Sometimes people ask me where I come with ideas for my stories. My initial response is usually something like ‘I have no idea’, but after a little thought I’ve realized that is untrue.
I know where ideas come from, and since one just happened today, I can say a little about how and where it happened. They come from my overactive imagination.
While stopping for gas today (which is now last week because I’m posting this in advance, remember?), I saw a woman with what looked like smallpox. I’m sure that’s not what it was, but the idea that it *might* be is what jump started my mind.
Many scenarios started to evolve, none of them in the least bit realistic. I think I could have built a whole story just my reaction to seeing this woman and whatever medical condition it was that afflicted her. What if it was smallpox?
Admittedly, it wasn’t very nice of me to notice her condition and ponder so in depth about it. In my defense, I was discrete.
So I’ve told you a secret about how story ideas come to me. What about you, how do you come up with story ideas?
Honestly, I’m hoping someone shares something at least approaching the level of my rudeness (which maybe lies not in noticing, but in blogging about it).
I seldom see something about in the contemporary world to inspire my fantasy. Sometimes I see things in a museum or on The History Channel to inspire me since all my fantasy worlds are medieval.
I do see things to inspire my blog posts when I’m out and about though.
I see everything through the eyes of a writer…the “what if” makes the most mundane circumstances funny, or scary, or threatening, or dire. Depends upon imagination. Yes, Mads, I have thoughts about people/things/places/events that might approach rudeness, but seems to me if you spin a tale out of them, you’re excused.
Writers see things in ordinary life that get right folks who don’t write. We keep writing in hopes the rest of the world will understand.
Dr. B, author, “The Mandolin Case”
I find moving around, looking, & listening to be the essence of inspiration. Seeing what is presented, not as it is presented, but as it could be…is all the fun a writer really has in life. No rudeness involved, to me. I recognize strangers notice me in public. If I blow my nose, or grunt when standing because my waist exceeds the chair’s width-someone notices. They make notes, even for only a moment, and as much as we liked to think otherwise, they make judgments. So be it. Look on. Listen in. Dream again.
Inspiration awaits around the corner.
All we need do is peek.
-John.