Inspiration is something that really fascinates me. It’s quite the magical and mysterious process, whereby either synapses and brain gunk align just so or the idea fairies flutter down from the magical idea kingdom and knock you over the head with idea wands. You know. Depending on your belief system.
What I find interesting about inspiration is that it’s something that’s mainly outside of our conscious control. It would be pretty nice if you could just make inspiration strike on cue, but then, that wouldn’t be much fun, would it? Also it would be annoying to walk down the street shouting, “EUREKA!” every five seconds.
So where and how did you come up with the idea for your work in progress? How fully-formed did it emerge from the inspiration ether? What do you do when you need inspiration to strike?
JACOB WONDERBAR emerged very roughly formed: all of a sudden I decided I wanted to write a wacky middle grade science fiction novel and then simultaneously thought of one of the planets the kids visit, which I shant share because it’s a spoiler alert. Everything after that emerged from staring at the screen and wringing out ideas.
What about you? How did you come up with your idea?
LeeAnn Flowers says
I wrote a book. After shopping it around for more than a year, I shelved that book and took the main character and a few supporting characters and started rewriting. I used the first book as a history to set the plot up. The new plot is nothing like the first book. It seems to be going very well, too.
Trisha Wooldridge says
This is another really random one, but in my commute to the horse rescue I work for I notices this huge red mailbox with "Starbard" written on it. (It's a construction company by that name.)
My immediate thought on that was, "Whoa! What an awesome name for an SF character… singing and stars…" and then >POOF!< My character, Kyra, pops into my head along with her sidekick, a bright pink alien named Marne,and I find out there's a race of people who foretell the future by listening to the stars sing. I went home and did just a little research, and found out that NASA had recorded sounds that were similar to music eminating from stars. Go figure!
Diane Velikis says
One visit to Martha's Vineyard I knew it that would be my setting. My villian is an obsessed fan of a newly converted christian suspense novelist. Get inside of the mind of a real Psychopath…. lots of twists and turns, definately not for the faint of heart
Randy R. LaBarge says
I have always been fascinated by the first Christmas of World War I. On Christmas Eve of 1914, soldiers along a section of the German-British-Scottish Western Front expected to stop fighting to observe the Christmas Holiday. And that's exactly what they did. On Christmas Day the soldiers all got together and partied, played soccer, sang songs and exchanged gifts. The next day they went back to fighting. As I thought about it, I wondered what it would have been like if two enemies had been trapped in a bomb crater on Christmas Eve. The story evolved from that single thought.
terryd says
Simple. My editor at Orbit asked for sequel!
Now all I have to do is write another post-apocalyptic thriller. And make it stand out from the other eleventy-gazillion post-apoc books. And meet the deadline. And make my editor grin.
suelder says
I went to the funeral of a friend's mother – we'd gone to college together. And his sons were there. They were twenty and eighteen. And they were a riot!
The older brother was quiet, amused, obviously intelligent and letting his brother have the spotlight. The younger was talkative, charming and even flirted with my (long-married) sister. They were like a comedy routine and "Brothers" was born.
Kaitlyne says
My work that is currently in submission came from a dream. Well, the first half of it did, and for the most part it was "inspired" I guess you could say, as I had to take out all the wacky dream elements, but the characters and some of the events were the same. I just woke up and knew that I had to write this character.
The current WIP came from talking to a friend about the Justice League and one of us (don't remember which) saying, "You know what has to be the worst job in the entire Justice League?" It started as a joke, but the idea struck me as hilarious. The next thing I knew, I had an MC and my own crew of superheroes begging to be written.
Michelle says
My husband I were brainstorming funny boy book ideas, and he said, "What if a kid found a pair of granny panties when walking past a laundromat . . ." REVENGE OF THE PINK GRANNY PANTIES was born! So far, all his zany boy story ideas have sold to magazines-hopefully the book will follow suit.
Jemi Fraser says
Inspiration comes from all over the place! I'm a teacher and have lots of "Wow, that would be great…" moments in the school 🙂
The idea for this particular wip sprang from a friend's ms. She writes steampunk & I love it. I decided to give it a shot with a YA twist. All kinds of fun!
anne vinsel says
i'm guessing you mean the book with words in it? i was in an elevator at work (my day job is at a large academic medical center) and two med students were talking. one said, "cyanide goes through mucous membranes," and i said, "ANY mucous membrane?" the other one looked at me and said, "yeah…" as he backed away into the corner of the elevator. and i said, "so you could get cyanide in a tampon and leave it in a box and then go off to europe?" and now they both backed away but agreed. then later i was in a meeting with the state medical examiner and i asked him about feasibility and dosing, and he raised some issues, and i was off.
in general i get ideas from stuff around me that makes me say, "huh!"
