How do you get your ideas?

[Sequence]

I come up with my ideas late at night when I can't sleep or something, then forget them when I wake up. The few I do remember always translate badly to writing. What I really should start doing is getting up and writing down the ideas as soon as they come to me.

[Trutharchivist]

6 minutes ago, Sequence said:

I come up with my ideas late at night when I can't sleep or something, then forget them when I wake up. The few I do remember always translate badly to writing. What I really should start doing is getting up and writing down the ideas as soon as they come to me.

Do what Connie does: keep a notebook in your bed.

Maybe I should try it, too... The problem is that I rarely ever have a room for myself, and I don't have a reading lamp by my bed.

[Sequence]

Just now, Trutharchivist said:

keep a notebook in your bed.

That's actually genius.

[+Slowswift]

I...daydream a lot. Someone once said that a writer is just somebody who forces the voices in their head to pay rent, and yeah, that's accurate. 

Songs play a huge part in this. This particular option happens most with regard to fanfiction--when I hear a song that reminds me of a character, it can spin into its own scenario pretty easily.

Idea fusion, as mentioned before, also happens. For example, a short story I'm working on right now came about after a daydream scenario interacted with a silly response to a writing prompt. Neither on their own was enough to inspire me, but together they provided an idea intriguing enough to write about.

And sometimes you're just bored at work.

Edited August 11, 2022 by Slowswift

[S. Stormy]

I can't really claim getting any crazy insanely good ideas, and I'm not a very consistent writer, but the other day I was thinking, what are some book titles that sound cool? So I made up a few, then thought up premises to go with them. It started when I was wondering what Name of the Wind was about, so I tried making something up, and then I thought "ooh fun, I should do this more". I got the idea for my story Heart of a Dragon this way.

[Odiumiumium]

I think one modified Hoid quote sums up my entire worldbuilding process (I don't actually write stories, I use my hours of watching nerdy videos on imagining stories in my head and never writing it down. That's my secret to avoid the "Well it sounded better in my head" problem.) 

"Nonsense. Balderdash. Figgldygrak. Isn't it odd that gibberish words are often the sounds of other words, cut up and dismembered, then stitched into something like them—yet wholly unlike them at the same time?

I wonder if you could do that to a [story]. Pull him apart, [idea] by [idea], [concept] by [concept], [papery] chunk by [papery] chunk. Then combine them back together into something else, like a Dysian Aimian. If you do put a [story] together like that, Dalinar, be sure to name him Gibberish, after me. Or perhaps Gibletish." -Hoid if he told original fictional stories

Basically, recycle ideas you find interesting or cool and rearrange them to make a unique but not nonsensical world. 

[HOID WANTS INSTANT NOODLES]

Think about what genres havent been mashed up that could make an interesting book

[The Sibling]

I always get my ideas from going places, like not traveling but just walking around. Then you look at something and you go "You know what would be cool? Is if X happened here." And then you think of the reasons why X would happen and who it would happen etc.

[Lord Gregorio]

I think of random, cool magic systems, then start to create a world with them. Sometimes I just start writing a story and I come up with strange creatures or a story line along the way. I'll then rewrite or edit what I've written with sort of a plot in mind. It will obviously be different if you're not a write by the seat of your pants writer. If you're like myself however, just think up random stories in your head or think of magic it would be cool to have and add some limitations if you want. World building (not too much, don't get stuck) can also help. It gets you out of book writing mode and helps you to see the world you're writing in. Brainstorming is a lot of it. Stupid ideas is another. .

[Coolmint]

On 12/9/2020 at 10:27 PM, Lightdancer said:

Hi! I joined the shard recently, and keep drifting towards this corner of fellow creators... So I figured I'd jump in with an obvious question.

I ask because I hear a lot of people and authors talking about this like it's a concrete process. Specifically, many of them rush to debunk the "myth" of the "idea fairy". Hilariously, most of my ideas are the result of the "idea fairy". I get ideas constantly like many of these authors describe, but sometimes I'll all at once get an idea- and I look up and there's a whole first act and a shiny new world sitting in my head.

