What inspired your idea?

You probably know this, but your nick means fairy in Finnish.

This is a lovely topic (probably has been talked about before, though). My inspiration comes from details. I love things that go unnoticed, and that's something I want to show: things that matter, small things, safe spaces between people, fears that are left unsaid. I just love those quiet moments that become so meaningful you're left speechless. So yeah, there comes my inspiration.


Edit. In my haste to write this (wrote it while on a bus), I ignored one detail. What inspired my latest work. It started from a legend I read about: the green children of Woolpit. I just read one sentence about them, and whoosh, there was some kind of an idea. Of course, then it took me forever to realize who the point of view character was or where the story even started. I tried to start it one book too early with a character who isn't the most important character of the story.

Ooh, inspiration's a cool business! Nice thread

My current WIP came from a conversation me and a friend were having. The conversation somehow got to the concept, and I looked at him and went: "That'd make a great YA novel". Then I got home and started to write it.

My former WIP came from reading Hardy. Now, I hated Hardy, but some of his portrayal of religion really piqued my interest. It was a real "Ooh, what if..." moment, and so I wrote that.

I hear and see things and then my imagination continues the story. Like the other day, my cat started eating his litter (it was new and clean), so I'm starting a story about that. Another day, I was watching a video where the person was talking about wanting plot with his porn and wondering what drives a woman to such poverty that she has to use oral sex as payment for her pizza and plumbing. So I've started one about that too.

History.

My current WIP came about because I love Rome in the time of Emperor Hadrian, and I was reading about his later life and came across a mention on the Bar-Kokhba Revolt. There was so much material for an author I was surprised that no-one had written a novel about it (for at least 30 years anyway.)

My MC was inspired by a mix of Rosemary Sutcliff novels, and reading about Roman espionage.

The idea for my current WIP came about during the war with Iraq when armies occupied the archaeological site of Babylon. At first I was only horrified that such an important historical site could be ruined but then I began thinking about what the city might have been like to live in during the peak of its power. Once I began my research I was hooked.

I am an outlier here, since I rarely get "inspired." I sit down and think in a more or less logical way about what subject might be appealing and original (or semi-original), and then I think about what kind of plot would work well for that subject. Maybe that's why my fiction is so boring!

A crystal necklace inspired my idea. The only reminder I had that I'd once been free.

I was twelve when I saw it, dangling at the edge of a flea-market booth. For two dollars, I bought it and slipped it around my neck. Like a cloud trapped in the stone -- five smooth facets to run my thumb against.

I was held against my will for four years after that -- trapped in an abandoned rural restaurant with some very bad people.

On the night of my thirteenth birthday, I lay awake in my plywood bed, staring out through the locked window, pretending I could see stars. I'd never taken off the crystal, and that night, I ran my thumb over the largest edge, closed my eyes, and opened them in a dark alley in New York City.

That night, I met Erin, the first of the vigilante sisters I write about. She was hurt, alone, and crouching there, lost in a dark alley. She wore the same crystal I did, and through her eyes, I found a new escape. A city to explore, people to meet, bad guys to thrash.

I kept the crystal around my neck until two years after I escaped. Even now, I wear it when I write, and I wear it when I remember. It's not that it's a crystal, or a talisman. It's just familiar, and comfortable, and reminds me of how amazing imagination can be, and how far it can take you.

~ Anna

I was frustrated about a situation I was in and no amount of inner monologue seemed able to make any sense out of it. So, I changed the setting, time period, and...nearly everything else. And then I started writing about the character that had my emotions. It was another way to explore what I was feeling without just repeating the same things in my head all day, "I'm so frustrated, why does it have to be like this??"

I set my story in a place that fascinated me, which I had visited a couple months before (the former Yugoslavia), and my imagination did the rest. Every other story I've thought of since then has come from that first one: an alternate beginning, middle, or ending that evolved into its own story. So, they all have similar elements: they all take place in Europe during a tumultuous time in history and they're all romances. And one or more main characters dies...and then it's about coping...

My current novel is a horror/superhero story centered around the concepts the Determinator and Heroic Willpower and Lovecraftian Superpowers.

In putting it together, I was inspired by sources like The Incredibles for that "world after superheroes have vanished" vibe, as well as the old City of Heroes MMO (RIP) for the various power levels.