Sharon Kirk Clifton says
Interesting question, Nathan. I'm a professional storyteller whose specialties are Appalachian oral tradition and American history. My WIPs tend to spring from my ST programs. (Never let good research languish, I say.) The ms I recently completed is set in the southern Appalachians, and my current WIP involves the Underground Railroad, the subject of another of my shows. It's all storytelling.
Anonymous says
I cheat, I get my ideas from someone who tells me that he can't find the book he wants to read, so I have to write it for him. It's a bit nice to have a muse on tap, especially when it's the day before NaNoWriMo starts and I don't have any ideas at all.
I actually came up with the current WIP myself, and that came from reading Harry Potter fan fiction. Honestly. It's nothing like Harry Potter or fan fiction, but that's where the idea came from.
Blee Bonn says
My current WIP idea came to me while flying back to the West coast from D.C. I saw these mountain ridges and suddenly I had this idea for a YA dystopian novel.
Ideas are always popping into my brain and like others I wish I had more time to write. It's nice to always have ideas in the queue though.
Anna L. Walls says
In my current project, I'm mixing Dungeons & Dragons (the game) in with 20th century USA today. I really like D&D though I haven't been able to play it for years. One day I had a dream about an abused kid who runs away from home. EUREKA What better way to have a character cross over into the secret society of D&D druids and then have him walk a fine line between D&D and USA today while he meets dwarves, gnomes and centaurs (so far) not to mention the elves. It's a lot of fun keeping the two worlds separate.
Anonymous says
My main character has been bouncing around my head for years. He is a combination of people who I thought were always finding the easy way out.Did any of them fall on hard times or are they still the skating by with no thoughts of others?
Catherine Gayle says
My idea came from a What If. I'm not sure where this particular what if came from, but once it arrived, I had a premise. Then I just had to figure out who my characters were and to keep playing the what if game. Still working through it at the moment, but these characters are continually surprising me.
KayKay says
The idea for my current project just randomly came to be one night. I had this line stuck in my head and just rolled with it until I had four or five pages written. Then I went through and thought up a plot.
Linguista says
Ideas are like sh*t, they just happen! 🙂
Unless, I am doing something which requires my brain to be active, I'm daydreaming. So I can formulate entire plots, characters, settings etc, while sitting in the dentist's waiting room.
It's kinda sad, because there's no way I'll ever be able to write them all.
Lori Benton says
My stories come from other people's stories that I've absorbed over 41 years, mixed with my learning about some period in history rife with the type of conflict I find most compelling. That conflict is the hook that snags in the story-layers in my brain and pulls from that sediment a new character, or the plot kernel of a new tale.
Justine Hedman says
Hey, my current WIP-the one I work on the most anyway-came to me years ago. I was having some very dark moments in my teen years and had a 'friend' who would continually show up in my dreams. I think it was just my subconscious trying to make everything seem better. He's been my muse for a good long while now. He helped me to create my world, my MC's (I also used my fav or least fav characteristics of people I actually know to deepen the likability or unlikability of my characters) The inspiration has always been my muse or 'friend' telling me what I should or shouldn't do. I'll have strange dreams and write them down, my muse tells me what to work on when. If I get stuck on my WIP, I'll move onto another story or a children's book/illustrations until the pieces fall into place. The story has been working itself out in my head for 10 years now, I started writing it out with serious intentions of creating a book out of it when I decided to stay home with my kids 2 years ago. There's not a day that goes by where I don't think about it, I'm very attached. So it's a good thing it's going to take a long time to get through it. A 7 book series will take me a while. I've finshed the first drafts of book one and two, but work on polishing one and writing scenes for the others. They're constantly evolving, and getting better every day which sometimes amazes me.
--Deb says
Honestly? A dream. An incredibly vivid dream that actually told a story. Or rather, told the beginning of a story that I just had to finish!
Ashley A. says
I love that you invite us to tell you about our work, Nathan. I have a full-time job and a Brady Bunch-style blended family with five kids and no Alice. I'm always running out of the bathroom with a lightbulb over my head. I mentioned to my S.O. that it sure was funny that I always came up with ideas while, um, peeing, and he said, well, that's the only time you're ever alone. And it's true! My current w-i-p (only 5,000 words into my second novel) is inspired by a news item from when I was in college (1990!) that I've been wanting to use. I finally figured out the right way to tell this story. In the bathroom, of course.
Rowenna says
They come as scenes first–sharp, clear scenes with absolutely no plot at all. The first scene I thought of in my WIP cropped up when I was watching Foyle's War on PBS and thinking about how men returning from WWII and the women who had waited for them might have absolutely nothing to talk about anymore. And I thought of these two people, both still shellshocked though the war was over, sitting on one of those uncomfortable old sofas trying to make small talk.
Things grew from there. But they always start on individual, fairly insignificant, yet poignant, pretty scenes. The plot develops to link those ideas together.