So how do you get your ideas? Slow, steady percolation, or as sudden and unexpected as an atomic bomb?

Where DON'T I?  Looking out a window and making stuff up was something I started way back in grade school and still do.  Seeing a situation in real life, or a movie, and wondering, 'What if THIS happened instead?'  ...and oh, right, dreams, notebook next to bed...

 

I have so many I'll never be able to write them all.  It's almost like an illness.  Maybe the idea fairy keeps zinging me.  

(I once sold ideas.)

Edited September 6, 2022 by Coolmint

[CuratorOTL]

Literally ALL of my book/world ideas have come to me in spontaneous bursts of inspiration, save one when I sat down and said, "I want to write an epic fantasy that starts in another world"(because up to that point I had been doing portal fantasies). But after you get the ideas, then it's time for the methodical development of that idea. 

[RaeTheRaven]

I think for me most if not all my ideas come from my own experiences. Whether it's a place I've been to, a conversation I've had, emotion I'm experiencing etc. 

[The cheeseman]

From music, art, and games, mostly. For music, I listen to a song and it puts an image into my head. I then tend to think of how I would write that, what led up to it, and what happened after. It's very similar for art. Games are where inspiration for mechanics and story points come, especially for the world I've most recently come up with. That one is heavily inspired by Dark Souls.

The idea for the book that I've posted here (shameless plug) came from the song The Dawn Will Come, from Dragon Age: Inquisition. Now I'm 20,000 words deep into a world with thousands of years of history and not a single dragon.

Where my ideas come from is heavily related to my writing process and how I structure my books.

Edited October 10, 2023 by The cheeseman

[Ancient Elantrian]

Either I suddenly have a random tidbit, and then start writing and build a world around that tidbit.

Or I just decide to write and see where it goes.

[Channelknight Fadran]

Jujutsu Kaisen: *exists*

Me:

[Wittles]

Colors + literally anything

[Ravenclawjedi42]

I also keep a notebook in my bed, for writing stuff and developing my language right before bed. Most of my ideas just pop into my head, often when I am trying (and failing) to sleep. The magicke of insomnia hath taught me a greate many things.

[Wittles]

On 10/18/2023 at 4:48 PM, Ravenclawjedi42 said:

I also keep a notebook in my bed, for writing stuff and developing my language right before bed. Most of my ideas just pop into my head, often when I am trying (and failing) to sleep. The magicke of insomnia hath taught me a greate many things.

I do that too!

Insomnia is very good for the ideas maker

[TheRavenHasLanded]

let my mind wander. 

[Lord Gregorio]

I do what it seems like a lot here do. I daydream a lot, but don't necessarily use those ideas for stories. I think it just helps me learn to develop stories kinda like practice. Also try a bit of discovery writing even if you're not a discover writer. It'll help you come up with ideas. 

Read books, go on hikes, talk to friends/family/neighbors.

Pretty much anything helps.

[Just_a_Fan]

random crem go!!!

[Ookla]

I mostly get ideas about the mood or tone of a particular scene snippet (and for some reason these have been geared more and more around romance recently, even though I generally dislike romance). Sometimes, that mood/tone comes from the music I'm listening to.

I also recycle ideas a lot, because I suck at actually finishing stories. Starting them, yes. Daydreaming about them, yes. Finishing them? Not so much. So I collect a whole ton of random, unrelated ideas and start mushing them together to see what sort of story-porridge comes out, and usually it doesn't come out great so I have to separate the ingredients and start over, but sometimes nuclear fusion happens and we get something awesome in the pot.

Then, of course, there's the moments when I'm marginally more aware of the world around me than normal and jump right back into story-land because 'I want to put that sunset in a story!'

[Weaver of Lies]

I get one idea, one tiny little thing, then build off of it. Like I have an idea for a creature in my book, boom, now I have a magic system that works with the creature. Then I tweak it over 3.5 years until I’m happy with the maid system, and I’ll continue to tweak it. Often, in the process, the original idea is fossilized, where it is similar to the original but made of something completely different.