So where do ideas come from?

I’ve been doing a lot of teaching on the idea of ideas lately and came across these excellent quotes.

·         People always want to know: Where do I get my ideas? They're everywhere. I'm inspired by people and things around me. (Gwendolyn Brooks, American poet)

·         My standard answer is "I don't know where they come from, but I know where they come to, they come to my desk." If I'm not there, they go away again, so you've got to sit and think. (Philip Pullman, English writer)

·         Ideas come to a writer, a writer does not search for them. "Ideas come to me like birds that I see in the corner of my eye," I say to journalists, "and I may try, or may not, to get a closer fix on those birds." (Patricia Highsmith, American crime writer)

·         It's very blurred, it's not clear. The plan is something which gradually evolves. Usually, I'll just start with one particular idea or certain image or even just a mood and gradually it'll kind of grow when other things attach themselves to it. (Jane Rogers, British novelist, editor, and teacher)

·         Anything can set things going--an encounter, a recollection. I think writers are great rememberers. (Gore Vidal, American novelist, playwright, essayist)

·         You can write about anything, and if you write well enough, even the reader with no intrinsic interest in the subject will become involved.
(Tracy Kidder, literary journalist)

·         "From you," I say. The crowd laughs. I look at the woman asking the question; she seems innocent enough. I continue. "I get them from looking at the world we live in, from reading the paper, watching the news. It seems as though what I write is often extreme, but in truth it happens every day."
(A. M. Homes, American novelist and short story writer)

·         My usual, perfectly honest reply is, "I don't get them; they get me."
(Robertson Davies, Canadian novelist, playwright, and critic

So what gets your juices flowing?

We’re debating this on our Facebook page at

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Inscribemedia/183385438479538 

John Dean

Where do your ideas come from?

I am interested in writers’ inspiration.

For some writers, stories always start with a place, somewhere that strikes them  so forcibly that the story unfolds around them.

Other writers start with a character, someone so interesting, so intriguing that they can almost tell the story on their own.

Some begin with the story itself, an idea inspired by a newspaper snippet, something someone says, a sudden sense of ’what if?’

Some write for additional reasons, to get a point over, to add to our knowledge of the world or to make us think about an issue in a different way.

Whatever your motivation - and there will be many others - one thing is certain: if it drives you to sit down in front of that computer or lift up that pen, it’s got to be worth writing about.

So what sparks your imagination?
You can tell us at our Facebook site www.facebook.com/inscribemedia

 

John Dean

The power of ideas

I am interested in where writers’ ideas come from.

One of my big messages in my teaching is that writing has two sides -  technical (most writers can string words together in a competent fashion) and added value - the emotions, images, the concepts, that make what would be otherwise 'competent' writing jump off the page.

So where does that added value come from? Strong characters will provide it, yes, vivid description, of course, but also the power of the idea. Come up with a strong idea and it will take you a long way because the reader keeps thinking ‘that’s clever.’

So the question is where do your ideas come from?

 

 

You can give your experience over at our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/inscribemedia

John Dean

Where do your ideas come from?

Writer Neil Gaiman once said: “You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we're doing it. You get ideas when you ask yourself simple questions. The most important of the questions is just, What if...? “
So the question is where do your ideas come from?
You can tell us about your inspiration on our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/inscribemedia




John Dean