel) on the back-burner right now that started with the single idea of a group of witches and wizards coming together in order to commit a murder, using magic. I knew they were young, and pretty clueless about what they were doing, but determined to carry it out anyway. And that was it. From that idea, I've spun out a plot, which focuses less on the magic they use or the person they want to kill than it does their means of rationalizing such an act, and what happens to them afterward.

I also get ideas from whatever my current project is, as I'm writing. Occasionally, I find myself stuck with a head full of preconceived ideas about how certain characters or stories ought to be handled, only to realize those ideas are either worn out or don't help my story at all. So I take them apart, discard the worn-out stuff that doesn't work, invent some new bits, and put them back together in a shiny, new configuration. I have a vampire novella in the works that came out of that process; a young woman who happened to be a vampire came along, and was supposed to be a minor character in a novel. Then I realized that nearly everything I thought I knew about vampires was wrong, or at least didn't apply to her particular condition. Those differences, and what they meant to her, were interesting enough to warrant a story all their own.

I'm constantly writing down good ideas and stashing them away in case I ever need them. But at the rate I'm going, it's not finding ideas, but rather finding time to work with them, that's the biggest problem.

I make them up--you know like martians and space men...Then I get them in a big group and shoot them all dead.

I recommend public transportation. My most recent two story ideas came from a) people seen from the train window; b) the tics of a particular person on my bus ride across town.

Dreams are good.

So are misreads and typos.

The trick seems not to be where the ideas come from so much as being receptive to everything's idea potential. Getting in the habit of viewing random occurrences as possible stories is important.

I get a lot of ideas from dreams, life, myths, and other stories. I usually splice up all the people I know and reconstruct them as characters. Most of my ideas are just little starters, maybe even one scene, and the rest of the story doesn't come until later. So, I guess I also get ideas from just writing.

Ideas come all the time.

But finding an idea that's truly worth a novel and a big slice of my life--ah, there's the problem.