Writing Tip: Where do I get my ideas for my stories?

That’s a question I have been asked quite a few times. My stories are not plotted out in outline form before I begin the writing. I sometimes begin with a general idea something that interests me. Something that I want to explore. The idea might be as broad range as writing about good vs evil. It might be a very specific idea, such as getting lost in the desert. What ever the idea is, that is my starting point. I felt that I’ve never been able explain to someone else how I get to the next point, except to tell them just what I do next.

Without an outline or set of notes to guide me, I begin writing. Whatever comes into my head, goes onto the page, or the computer screen. Maybe it remains and maybe it does not, I find out later. When I am writing my best, most exciting tales, I literally do not know what it going to happen until I see it on the screen. It normally two or three days of immersion in the story for me to reach that point, where I am living the story along with the characters. At that point in my writing, I let my imagination run wild. Most of the time, I am very pleased with the results. There have actually been times when I have shocked myself by what I see coming up on my computer screen.

It’s at times like that when I know the writing is really good.

So, when I am asked how do I come up with my story ideas, I have to be totally honest and say, “There is no set way to come up with an idea. The ideas come from the world around me, and I let them grow using a vivid imagination.” It’s not a technique I can teach someone else. Other then look around and see what is out there, then let your imagination run wild. Sure, you’ll have a lot of ideas that don’t mature into a story, but if you have 10% that do, you have a lot of ideas to pick from.

As an example of how something in life can evolve into a story, in the past, I was living in Reno, Nevada. I was driving through the mountains in my sports car when I noticed it was getting dark. For a fleeting moment, I wondered what would happen if my car broke down, right there. I had no cell phone service, too isolated. My mind wondered with “What ifs.”

Several years later, I wrote a story where a character’s car broke down in the desert. The scene was already vivid in my mind. The character was on the exact location as where I had that thought. It was the same make of car. The character was even playing the same music I was at that time. I upgraded the scene from an audio tape to a Cd, but that was it. If I wrote it now, the music would be on his Ipod.

The point is that I kept that scene and the feeling I had being there until I needed it.

One other note on generating ideas. Keep a file, either in your head or on your computer, where you store interesting ideas. I used my file as I was writing my Nevada story. An idea that might not fit a story line you are working on now, may be perfect for a later story.