Inspiration

[Acid]

Hey y'all, just wanted to share a little tidbit.

I get a LOT of inspiration from music. Sometimes a song title will inspire me to write something (I'm working on a novel called GOD WALKS AMONG US NOW which is the title of a Flaming Lips song).

Other times, a particular lyric will set me off. I once wrote a story (http://www.joeldurhamjr.com/hyperstation.htm) because I listened to Sonic Youth's song Trilogy. One lyric went "Smashed up against a car at 2 AM" and later the song goes:

It's an anthem in a vacuum in a hyperstation
Daydreaming days in a daydream nation

Thus, if you do read the story linked above, you'll understand it's not sci-fi despite the title.

Where do you get inspiration, besides Ned's awesome writing prompts?

[kerzain]

Inspiration is a hard thing to nail down for me. Most of my stories revolve around 'what if' scenarios regarding things I've experienced or thought about. I use my writing as a way to explore these things, and to take them a step further just to see what I can make of it.

I usually start with the story idea and start working in characters after the fact, typically the character will grow as I write them, only taking form while the story itself progresses. It's rare that I have a preconceived notion about who or what a character is in any great amount of detail. This is what keep writing fresh and fun for me, pre-planning stuff like characterization ends up with my stories feeling forced.


Some idea's I've had and their possible inspirations are as follows:

Idea #1
A bad guy of some sort ties taunting messages to helium balloons and releases them at night – which are then typically found later on in another part of town by kids or whoever. He's prolific about it, so that even if 8 in 10 get lost (or stuck in a tree) there is still a chance people will be seeing what he writes.

At first I had idea he was either a kidnapper or a murderer of some sort. But because I didn't want the story to go into typical crime-of-the-week territory I changed the first main character to an average guy using these messages as a means of confession about relatively mundane things he's done in his life. The thing is, because he is so prolific about it (and starts writing down everything he could ever remember doing wrong by someone in his past) his notes start to get noticed and eventually inspire people to start doing the same thing.

When other people begin to confess though some really dark secrets come out and government agencies (or other organizations that don't want their secrets aired) and the like start trying to get involved to find the authors of these notes. This is where the story started spiraling out of control for me and has been sitting on hiatus for a while now.

My inspiration for this came from a childhood activity I took part in during my second grade year at school. We tied notes to balloons, inviting the finder to send notes to us via our school address in order to start up a pen-pal relationship with that person. Mine was found by a ten year old girl about 12 miles away and we wrote each other for a month or so. I always wondered what would have happened if I left the note anonymous but included some dirty secret or other.

Idea #2
Several years ago I used to go to storage auctions. These are auctions held by storage facilities when they need to clear a unit out because the customer stopped paying for the lease. There were some absolutely amazing deals to be had at these, and they were really fun to go to. I began to wonder what would happen if one of the units I bought had a dead body or something stuffed in a trunk. This seemed like a pretty typical thought though so I took the idea and headed in a different direction.

What I ended up with was a story about two guys recently laid off who got into the storage auction scene when trying to buy stuff and sell it for profit (both on eBay and at a local for-profit thrift shop/swap meet type thing they opened). They have a system which determines whether or not something is worth bidding on (the best buys are usually items that are packed very well and in containers).

They win the auction on just such a unit, full of equipment in boxes like you would see behind the scenes at a concert or some such, big black steel-framed boxes on wheels etc. What they find turns out to be a bunch of geological crap, and maps, and some encrypted dvd-r's. They also find a cell phone, which still works once charged (charger was packed with it), but it is a very fancy PDA phone similar to the Blackberry, Treo or HTC Wizard (this was written before the iPhone).

Well as soon as the phone is powered up they start getting threatening phone calls. The story goes on and ends with a bunch of super natural crap involving crashed alien space craft and the like. Pretty freaking crazy when all I started off with was the kernel of a story that started off with me wondering what I would do if I found a body in a trunk at an auction. And all this stuff isn't even the half of it, I ended up doing a spin-off of sorts:

Idea #3
I ended up taking one of the characters from this story (the daughter of one guy) and creating an entirely new story, sort of. In the first story she discovers the phone and hands it over, but is a background participant for the most part. In the new story she is the main character and all the auction stuff is background fluff, but instead of handing the phone over she hides it from her dad and uses it to contact some guy she's been having an internet relationship with on the sly (she is 15 he is 40+ but lying to her about it).

