Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.
Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. This month's co-hosts are: PJ Colando, Kim Lajevardi, Gwen Gardner, Pat Garcia, and Natalie Aguirre!
June 5 question - 99% of my story ideas come from dreams. Where do yours predominantly come from?
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I don't think I've ever written anything that came directly from a dream, at least not that I knew I was doing.
My dreams don't usually make enough sense to be of any service in fiction, other than perhaps for imagery.
But, it's an intriguing question all the same. Ideas are an essential part of a writing life. My problem is not usually coming up with them, but finding time to develop them all into finished pieces!
But still, where do they come from?
I think most of my ideas come from juxtaposition.
By this I mean: there are lots of little thoughts and bits of information and observations bouncing around in my brain all the time, some pingponging around like high bounce balls dropped from a great height, others floating gently by on some unseen current.
Sometimes a couple of them bump off each other and there's a spark, like one was flint and the other tinder. And boom! There's a story idea.
For example, the idea of the Menopausal Superheroes was probably a combination of my apprehension about getting older and having just watched an X-Men movie where the characters were just so-very-teenagery that I found them frustrating. I thought something like:
What is it with teenagers and superhero stories? If hormones cause superpowers, then menopausal women should have these pubescent kids beat!
When I'm not working on a particular project already under contract, I also really love to play with writing prompts. A fair amount of my short horror fiction got its start as a noodle from writing prompts in Bliss Morgan's Nightmare Fuel challenge held each October. I've written more than one piece after reading the call for a themed anthology and thinking the idea sounded like a fun one to explore.
Other times, it's as simple as thinking, "What if?" and following that question where it takes me. A recently finished horror story (not yet published) came about because I'd gotten a new car with all kinds of fancy sensors and warnings and my brain asked some weird questions about that.
Getting from idea to story sometimes comes from noodling on my own, but a lot of times, it comes from conversation. I've hashed out many a plot line in conversation with my husband or with one of the members of my critique group.
How about the other storytellers out there? Where do your ideas come from? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!
I don't think any of my story ideas have ever come from a dream. Maybe a scene or two, but not the initial stories themselves. They usually come from me saying something like, "I wonder if I could write a romance novel" and then me seeing what happens next.
ReplyDeleteMismatched ideas can lead anywhere. Can't help but love them. :-)
ReplyDeleteAnna from elements of emaginette
I've only had a couple stories come from dreams. A lot of my ideas tend to be what if questions.
ReplyDeleteI love your teen/menopause analogy. LOL. Ideas can come from anywhere!
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeletejuxtaposition is a great of describing how your thinking pattern. I smiled because sometimes it is just that, things bouncing against one another that opens the way to a good story. All the best. Shalom shalom