There are stories in everything. I 've got some of my best yarns from park benches, lampposts, and newspaper stands. ~ O. Henry
Yesterday I realized that I hadn't submitted anything anywhere in the month of April. I was horrified. And determined to not let that happen again this month (which is already 30% over).
I had very little time to myself yesterday -- we had errands to run that required a long drive and most of the day and it's going to rain much of the rest of the week, so all the outside stuff I wanted to do needed to get done upon my return.
But even amongst the business, ideas popped into my head without even trying. I got a doozy of a short story idea while I rested for about fifteen minutes. I thought my brain was tired and shutting down, so imagine my surprise when the bones of a short story outline flashed before my (closed) eyes!
Where do you get your ideas?
What a crazy question. I've decided that this can only come from someone who doesn't write, or isn't meant to be a writer. Everything I see or think has potential.
A building was recently built on a road near my house. It's a huge warehouse-like building with a satellite dish and a bunch of other official looking stuff on the roof. There is no sign out front to designate what type of business it is, so my mother (from whom I inherited my writing gene) and I have decided that it's the CIA. There's a story in there.
Once I was at the park watching my daughter play and a large, colorfully dressed woman with a ball cap sat on the bench one over from me. I looked away, looked back and she was gone -- replaced by a slim man in a ball cap. I never saw her at the park again that day. Did she morph into that man? There's a story in that.
Normal people would think, "Huh." and go on with their lives. I think, "Cool." And write a story in my head.
Where do you get your ideas?
Look around you. They're everywhere.
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3 comments:
I get a lot of ideas from songs, just from walking down the street, news stories or other tidbits I find on the web. I was on the WMUR site last year and found a piece about a charity fireman auction-the firemen were being auctioned off. I have over 70 pages of that story written and its one of my favorites. I also take them from incidents from my life (I had a pony who kept escaping and ending up at the neighbors house. I just made the neighbor be a good looking single male)
Or sometimes I come up with a title that I really like and build a story around that.
It's awesome when they come out of the blue. I just hate when I get a wonderful seed of an idea that, after 10 pages, withers and dies.
kgwrfllf-kangaroos go wandering right horribly following leaping lizards forward.
that was lame.
I've gotten a lot of my story ideas from weird dreams. But now I don't remember my dreams like I used to which is very annoying.
There are also ideas from playing "what if?" with movies and TV shows and how I'd do things differently.
No kidding.
My friend was telling the teachers in my unit about a case her husband, a vice cop, was on, that involved a little kid. All I could think about when she was talking was, what will become of that kid, and I need to write that.
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