Adam Heine says
My ideas come from everywhere. But they never come fully formed. I have to ask questions of them repeatedly until they turn into an interesting story.
Stacey Graham says
After my short story was accepted into a zombie romance anthology, I felt there was more I could do with that theme in a humorous way and The Zombie Dating Guide stumbled its way onto the page. I'm in the book proposal stage now and enjoying every minute. 🙂
Stephanie L. McGee says
For my main WiP, the impetus was the meaning of my MC's name. I won't share it at the moment though.
My other WiP started with the tickle of an idea to write a paranormal so I started researching different paranormals. Narrowed it down to three potentials then that night I couldn't sleep and kept getting hit with ideas and scenes and stuff. It's in need of a bit more work, but I've got a good solid start to the mythos of it.
Girl with One Eye says
I had a dream, no not like Mrs. Meyer, but a random dream about an ex-boyfriend, who happens to be Native American. Later that week while talking to my brother back home (Tennessee), he mentioned he ran into same boyfriend. Seemed a little eery to me and my mind began to ponder. What if he was communicating through my dreams? I mean he is Native American and he might have some sort of powers. And voila, my story was born.
P.A.Brown says
Mine come from a variety of places. My latest came out of a documentary on the History channel. They were talking about how L.A. used to have a world class metro system, including subways, but a conspiracy of businesses shut them to make Angelenos turn to cars. But those underground rooms were turned into speakeasies during Prohibition. What fascinated me was that unlike the east coast where organized criminals ran them, in L.A. they were run by the LAPD and city hall. So I had the image of clubs with bootleg whiskey, ragtime music and flappers and cops acting as doormen to keep out the riffraff. So right now I'm researching the era. It will be my first historical.
Hannah Jenny says
My work-in-progress came to be because I realized that I really, really wanted to have a fantasy world of my own again–something I hadn't had in years. So I started making up things about the world in my head, then I made up two characters, and then finally I had the seed of a plot, and then I just started writing–two hand-written drafts and about 57,000 typed words later . . . I still have a lot of work to do.
Lucy D says
I had a dream about Tiddly Winks. I started developing a game which developed into a role playing game which then turned into a novel. The book is an adventure. It has nothing to do with Tiddly Winks!
Shell says
My kids, my oldest in particular. When he was little he would say the most magical things. I knew they had to go into a story. When his brother came along, I thought "Aha! Brothers!" No such luck. The story didn't come together until their sister joined the crew. Yes, the characters are based on my kids, but the story isn't just about my kids (unless they ride around on dragons when I'm not looking). The first book is 'done' (still in editing phase) and the second has been started. It's good material, if I do say so myself.
Victoria Dixon says
A combination of reading a Ming dynasty novel called "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and watching an episode of "X-Files" with a Chinese friend gave me my take on "Romance." My friend was terrified of a ghost in the t.v. show and I realized a ghost could be responsible for many of the fantastical events that are otherwise inexplicable in "Romance." From there, I had to write my own story and blend it with historical facts, which was harder and more fun that I ever imagined it might be.
Alexa says
After finishing The Glass Castle I wondered how I'd react if my sister wrote about our childhood and the WIP was born.
Trish says
The idea of my MG series came from my memories of being a weird child. I was forever in trouble, but not from being bad, but from doing really stupid things. As I’m writing this post, I realised that I never did finish that MG novel, but went on to write about a mischievous child who rescues animals. I’m a member of a wildlife rescue in Australia and I use my experiences in my stories.
I live in a wonderful rural village in a valley near a river and get fantastic inspiration while walking or listening to the children play down by the riverbank. I add my memories of being a weird child and come up with so may story ideas that I want to write them all at once, but I have to concentrate on one at a time.
Oh, poo. Now I have to go and rewrite that first ever manuscript because as I wrote this post, I realised I had just written a great new query letter. Thanks for the inspiration, Nathan. You rock! When I’ve finished d it, I might query you. LOL. I can’t wait to write it.
Heather says
For my current WIP, I was literally sitting in my cubicle, planning a totally different, unrelated work (that's for adults, but who wants to write for them, anyway? They're boring.) when I got a single idea/question. That little idea is now only a small part of my novel, but the first question led to more and more questions, and three days later I started trying to answer them. I knew I'd hit on something because I couldn't stop thinking about it.
My next planned project came about when I was looking in my closet and saw all these different clothes that didn't match, and seemed to be different pieces of someone else's wardrobe. Again, more questions started brewing, and I'm excited to start answering them!
Jan Markley says
The idea for my debut novel Dead Frog on the Porch came from a childhood incident when I accidently stepped on and killed my friend's pet frog. The mystery around why scientists are creating giant genetically stretched frogs is pure fiction!