There's some inspiration drawn from Pinnacle Entertainment's Brave New World RPG in that things started their downhill slope shortly after the Kennedy assassination. Also by Pinnacle, iirc, is the Necessary Evils campaign, in which most all of the heroes of the world have been killed by aliens and it's up to the few remaining supervillains to save the day.

This is coupled with the concept of a super's power level changing them and causing them to grow away from their humanity to something else, as found in White Wolf's superhero RPG, Aberrant.

And of course, there's the classics. The story follows in the legacy of a Superman-esque hero who is slain after having his spirit broken. I started thinking about somebody who had never known serious defeat or pain and what it would be for such a person to suddenly lose at something VERY high stakes.

I've also always been morbidly fascinated by the idea of a villain conquering the world. Not so much with the Bad Guy winning, because that always seems like such an unsatisfactory ending. But more the idea of, okay, the Evil Empress owns the world, now what does she do with it? Why'd she conquer it in the first place? How does she manage it? What steps does she take to keep ahold of it, and under what circumstances would she release her grip?

Apparently, I overthink my stories by a lot.

My current WIP, a bitter-bitter-sweet psuedo-romance, was ultimately inspired by a combination of pornography, a long walk to the pub, and a fleeting fascination in the epistolary form.

A heady mix, to be sure.

My inspiration comes from all over the place. My current WIP started as a dream about young cadets in some futuristic army suddenly finding that they were being attacked by people on their own side and having to go into hiding. This was almost 20 years ago, and I had it in the back of my mind from that day on as a storyline that could go somewhere. I'd pull it out every once in a while, play some scenes out in my head, jot down some notes about the characters.

A few years ago, it organically merged with a recurring nightmare I've had my whole life about the end of the world, then soon after that was really brought to life by another dream about an escape from a space station. That was when I decided to try to write the thing, and now that I'm in my full-on writing zone, I pick up inspiration from absolutely everywhere - an actor's performance in a TV show or movie can inspire a new character or give me an idea for something an existing character will do/say/feel, a song can open up a character's backstory or start an action scene playing in my mind, a word or a facial expression or a line from a book or absolutely ANYTHING can inspire something that will become a pivotal moment in this story. I soak it in from every sense when I'm mentally in the right place to receive it.

All sorts of places.

One WIP was inspired by medieval bestiaries. Another was inspired by a particularly vivid dream. Yet another was sparked by my hunt for a used car. I even have one blatant self-insertion fanfic with some elements that could be recycled for a standalone. And I have at least a hundred snippets and ideas stashed in various files for safekeeping in the chance I find time to mine them for a proper story.

Ideas can come from anywhere.

I've already said it quite a few times, but in the sake of specifics (since that's where I think this thread is going?) and fascination with everyone else's:

The original idea came from watching a power ranger series that was trying to do something with animal spirits being the source of their powers. But they were making them ghost robots for budget reasons & only using the idea as a catalyst & not taking it seriously as a source of world building & plot, so it got me thinking about it. Also, around that time, they were advertizing a new series on the CW, "Legend of the Seeker." Since I love fantasy, & really wanted to see it, I paid way too much attention, but without my realization, an image of the main male & female protagonists from the promos stuck in my head & I ended up wanting a male & female protagonist for mine. I ended up also adding the idea of a mentor character &, since I was a teenager & this was somewhat coming out of a martial arts idea, he ended up being some kind of badly reconfigured Mr. Miagi.

The rest of it kind of fell into place as I learned how to write, how to construct a plot, got into darker & better written books, lived my life & learned more about world history. Eventually the characters got more shades of grey & became deeper, especially as I began figuring out how to connect their emotions & their personalities to their circumstances & vice versa.

Honestly, though, I've spent so long tightening up both the story itself & my abilities that I would be here all day, & probably give away half my book trying to remember sequences and explain every angle, but some of it came from trying to pick out & seal plot holes, some of it was thinking hard about characters, or coming up with new ideas I want to incorporate, some was just random revelation, some was trying to deviate from well known tropes or similar stories & a couple of things I picked out of both ancient, spiritualist & modern mythology (whilst attempting to battle against being cliched or redundant).

And, now, I've been working on my writing skills & I'm hoping that this'll be the last attempt at this story I have to make before I begin to shop it around.

