I got my first round of edits for Fairy Tale yesterday. As I was reading through my book, I had to think how the crap I came up with my idea in the first place.
My ideas come from everywhere. Pictures, music, a line or something in another book. I'm a huge people watcher, so sometimes an idea stems from seeing a particular person or situation.
I'll use my fairy tale book for an example. I read Janette Rallison's book MY FAIR GODMOTHER. I thought it was hilarious and fun. The main character cracked me up and the fairy godmother was so funny and clueless. When I finished, I had a thought. What if the girl didn't end up with the prince? What if she ended up with someone else?
And my fairy tale idea sparked. It turned into something totally different from what it started as, but I love how it turned out.
So if you're ever in need of ideas, take a look around. There are stories to tell everywhere. You never know what will spark that awesome idea, but when it does, write it down!
What sparked your idea? Anything interesting? Do tell! :)
22 comments:
My ideas come from the same places yours do. They've also come from aimless internet surfing. Sometimes news bits. A dream, but that only happened once.
Good luck with edits! I'm free to listen to any and all venting. :)
I get my ideas from dreams. I keep a dream journal beside my bed so I can jot them down before I forget them.
Reading sparks a lot of my ideas. I'll read about a time period and BAM...another idea.
Hahaha! I sometimes wonder where the heck my ideas came from, too!
I know where the initial idea came from, though. We were flying home from Disney World, and I had the aisle seat. I stared out the window the entire time, staring at the clouds from the wrong direction, and thinking how fun it would be to jump out of the plane, and have those clouds catch me.
And congrats on getting your edits! We can go through it together. :D When are yours due?
My ideas come from anywhere and everywhere: dreams, songs, other books, movies and TV, random observations or wonderings from real life. I love how varied the inspiration can be. I got the idea for my first published short story by taking out the trash. :)
I'm with you. They come from everyone. My second novel was inspired by To Kill a Mockingbird, and the "plot" I wrote down was, "Story about kids growing up." And somehow that turned into ~50,000 words.
I get a lot of ideas from people-watching too. I love how people interact with each other (and how characters interact in stories).
Your first round of edits already? *squeee!* So exciting Chan.
And I don't know where exactly my current WIP idea came from. I think I just have weird stuff in my head. lol
My current WiP idea came from a dream, which has never happened before. Usually I look to music or experiences in my own life to find inspiration.
My WIP idea came out of nowhere, but my last two came from buildings. One, a local bowling club in my town that I never noticed before (crown green, not tenpin), and then a half-built house that was abandoned when the developers ran out of money. This is round the corner from me, and I've seen it every day for about two years, but today it sparked an idea. It helped that I was held up by roadworks and was sitting next to it in the van for about five minutes! Opening your eyes and wondering really helps.
Oh, and books that mess around with fairy tales are great. Two you could check out: Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl, and Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett. There are many others, of course!
My ideas come from anywhere. Everywhere. I may be sitting at my desk working on an item then some random thought crosses my mind, completely undrelated to the boring telecommunications crap I'm mulling through. I jot it down on a Post it note then find a time at home to add it to my list of Book Ideas.
My ideas from everywhere: conversations, observations, movies, books, TV. That usually provides the spark, then I do freewriting to try and develop an idea that interests me.
The current book I'm working on started with a contest. I didn't know the blogger, but the picture was so captivating I just HAD to write a story about it. I fell in love with my characters and I couldn't give it up!
I was playing a demo of a computer game and I had a flash of inspiration. The book is so different from what it was originally, though.
My last idea came from a rapid series of dark books I was reading at the time. I wanted to write a book slightly less dark, but no less interesting.
I get ideas all over the place, but because I write inspirational fiction, a lot of my ideas hit me while reading scripture. The book that's on submission right now came from the passage where Mary sees Jesus after He's resurrected and doesn't recognize him. I thought, "How the heck do you spend that kind of time with someone and not recognize them?" Thus my contemporary romance was born.
I could be doing something entirely mundane and then, poof! "Where's a pen and paper!" This happened to be over the last weekend. Funny the many different ideas come to us. :)
A dream. Sorry to be so cliche, but that was my first book--although it turned out nothing like the dream, but that's where it started. This new ms was sparked by one simple question someone asked me once. 800 pages later, I should probably thank that person. :)
I was 15,000 words into my NaNo project and just wasn't feeling it, on a plane coming back from a business trip. So I asked myself 'What AM I feeling? What do I want to write about?'
And this girl popped in my head. A totally beaten, depressed, can't fall any father, girl. I put her in a scene and just started writing.
And ten days later I typed 'the end'. Crazy :)
Congrats on getting your edits back!!! That is so exciting!
I'm a people watcher too!! And don't worry people, I'm not a stalker...just imagining your back story.
A dream inspired my first book, and it ended up spawning a whole series of five books.
There's no one place where I get my ideas. I honestly don't know. I think they've been floating around in the gelotinous mass of my brain my whole life.
Ideas hit me when I least expect them. For my current WIP I was walking while drinking a can of Dr. Pepper. I wished the can could become a jet pack and propel me through the sky to home. Voila - Sci Fi story. It seems once something tickles your brain, the floodgates open.
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