K.O. bookgirl says
I knew I wanted to write a historical mystery, because I love reading them. Then I read a biography of Katharine Hepburn, whose father was a physician, and he had a case of a man who gave his wife a venereal disease on their wedding night – his friends had taken him to a brothel before the wedding. There was no cure back then, and she died. Dr. Hepburn committed his life after that to preventing VD, despite the controversy it caused. That started the wheels turning: sex, scandal, a prominent family, murder to hide the secret….
Hey, Nathan, I know you're catching up from being away, but when are you going to respond to my query? 😉
Thanks, K.O. bookgirl
Brent Peterson says
Dear Ashley A,
You are not alone. I too have my best ideas, dare I say, doing number one – there's no gentler way to put it. I work in an ad agency and coming up with daily ideas is my bread and butter. And time and time again (and I have lots of examples), the bathroom delivers! I think you are right, the sudden solitude helps. I also think it has to do with the vulnerable state one puts oneself in and the release of all other brain functions for a split second. Hey, you asked Nathan!
Wow – 187 comments – your readers love this topic don't they? What does that say?
Brandi Schmidt says
God & Faith. Period. I was given my entire book; start to finish in about 3 minutes while driving home from work. All I could do was smile. I knew the characters, their personalities and loved them all immediately. (you didn't obviously from the big fat rejection) but alas, I fell madly in love with my book and never looked back. That night I wrote a chapter, the entire outline, and some of the character background. Of course it grew and developed while I wrote, but the story stayed true to the day (March 26th) it was given.
I think people are inspired all the time. It's just taking the action that stops most from being what they could be. Fear is a powerful motivator for mediocrity.
Aimee says
It's cliche, but one of my ideas came from a dream. It's one scene in my story, sort of near the end. I woke up and was wondering how these people ended up in their situation and what happened after, so my story was born. Most of my other ideas come from movies or other books that just spark ideas. I don't copy their plot, obviously, but they just give me ideas.
Ishta Mercurio says
Novel ideas come from episodes from my childhood or from the news, and then grow from there into something else.
Picture book ideas come mostly from my kids, or my childhood, or from something someone else's kid has said or done, or from a detail in a picture, or from a word or phrase in something I read, or from something I see that strikes me while I'm out running or writing. I get a lot of ideas while I'm washing dishes, or in the shower.
Boring, but there it is.
Cheryl Gower says
The current piece I'm working on is a short story. Before I fell asleep one night, I thought "What am I going to write about? The stories I've been reading seem so 'out there', so what could I write that would follow suit and perhaps stand a better chance of being selected for publication on a certain website?" I thought it could be about the most mundane, ordinary thing. I fell asleep at that point, but my first waking thought hit me–how about a sensual love story between a knife and a fork, but the reader is not sure until the very end.
Quite a challenge.
Angeliss says
I dream. But it's never really plots, just elements of the dreams. For example, I dreamed that my friends and I were trapped in a huge house with a killer. I kept the house, and the being trapped inside, but it's now about the aftermath of Beauty and the Beast, when Beauty died and left the Beast alone.
Or my current one I'm plotting out that's based on a dream where I found a statue of a mermaid and was turned into a mermaid, and everyone else at the camp had to leave me in the lake when they went home. Somehow, that turned into an idea about a dying mermaid society.
Nancy Coffelt says
A New Yorker article on… Nope, not telling.
Eyes open all the time and ear to the ground works pretty well.
In other words I'm a pop culture junkie.
Andrea Franco-Cook says
Honestly, I wish there was a definable moment of inspiration for my book. However, my plot revealed itself after years of brainstorming and piecing together multiple subjects that interested me. Two hundred pages and 66,532 words and counting, my vision is finally developing into a story.
Lindsey Edwards says
The idea for my first book, Dream Chaser (Lindsey Johnson, 1999) came from a dream. I don't remember how the idea came to me for the series I'm writing now (historical/fantasy romance), it morphed into what it is now over time (and three rewrites). During those rewrites is how I knew it would work great as a series. However the idea came to me, I'm happy it did!
amlahe616 says
My niece has one ear that makes her look like she is part elfin. So I just went from there about a stubborn half-breed elf girl.
TrishaleighKC says
A one sentence tweet someone posted – I don't even have the slightest idea who now. The tweet said: "My friends daughter woke up terrified that she didn't exist." Something like that. Dunno, it just struck me and I wrote it down. Now I have plotted a four book series. If that was your tweet, THANK YOU 🙂
Carradee says
My current two WiPs both came from taking things that are overused in a genre and destroying them.
For my high fantasy, I essentially took some overused elements of high fantasy and tweaked them enough so they're recognizable but not the tropes. For my urban fantasy, I took the standard teenage girl and older vampire guy, but it isn't a romance, he isn't going to act on his crush although he's far younger than she thinks he is, and she's freaked out by his crush for reasons different than you'd expect.
Ashley A. says
Whew. Thanks, Brent.