Thursday, January 24, 2013

Where do I get my ideas?

One of the most dreaded questions for an author is "Where do you get your ideas." So because I like you, I'll answer that question once and for all.

I have no idea.

Every story is different. One time I drew a little map, and it had a dot on one side. I wondered about the dot, and a story was born. Another story came from a dream, and a third came out of nowhere. I just started writing, and the horse went lame, leading to all the other events in the story.

Most of the time I've forgotten where the story came from within the first half page, and the rest of the time the original "idea" bears no resemblance to the final.

So if you ask me where a story idea came from and I say "I don't know," you can't say you weren't warned.

2 comments:

Martin Willoughby said...

Ideas appear out of thin air, looking like a skeleton. We writers have to add the rest with imagination.

Lauren said...

Good analogy. Reverse decay! :)

Lauren