I remember reading science-fiction books when I was a kid (and as an adult) and being amazed at the onslaught of ideas that seemed to pour off the page. Whether it was Douglas Adams talking about Improbability Drives and passing through all points in space at once, or William Gibson’s vision of cyberspace, or any number of short stories from authors whose names have disappeared from my memory even though their stories remain, science-fiction always captured my imagination and boggled my mind at the same time. People like Vernor Vinge seemed beyond smart to me. They were more akin to wizards, peering into the deep and then emerging with secret knowledge about the future. It seemed a power far beyond my reach.
Of course to this day I’d never put myself anywhere near the same category as a Gibson or a Vinge, but when I started writing science-fiction, I was surprised to discover that the process was a little less mystical than I’d once thought. I wish I could claim there was some secret talent or skill that I’d developed that made me special. The fact is, I think inspiration comes from a rather unsurprising and probably mundane source: reading a lot of stuff.
Stephen King had a couple of great quotes on the matter that have always stuck with me. Well, scratch that, Mr. King has a ton of great quotes on the matter, but I won’t repeat them all here. Just go buy On Writing. But two that I’ll share anyway:
“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.”
To me, writing is a natural outcome from reading. Words go in your brain, and after a while it fills up and wants to spit some out. And:
“Your job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up.”
To Mr. King’s point, it’s possible to try too hard to Find the Idea. I’ve certainly been guilty of it. Writers tend to be inwardly-focused, and it’s tempting to think that if we just lock ourselves in a room and stare into ourselves deeply enough, some brilliant plot is going to explode out of our souls. But I’ve found that I’m much more inspired when I’ve turned my attention outward, to what’s going on out there in the real world, outside the cozy confines of my closet.
I’ve always been a naturally curious guy. I’m always wondering how things work, and why this happens, and what would happen if. So that curiosity leads me down a lot of random reading paths. Whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, books or articles, I inevitably end up with a bunch of new information bumping around in my brain. And every so often two (or more) ideas collide in an interesting way, and suddenly I find myself scribbling down some notes, or a scrap of a story, or a character idea. Sometimes they become something more, sometimes not. But whether they lead to a larger work or not, the regular practice of making those new mental connections ends up producing more ideas than I have time to explore.
Science-fiction has a truly magnificent tradition. It’s a genre filled with cool ideas like faster-than-light travel and transferred consciousness, but the great works always go beyond just the ideas themselves and explore their implication when they come into contact with human nature. When you combine a little personal curiosity with the infinite complexity of humanity, you almost don’t have to chase ideas down at all. Given a little time, inspiration will come looking for you.
That’s quite a poignant post. Thank you.
I hope to see more like this one on the front page.
Excellent post and one I can fully empathize with. That’s exactly the way it works for me and is why I’m so fond of science fiction, nay, mesmerized! The flights of imagination in good SF are just fantastic!
I have friends who tell me, “I’ll never read SF, this is the kind of story that is so obviously manipulated by the author that the ending is never credible…” I find that a very depressing attitude to take and clearly people who think that haven’t read any good SF. A reader should never be aware of the author’s “manipulations” and if the ending is of the “deus ex machina” variety, then the book is no good! It all has to flow naturally and be eminently logical in all its nooks and crannies…
Thanks for sharing!
What a succinct and inspiring article in itself. To see the chain reaction that occurs once an author puts down an inspiring idea, makes a reader want to be a writer. The best part was that the inspiration does come from the real world, as shown in some of these personal examples. It’s hard to ask for inspiration to be generated spontaneously. Even if it seems to happen sometimes, Jay gave us some of the ingredients to mix into our head to help the process.