From here the story turns into an ordeal where her online boyfriend decides he must have her and comes to take her. Unknown to either one of them, there is yet another third party after the phone and the data on the phone. Although this story started off great I stopped writing it because many of the plot elements started turning in the same direction as the first story and I wanted to explore something new. These are just the plot elements though, I had a whole underlying theme going on regarding the girl and the loss she felt for a mother that died when she was very young, during an accident that also left the paralyzed from the waist down.. Lets just say there's a lot LOT more to the story than just the basic plot elements.

Idea #4
A 30 page story about a guy with a dead end job who ends up buying into and investing in every money making scheme he can find on the net or tv or where ever. The thing is, although he's a major doofus this works in his favor, because he's too self-absorbed and dense to know when to quit. And he ends up getting one of them to work very well for him, much to the chagrin of everyone who knows and hates him.

The basic story was a "what-if" you really could make $20,000 a day buying and selling real estate for pennies on the dollar, or stuffing envelopes" etc. I had fun with this one because the lead character was such a dick.

One thing I can say about my idea's is that I have many more idea's than I do stories, but the problem is that these idea's only interest me for a very very short amount of time. If I don't jump on them right away it is typical for me to forget what I found so intriguing about them and I just put them in the “waiting for new inspiration” pile. I keep a list of all my ideas in a word document. Every time I get an idea, no matter where I am,i write it down immediately, with a few details, and then when I get home I add it to this list.

Some of my favorite stories were from looking at this list, grabbing two unrelated ideas and combining them to see what happens. An example would be the Storage Auction Discovery and Internet Predators.

Also, because I read a lot I will get idea's from books I read, but most of mine come from 'what if' scenarios.

[Acid]

Wow, kerzain, those are some terrific ideas. Are you planning to flesh any of them out?

[kerzain]

I have, but one of the problems I have is that once I get going it's really, REALLY hard for me to compress all my ideas into a short story, and that is really what all of these started off being. I found out that Idea #2 was better material for a novel length work by the time I got to page 50. I have about 300 pages written for it, and it is the first really serious effort I put into any one real story. But all of that is really first draft material. I didn't want to put all my efforts into one novel length work (one of my first attempts at such) when I figured my time would be better spent on a variety of subjects and situations by writing short stories etc. So it has been on hold for a couple years, but it still lingers.

Idea #3 (the off shoot of 2) has about 100 pages done, but I need to scrap the last 15 pages or so because I don't like where it's going. It's been on the back burner for a while too, mainly because I am trying desperately to avoid putting so much time into a novel, and I don't like to switch back and forth between stories form day to day. I want to write and finish one before I start on the next, and novels will slow this process down for me.

The other two ideas #1 and #4 have about 30 pages each completed, with #4 being the only completed story of the four I mentioned (in second draft form).

All of these pages, all of this work, really just amounts to practice for me. None of it is anywhere close to publishable. I can feel myself getting better and better every story. This makes it hard for me to want to go back and visit old material, because so much of it is so bad (by my current standards) I would have to scrap almost all of it and re-write it word for word, only keeping the basic plot and situations the same. This is a lot of work... And it intimidates me to do this for a story I've already written. Writing a new story isn't as bad because since I'm getting better there will be less editing taking place when it comes time for the re-write. But I would have to start changing things at such base levels for the first few stories I would rather just leave them alone for now and keep things fresh for me.

There is one story I have that I have written, re-written, and edited to death. It is the absolute closest thing to a publishable story that I have, and represents the best work I was capable of writing at the time it was finished (out of my completed stories). It is a 30 page story I finished editing about a year ago. I haven't submitted it for publication because although it represents the best of my abilities (or did a year ago) I'm convinced that the first half of the story needs more of a hook, and I haven't thought of anything that doesn't spoil the ending.

I tend to write my short stories like I write my novel(s), slow buildups. Unfortunately that doesn't work well for short stories unless you know your reader has patience. Mine so far have, but I suspect others will get bored 5 pages in because there's no blatant drama at that point, which works for readers like me, but not people who prefer Dean Koontz's way of doing things, by inserting such an over-the-top hook in the very first paragraph that the entire first quarter of any of his books feels like a roller-coaster ride from hell. I could learn a few things from him, but I just can't decide if I want to change this particular story or not.

I have 250 ideas save in a word document, and about a dozen more I haven't copied from a scraps of paper I have tucked under my computer speaker. I wish I had the diligence to start putting more of them to good use.