And, while confident enough to the contrary, hoping that I'm not...

At least nine times out of ten, the title inspires me. I fiddle around until I find a title I like, and then I write a story that goes with the title. It works very well. It's what Ray Bradbury did, and it worked well for him, too.

Every great once in a while some random occurrence generates a story, usually full-blown. Finding a couple of dollar bills shredded by a lawnmower, going on a rabbit hunt with my young son, remember an old parachute hidden away in an attic, remembering something I did, or a friend did, when younger, finding something unusual, you name it.

There ideas are completely unpredictable.

Is it weird that I have no clue what inspires most of my ideas? Because I don't. I get ideas my making lots of random notes and somehow fitting them together. I don't get ideas unless I have my pen on paper.

In fact, the two stories for which I know the source of inspiration are two of the ones that caused me the most trouble. One was inspired by depressing events in my life, and it is hard for me to work on so I haven't touched it in ages. The other was written in a fit of rage about certain gender stereotypes. Editing it was the most painful thing ever, and I had to stop writing for a while afterwards.

That's probably just a coincidence, though.

I write novels, although in the early drafts I don't mess with word count too much. My ideas have been inspired by everything from dreams, something I read/saw on the news, to personal experience.

For me? I wake up in the morning. I keep my eyes and ears open. I pay attention to what's going on around me. I listen to conversations - my own and other's. My latest WIP came from a snippet of conversation with my son and we both immediately knew it was a story thread. Other ideas come from a line from a newspaper or television or the nightly news or just watching birds in the trees in my front yard will bring a phrase to mind and... off it goes!

If you stay open to them, story inspirations are everywhere!

My novel was inspired many years ago by a simple question by my brother. We were walking along the harbor shore in Sydney, when a replica 18th century sailing ship came into view. He asked, "what if that was a real convict ship from the 1700s?"

I became obsessed by the that question!

Inspiration for my WIP:

- A webcomic titled Grim Tales from Down Below by Bleedman
- Ramadan
- Dragonlance Chronicles
- Ramen
- No-spin weapons throwing

Surprisingly enough, I actually discovered my book idea for my 81,000 novel "The Magic Suitcase," through a DREAM I had! Before that (over a year ago now) I was telling myself that I really needed to get started writing again, but I had no idea what would make a great book idea! Until I got a dream of my book! Then I instantly wanted to write as soon as I woke up! During work, I started brainstorming cool ideas for scenes, etc., and now, voila! It's a beautiful masterpiece!

Generally? Visiting interesting sites, like art galleries or museums or the mountains or wherever. I'm inspired a lot by Shakespeare. I'm hungry for information and stories; I take it all in and hope it all becomes an organic part of my writing.

My storylines usually grow up around a question or thought.

Specifically:

My first completed WIP was inspired by the question: What happened to Boudicca's daughters?

The second was inspired by the oh-so-juicy, real-life Affair of the Diamond Necklace, specifically: What happened to those diamonds, anyway?

The third was inspired by the memoir of an English actress who married a Georgian plantation owner circa 1830, and specifically: What would it have been like to marry into that world?

The fourth WIP is a prequel to the one above, and a lot of that story was dictated by WIP 3's backstory. What were the parents of WIP 3's characters like?

As for my novella: Well, what if elements of Beauty and the Beast were reversed and the story were set in the Civil War?

My ideas come from all over the place.

The MMOG "City of Heroes" (1st novel)
Tabletop RPGs with my friends (2nd novel)
TV, movies and songs. (2nd and 3rd novel and 1st pro story)
What if? Questions, particularly those raise by my kids. (4th and 5th novel)

angeliz2k said:

As for my novella: Well, what if elements of Beauty and the Beast were reversed and the story were set in the Civil War?

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This one intrigues me. I keep envisioning a story taking place in an area that's be traditionally one piece, but then bisected by the Mason-Dixon Line during the War.

Myrealana said:

My ideas come from all over the place.

The MMOG "City of Heroes" (1st novel)
Tabletop RPGs with my friends (2nd novel)
TV, movies and songs. (2nd and 3rd novel and 1st pro story)
What if? Questions, particularly those raise by my kids. (4th and 5th novel)

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RIP, City of Heroes. Not bad inspirations, by any means!