Blue Topic of the Week: Where Did You Get That Idea!? part 2

[ladyseishou]

So now that we've put that place in Schenectady out of business, what do some other writers say about where the ideas come from...

Neil Gaiman (American Gods and Coraline) reports that when asked, he would say:

"From the Idea-of-the-Month Club," I'd say, or "From a little ideas shop in Bognor Regis," "From a dusty old book full of ideas in my basement," or even "From Pete Atkins."

But now-a-days, tired of tomfoolery, he opts for telling the curious where his ideas really come from...

"Out of my head," he says.

He later explains:

You get ideas when you ask yourself simple questions. The most important of the questions is just, What if...?

(What if you woke up with wings? What if your sister turned into a mouse? What if you all found out that your teacher was planning to eat one of you at the end of term - but you didn't know who?)

This is a very powerful concept: What If.

Barnaby Conrad (The Death of Manolete, The Encyclopedia of Bullfighting), as a secretary to Sinclair Lewis, America's first Nobel Prizewinner for literature, once admitted to the legendary writer that he suffered from writer's block while writing his first novel:

"I don't know where my story's going."

"What if there's a knock," he said.

"What?"

"Knock comes on the door," he said.

"Who?" I asked. Lewis's mind was unquestionably the most inventive, mercurial and brilliant I've ever encountered; I wasn't always able to keep up with its gymnastics.

"A very loud knock," he said.

"But," I said. "Who is doing the knocking?"

"How the hell should I know?" he said. "Surprise me! A forgotten uncle from Peru? The little girl down the street who says her mother has passed out on the floor? A telegram from whomever? A homeless hobo? Whoever or whatever, it is going to enervate all your other characters, cause them to react, create conflict, the fuel of fiction, and your story will automatically go forward."

Laura Yeager, in her essay "Eight Ways to Find a Story" suggests using images of places to spark ideas: "try to imagine something interesting that could happen there" and old postcards: "I loved to look at the old tourist spots, and often got story ideas by looking at these colorful artifacts of days gone by."

So Nano Writer, as to the question: where do you get your ideas from? Take inspiration from these writers and add this powerful question to your writing arsenal:

What if?

I challenge you to open your journal/notebook and pen or type the words "What If" at the top of the page and let your imagination take you where it will as you discover the answer!

Bibliography

Conrad, Barnaby. "Jump-start your fiction with two words: What if?" The Writer Magazine. 15 May 2009 <http://www.writermag.com/wrt/>.

Gaiman, Neil. "Where do you get your ideas?" Neil Gaiman. 15 May 2009 <http://www.neilgaiman.com/>.

Hallaway, Tate. "Where the Heck is Schenectady? Finding SF/F Ideas – Part I: [Bleeping!] Read." Wyrdsmiths. 15 May 2009 <http://wyrdsmiths.blogspot.com/>.

Yeager, Laura. "Eight Ways to Find a Story." Weekend-Writers-Group. 15 May 2009 <http://www.meetup.com/weekend-writers-group/>.

Comments

[mirrormestein]

Thank you for writing all of these articles out. They are brilliant.