EDIT: Oh, and I have countless 5-10 page starter stories that I start but never really take anywhere. I will do 5 pages one night, be busy for the next three weeks (or lazy) and then by the time I get back to it I've lost interest in it. I have some great scenes set up though, so sometimes I will cannibalize them for other stories.

[UpOn2Wheels]

Hey y'all, just wanted to share a little tidbit.

I get a LOT of inspiration from music. Sometimes a song title will inspire me to write something (I'm working on a novel called GOD WALKS AMONG US NOW which is the title of a Flaming Lips song).

Other times, a particular lyric will set me off. I once wrote a story (http://www.joeldurhamjr.com/hyperstation.htm) because I listened to Sonic Youth's song Trilogy. One lyric went "Smashed up against a car at 2 AM" and later the song goes:


Thus, if you do read the story linked above, you'll understand it's not sci-fi despite the title.

Where do you get inspiration, besides Ned's awesome writing prompts?

Ditto here on the inspiration from music, but not always where you expect. Larry Banes (a pulp fiction private detective character I created) started as an homage to the fictional novel on Alice Cooper's "Lace and Whiskey". The opening and closing lines in the story mirror the first and last lines of the novel on the album cover, and the rest just came to me as I started writing.

Most people classify me as a pessimist, but I'm really a 'dark realist'. Most of my stuff puts people in extraordinary situations as a way to force a reaction. For example, if a dear friend was kidnapped and you needed to get information from someone associated with the kidnappers, how far would you go?

It's not unusual for me to get a story idea, write a few paragraphs and then think, "this is crap". Sometimes I'll go back years later and the idea will suddenly work.

[Acid]

Yeah, kerzain, I have a TON of little starter stories, as you mentioned. But regarding the ones that are finished--editing is good, rewriting is good, but overdoing either one is detrimental. Sooner or later, you've got to stick your neck out and go for it. That's what I'm doing with my novel, which I rewrote about five times...if you over-over-over analyze your work, you will NEVER be satisfied with it. I guess I'm a fan of the old Nike motto: Just do it. Try to make a splash. If it happens it happens, if not try again.

UpOn2Wheels--I know you, and you are a pessimist. I try to call myself a realist too, but I'm also a pessimist. Ask anyone who knows me. Some people know us better than we know ourselves, and we're kindred spirits, sir. I do love your technique of putting people in extreme situations. That's how I try to write--not extraordinary people, but ordinary folks to whom the audience can relate, in extraordinary situations that push them to their limits--and beyond.

[kerzain]

I agree about the 'just do it' mantra. There's one other thing from holding me back from submitting that first story though: if I do get a short story published I'm in no position to follow that story up immediately with anything else publishable right off the bat, be it for submission to an agent that requests samples of my work, or magazines that want more of what I've got.

Silly as it sounds, I want to be prepared with at least 4 or 5 'publish-quality' stories before I get my first one out there where the world can see it, because I feel like I should keep the momentum going by providing new short stories or beta chapters of novels if someone requests them of me.

I am prone to flights of fancy in this regard.

[Creole Ned]

I wasn't sure how to respond to this thread because to a large degree I don't think I can pinpoint where my inspiration comes from.

When I was a kid and well into my 20s, I would often write titles for stories (I have an "ideas" file on my PC that is many years old now and several pages are just titles I brainstormed) and then pick a title I liked and build a story from it. The results were inconsistent at best.

I can't say I've been inspired by music or specific songs (stay tuned for an upcoming exercise, though!) but naturally other stories have served as inspiration, whether they came from a novel, TV show or film. A lot of my early writing shamelessly cribbed from stuff I enjoyed reading and watching -- no surprise there, as many writers do this. I try to be a bit more subtle in such theft these days. ;)

Most of my stories are not character-driven (initially, at least) so my main inspiration often comes from posing "What if?" scenarios. What if you went into town and no one was there? What if your editor underlined your deadline by coming at you with a gun? What if you turned into a cat?

And of course, I draw from my own life and those around me, as well. The protagonist in "The Lunch Gnome" is trying to lose weight, just as I was doing at the time, characters will share similar interests or dislikes.

Lastly, I keep a small notebook in my pack and jot down ideas as they occur to me but also just as importantly, details that I see as I travel around the city. The genesis of scenes, characters and occasionally entire stories can come from observing the wacky behavior of the general public.

[Rimbo]

sleep deprivation is pretty effective

[Acid]

I'm down with that.