How do you come up with ideas?

[Gustaf Hagel]

I have always had a much easier time coming up with characters, worlds and surroundings rather than interesting stories. I almost always come up with a perfect setting, a character and some great way to start stories off but I always end up struggling with the actual story. Not just the ending but even what he´s going to do after he has been introduced to the reader.

Why is he there? What are his motives? What is going to happen to him? Those answers hardly ever arrive.

So, how do you develop your stories? The plots, the side-characters and the important scenes? Where or how do you get your ideas?

 

[N. E. White]

Out of thin air. At least, that's how they come to me. As long as I know what motivates my characters, the deeds and emotions just come.

 

[Diane]

I have crazy epic dreams.

Seriously, they are insanely detailed and I wake up mentally driven with an amazing story I can't stop thinking about. I lay in bed feigning sleep and build around the dream. I plan the background that would lead to such a scene and I follow the path to its conclusion. Mentally constructing the entire story I can be in bed for hours and not be aware of the time. Finally if I feel it is good enough I type up a short synopsis to remind myself later when I get to where I can write it.


I have 26 of these currently. Oh that I could write faster!!!

 

[kmtolan]

The idea fairy comes to me at night when I leave a piece of brain under my pillow.

Doesn't have to be mine.

Kerry

 

[Aether Monkey]

I always end up struggling with the actual story. Not just the ending but even what he´s going to do after he has been introduced to the reader.

Why is he there? What are his motives? What is going to happen to him? Those answers hardly ever arrive.

Put your character in conflict, both internal and external, and see what happens. It doesn't have to be epic conflict (and usually shouldn't be), just a real everyday conflict. Find their weak spots and exploit them.

For me, I think, "gee this character is shy but likes the girl across the row--hmm, I think I will have him lose her nephew (he was supposed to be watching him) and see what happens when she shows up to collect him".

I am cruel, petty god...oops.

 

[Tim_Seraphim]

I take some ideas from dreams as well. Dreams are our personal mythology, after all. You stated you can come up with a good character, but perhaps the real issue lies in only having one character. When I 'create' a character, I typically also create his nemesis. After that, I try to figure out why he is the nemesis. Are they battling over a girl? Did he kill someone he shouldn't have? Did he steal his favorite pair of sunglasses? Anything that doesn't equate "well, my main guy is good, and the other guy is evil!" Then again, I find evil just a boring cliche, so I might not be of any help.

Sometimes I feel as if I'm not writing the story, put in fact using the pencil/pen/typing to pull the story from the page, as if it's been there all along and I just needed the right tool to access it.

 

[Ian Feman]

Why is he there? What are his motives? What is going to happen to him? Those answers hardly ever arrive.

That is where I start. I have a notion of what it is that I want to accomplish. Then I spend some time thinking what it is that is needed to get there. What kind of hero can achieve this. What is required to create such a hero. Then all I have to do is construct the setting I think is where the hero or heroes should emerge from and set the characters loose and see what happens. During the course of the story I will continually have to insert characters, new and old, as well as events that will guide the hero toward the goal.

The trick is to have a goal, something that you want to tell the world about. Then think about what it is that has led up to that event. It is also possible to use the same method to describe an aftermath to an event, but I find that to be much more difficult.

That's what I do at least.

 

[Sterling13]

Scotch.

(Note: 18 year doesn't produce particularly better results than 12 year.)


Actually, a good daydreaming session while washing the car/mowing the lawn/scrubbing the toilets or any other mindless household task usually seems to do the trick.

 

[zachariah]

I steal all my ideas from internet forums.

 

[Loerwyn]

I don't, really.
When I'm writing, I let everything flow as best I can. If it's not flowing, then generally my idea is from a daydream or a 'standard' dream.

 

[Xenaphobia]

I almost always come up with a perfect setting, a character and some great way to start stories off but I always end up struggling with the actual story.

Have you tried plowing forward and seeing what happens? Maybe there's no real problem. It might just be that you've spent so much time on the perfect setting/character/opening that the "where it goes from there" doesn't live up to it. There's no balance.

Or you could try ignoring character and setting and focusing on plot/story. Maybe you feel constrained by the setting/character; it's perfect, when it really needs to be a little "messy".

Or you can fall back on the tried in true: "What if?" and answer it with "Who" "What" "Where" and "Why".

 

[Lucanus]

Do something absolutely awful to that perfect character. Kill his best friend. Have a horse trample his dog. Shipwreck him. Give him a disease that will kill him in 36 hours unless he finds a cure. Toss him down a well. Do something nasty.

 

[Aether Monkey]

...Kill his best friend. Have a horse trample his dog. Shipwreck him...Toss him down a well.

That's beautiful. Really. I'm partial to using crippled puppies to lure them into those sorts of situations (it's that little something extra), but that's just my tastes.

Seriously, you and I share a method. A beautiful, disturbing method.

 

[Lucanus]

Hey the bigger the problems the bigger the hero. You can't tell any story without conflict.

 

[Laer Carroll]

Every story ever written or to be written has the same basic skeleton - somewhere, somewhen, someone strives to get something. The something might be physical, social, mental, or emotional, or some combination of them. And it can change as the story progresses.

You seem to be having trouble with the striving part, not characters or what they want, or the settings they inhabit or pass through. Striving involves action against obstacles. So ask yourself what obstacles block your main character (or team of characters) from their goal? How might the deal with them?

This is plotting. That's a big subject. I'll start a new thread devoted to it.

 

[JohnKurt]

I steal all my ideas from internet forums.

LOL... you... are kidding right?

I travel for my ideas. Jimmy buffet says it best in his songs, about listening and watching people when traveling. It's amazing how many stories I hear just by sitting in an airport and paying attention to... just about everything.

Okay, I'll turn down the cheeze dial now. Sorry about that.

 

[Expendable]

Ever read Kipling's Six Honest Serving-Men? I have a seventh. His name is "What if?"

He's a very funny fellow who asks some very odd questions.

 

[Gustaf Hagel]

Striving involves action against obstacles. So ask yourself what obstacles block your main character (or team of characters) from their goal? How might the deal with them?

This is plotting. That's a big subject. I'll start a new thread devoted to it.

Start it!

My big problem is that I´m too picky. I discard idea after idea because I don´t like them. Now, for my latest project I actually came up with a plot, started planning and wrote 10 000 words before I realized that I didn´t want to write that plot. So I got stuck. Today I came up with yet another one so we´ll see how that goes.

The worst part seems to be to come up with the motives of the nemesis—s/he is by far the hardest one to write. An impersonation of evil is not what I want, nor a superhuman power. So that leaves a standard human with great ambition—but for what?
If you have a great nemesis, the strife of the hero is much easier to come up with. Isn´t it?

 

[Susan Boulton]

It is not the ideas that is the problem, it is beating them into a logical plot, with interesting characters that takes time and effort.

I have a mental bin for ideas, which now and then I rummage in, as both in my working life, and writing one, I am very keen on recycling

 

[Ian Feman]

Start it!
The worst part seems to be to come up with the motives of the nemesis—s/he is by far the hardest one to write. An impersonation of evil is not what I want, nor a superhuman power. So that leaves a standard human with great ambition—but for what?
If you have a great nemesis, the strife of the hero is much easier to come up with. Isn´t it?

Why not have two good guys then? Just make sure that at least one of them is wrong. Examples from real life:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley,_Jr.

Celebrated at the time but not so celebrated when the consequences are known.

Personally I like the saying: 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions.' It is so very true in our lives today so why not in the stories as well.