This morning, it happened to me again. I had a dream. And not just any dream, a dream: one of those dreams that inspires a big, big story.
I’ve sketched out the characters from the dream, the scene, the basic plot idea, and I did a little research (it was a historical dream). Evernote (which I learned about yesterday via The Creative Penn) is my new friend. I haven’t decided if this is what I should write next, although what I was planning to work on is only slightly less sketchy at this point 😉 .
I’ve had a couple stories begin as dreams before, and so far, that’s probably my most common source for story ideas. What’s yours?
(there’s a poll in this post; click through to participate)
Oh, and if you’re wondering, the post title is from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice:
Tell me where is fancy bred,
Or in the heart or in the head?
But I’m not afraid to admit that I know it more from Willy Wonka.
I love hearing this from other writers. Where do you get most of your story ideas from?
Photo by Gravity X9
I have no idea where my ideas come from.
Today, I needed to write an awkward scene at a summer camp…so my characters wound up skinny dipping.
I’ve never been skinny dipping, so I have no idea where this came from. Don’t even know if the scene works or not, but it definitely leaves a lasting impression on them.
For most individual scenes, the ideas come as I’m plotting (or usually off doing something completely unrelated). But my overall story inspirations come from dreams with surprising frequency.
I did have one novel come from a dream. Just remembered it. I wrote down the dream, then wrote the novel.
Unfortunately the end result wasn’t that great, so I’ve never really polished it up.
It was about a very angry woman, and man who soothes her temper, and in the end there’s some kind of catharsis where she comes to terms with herself. But this dream wasn’t an idea, it was a complete story. There’s fighting and swords and a lot of fantasy elements, sort of like a female Conan or something.
Someday I’ll tackle it. or grab some elements from it, because I really like the whole arc, it’s just the details that are wanting.
I get my ideas from playing “what if?” but not just on a random intermittent level. I play “what if?” all day long. I will see something and start thinking “what if that person did this instead of. . . ” or see someone that strikes my fancy and want something like that in my story so I start thinking about that character’s life or what thier story is. I dont remember my dreams most of the time, but I recieve inspiration in the shower often. LOL
I think alot of it is just being open to everything all the time, letting your creative brain work all day. My characters “play” in my head all the time and sometimes I just write the scenes in my head down on paper and then I have tons of ideas for my books. I played what if with a friend and outlined an entire story based on what we talked about.
Michelle
My ideas always seem to start with a mental snapshot. I see a character in a static pose involved in something intriguing. I can’t get the picture out of my mind and start asking the W questions: Who is this? What is s/he doing? When is it happening? Why is s/he doing it? Where is this taking place? And of course then comes the big “What If” that eventually moves the action along into a plot.