Write On! :: Comments :: Where do you get your ideas?

I honestly have never heard of this sort of thing working for anyone until now; when we used to be forced to do this in high school (and now, in college, from time to time), it's nothing but grumbling from people. I'm among the most vocal of those grumblers, because at least for me, I either have an idea or I don't.

The problem I've always had with "brainstorming" is the self-censorship issue. Yeah, anyone can sit there and belt out inane spew, but when I actually care what the end result is going to be, I'll restrain from writing the idea down if I feel it's stupid, pointless, or otherwise unusable.

The answer that "writesrs" give -- "everywhere" -- says to me that they don't know. They're gifted with the ability to come up with ideas, and to be honest, I don't think an ability as inherentily nontechnical as that can be attacked with a systematic, artificial construct like brainstorming, clustering, mind-mapping, free-writing, or any of the other techniques often suggested in creative writing courses.

Just once, I'd like a legitimate answer to the question "where do you get ideas", and if no such answer exists, I'd like someone to say so.
kitten .

At least for me, if I don't write the inane ideas down I have a hard time getting past them; they're usually the obvious ones and are very insistent on being heard. Once they're on paper I can move on and get to the interesting stuff. And hey, sometimes something inane leads to something interesting, even if it isn't any good in itself. Taking an inane idea, recognizing it for what it is, then turning it upside-down has resulted in some good ideas for me.

Coming up with ideas is innate - but it's a talent can be trained, just like the balancing you do when riding a bicycle. Some people pick it up really quickly, and some people are always a bit wobbly. (Yeah, I know, almost anything can be compared to riding a bike, and it's a lame, overused metaphor.) I think of writing out my brainstorm in a "spider diagram" like mental training wheels - it helps keep me upright, but it isn't what actually generates the ideas. Coming up with ideas, "the muse", inspiration... a bit of practice makes the muse more likely to wander by, or inspiration to strike.

Although I must say this is the first time I've seen free-writing called a "systematic, artificial construct" :-) (Personally I don't like free-writing either, as it cramps my hand and produces nothing of interest.)
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Who needs to be big and burly when you can just apply physics?
[ Parent ]

Free-writing may be the sole exception to my label of "artificial", but for me it's always been just as useless. It depends too much on having an idea to begin with; if I could just sit there and pop out ideas, well, I wouldn't need to bury myself in these sorts of excercises.

I said this once before but I'll say it again -- this sort of thing always reminds me of Marty McFly telling George to say to Lorraine "whatever comes to mind", and George globbers for a moment before saying "Nothing's coming to mind!"

I can't just sit there and force inspiration. If it works for you, I can only take your word for it, because I canot even imagine such a process working -- that's how far out of the realm of possibility it is for me.
kitten .
[ Parent ]

Ah, but I don't write "whatever comes to mind" when I'm brainstorming. I ask questions - how? why? what if? what if? and write down as many possible answers as I can come up with. Waiting for inspiration has never been effective for me. Hunting it down has, and the minimal structure of a spider diagram is one I find useful.

What does work for you then?
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Who needs to be big and burly when you can just apply physics?
[ Parent ]

Which is why I'm here looking for ideas. Unfortunately -- and I wish to stress that this appaers to be solely my own problem -- I've found nothing (yet) that helps.

Sometimes I'll think of a good line -- a phrase or two, really -- and work an entire story around that. Sometimes not even a story; more like a miscarriage of a journal entry. Sometimes I'll grab a lyric from a song and do something with that. Every once in a while I'll have an original thought of my own. But there's the rub -- either I have a thought, or I don't, and when I don't, I've found no technique or excercise or visualization or meditation or anything else that suddenly causes ideas to flow forth like a righteous fountain.

So you ask questions -- how, what if, why -- and I still sit there saying, how what? I have to have something to ask questions about.
kitten .
[ Parent ]

I guess part of my creativity is coming up with questions, then.

But to use your examples: (These are starting points only, to give you an idea of the types of questions I meant. Not all of them will apply to a particular example.)

A phrase or two. What are three different ways the phrase(s) could be interpreted and misinterpreted, together and separately if there are more than one? What are three possible character types that the phrase could describe? (This doesn't have to be a direct description.) What would two or three "opposite phrases" be? (yes, multiple "opposites"... think of "I am always right" as having "I am always wrong" and "you are always right" as two of its possible opposites... and those two aren't the same thing, nor are they opposites of each other.) Why would somebody say that phrase? (even - or especially? - if it isn't originally intended as a line of dialogue)

A song lyric. What are three different literal things the lyrics could be a metaphor for? What are three kinds of characters those lyrics could be used to describe? What are three events those lyrics could be used to describe? What about in an ironic fashion? A literal fashion? A metaphoric fasion?

An original thought of your own. ... well, it's a bit harder to come up with questions for this one without knowing a little bit about it :-)

How what? You are asking questions about your tiny seed of an idea, trying to find what will make it grow. I deliberately phrased the questions so that they specifically asked for more than one answer (three was chosen arbitrarily, you can come up with more answers than that if you like) because the first answer and usually the second are obvious and crappy answers that you don't want. I've gotten in the habit of making multiple answers, so I don't usually phrase my questions that way, I just keep repeating them until I think I have enough answers.

If you would like some more specific questions, I idle in #writing and am even at my computer for a good chunk of the day tomorrow (Tuesday). Feel free to drop by :-)
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Who needs to be big and burly when you can just apply physics?
[ Parent ]

I tend to create characters first, and perhaps put them loosely in a situation and let them figure out what to do next. I find it's important to give them names and spend a bit of time getting to know them (perhaps writing backstory or something, which need not appear in the final work). After that, they just do whatever they want, regardless of my ideas.

So sometimes I'll be reading a book or watching a TV show or something and have an idea for a situation that I would perhaps have handled differently. And the old What if... question comes to mind, and I sit down to write, or at least to sketch out, a story.

It's often the case that these things occur to me from asking questions like "How would life be different if I were..." of "What kinds of senses to trees have, and what do they do with the information they take in?"
Exploring dark places since last Thursday
[ Parent ]

In my humble opinion, the question you seem to have posed to others was answered according to their experience. If you asked "ME"..."Where do YOU get ideas", I would tell you that clustering is one of the techniques I use and one that works very well sometimes. I also use "What if" scenarios and sometimes a writing prompt will spark an idea for a story. I also use real life experiences and then use the "what if" technique to add more drama and conflict.

In my opinion the thing to keep in mind is that not all techniques will work equally for every writer. For some clustering or mind mapping works, others must outline a story completely before writing, some may write the entire thing and then go back and edit. Every writer is different! I feel it's unfair for you to assume that people are lying to you or making things up when they tell you they get ideas from clustering. If every writer got ideas from the same place, how long would it take before those ideas were being repeated over and over? Boring!

You may have better luck with your question if you simply rephrase it...i.e. "I personally haven't found clustering or mind mapping useful, what other techniques do you use to find ideas?"

Try googling your question....try to find writer websites that have random idea generators. There are at least as many ways of finding ideas for a story as there are writers in the world. Good luck!

DKelblaine
Do what you love and the rest will follow.
[ Parent ]

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