Dealing with ideas

Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by Daniel, Jul 7, 2006.

Tags:
  1. Poet of Gore

    Poet of Gore Member

    Joined:
    Aug 24, 2013
    Messages:
    93
    Likes Received:
    24
    after i read through 20 of the threads you started on the front page i finish my green tea and start writing. one more to go.
     
  2. jonahmann

    jonahmann Active Member

    Joined:
    Oct 2, 2014
    Messages:
    119
    Likes Received:
    44
    Location:
    Australia
    Once you start physically writing, the ideas come. That said:
     
    Christopher Snape. likes this.
  3. A.M.P.

    A.M.P. People Buy My Books for the Bio Photo Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 30, 2013
    Messages:
    2,163
    Likes Received:
    1,374
    Location:
    A Place with no History
    My ideas come at the most random flipping times and often are an amalgam of dozen scenes/ideas that I thought of and suddenly they all click together as one whole piece.
     
  4. Cogito

    Cogito Former Mod, Retired Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    May 19, 2007
    Messages:
    36,161
    Likes Received:
    2,827
    Location:
    Massachusetts, USA
    When my eyes are either open or closed.

    Or occasionally when they are in an intermediate state.
     
  5. hotshot

    hotshot New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 5, 2014
    Messages:
    7
    Likes Received:
    2
    I get most of my ideas after drinking ......for the best ideas ......have to take two or three shots
     
  6. elynne

    elynne Active Member

    Joined:
    Aug 27, 2011
    Messages:
    236
    Likes Received:
    142
    Location:
    Seattle, WA
    dreams--or at least I get the best inspirations for stories from my dreams; the actual dreams themselves tend to be... unworkable. (GIANT SPACE MANATEE)
     
  7. peachalulu

    peachalulu Member Reviewer Contributor

    Joined:
    May 20, 2012
    Messages:
    4,620
    Likes Received:
    3,807
    Location:
    occasionally Oz , mainly Canada
    Best ideas - hard to say, I never know what will be a best idea or just meh. I usually come up with ideas when I'm watching something or reading something. Even it's junk I'm constantly contrasting my own opinion/view with what I'm seeing. Kinda like when you're tasting a new recipe and your mind is working overtime on what you'd do with it - new ingredients, new techniques.
    Just recently I got an idea from watching an old Snorks cartoon mainly because I was irritated that the little Smurf ripoffs were using FIRE torches under the water.
     
  8. tonguetied

    tonguetied Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    May 23, 2014
    Messages:
    566
    Likes Received:
    231
    Location:
    Central Florida: land of fire and sand
    Maybe they were using magnesium torches? Now if they used an electric welder underwater I can understand your irritation. :)
     
    peachalulu likes this.
  9. Fullmetal Xeno

    Fullmetal Xeno Protector of Literature Contributor

    Joined:
    Jul 15, 2011
    Messages:
    1,361
    Likes Received:
    142
    Location:
    Kingdom of Austniad
    I get some of my best ideas without reading.... It all depends.
     
  10. 123456789

    123456789 Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2012
    Messages:
    8,102
    Likes Received:
    4,605
    You know all those precious ideas certain forum members keep worrying others will take? Yeah, I steal all those.
     
    Empty Bird and peachalulu like this.
  11. peachalulu

    peachalulu Member Reviewer Contributor

    Joined:
    May 20, 2012
    Messages:
    4,620
    Likes Received:
    3,807
    Location:
    occasionally Oz , mainly Canada
    Nothing so brainy - later on they roasted marshmallows. I kept thinking of all the possibilities of what they could use but they weren't even as inventive as the Flintstones - the bee in the clamshell that could somehow trim Fred's beard.
     
    minstrel likes this.
  12. Lemon flavoured

    Lemon flavoured Active Member

    Joined:
    Oct 12, 2014
    Messages:
    116
    Likes Received:
    34
    Location:
    Newark, Nottinghamshire
    Generally when I'm walking somewhere on my own.
     
  13. thewritingguy

    thewritingguy Member

    Joined:
    Aug 15, 2014
    Messages:
    80
    Likes Received:
    41
    Shower or playing around
     
  14. Alex C

    Alex C New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 3, 2014
    Messages:
    9
    Likes Received:
    3
    Location:
    Tennessee
    The bar. Well, a particular bar where I'm at. Lots of warm wood, old music playing, enough people talking that you get that wash of noise where you can't single out one person's voice. I don't know why, but it helps a lot.
     
    Lemon flavoured likes this.
  15. Keitsumah

    Keitsumah The Dream-Walker Contributor

    Joined:
    Aug 7, 2012
    Messages:
    3,282
    Likes Received:
    285
    Location:
    Nebraska
    Mowing the lawn, or while im working on my book. If it's for graphic design, I only come up with my best ideas after my original idea has been torn to pieces.

    (doing a cover for the catcher in the rye... the ONE book i hated out of the bunch!:wtf:)
     
  16. Superbean

    Superbean Member

    Joined:
    Aug 23, 2014
    Messages:
    20
    Likes Received:
    1
    When I'm trying to sleep, when I'm in the shower or when I'm out walking. Except when I lay in the bed, I have no chance to do something about it and by the time I get to pen and paper, my idea is gone.

    The other day however, I got an idea for my futuristic YA novel. The world is gone to pieces after a nuclear war and the government has monopolized wind, the last clean energy source. The hero needs to find a way to take down the government or everybody except the 1% are going to die. Still unsure about mixing in supernatural elements, but I think I'm leaning towards doing it.
     
  17. Mike Hill

    Mike Hill Natural born citizen of republic of Finland.

    Joined:
    May 12, 2014
    Messages:
    260
    Likes Received:
    72
    Location:
    Finland
    Just before I go to sleep. Best is still yet to come so you can never be sure where the idea hits!
     
  18. elmarko98

    elmarko98 New Member

    Joined:
    Sep 19, 2012
    Messages:
    11
    Likes Received:
    1
    Location:
    United Kingdom
    I seem to get mine at the dinner table, my family isn't the most interesting when it comes to conversation! So I drift off and they pop into my head.
     
  19. Karwedsky

    Karwedsky Member

    Joined:
    Apr 28, 2010
    Messages:
    36
    Likes Received:
    1
    My best ideas seem to always come to me when I'm in the shower. I usually don't enter the shower with the plan to come up with ideas, but they just seem to pop into my head just as the water starts to wake me up.
     
  20. karmazon

    karmazon Member

    Joined:
    Dec 25, 2007
    Messages:
    66
    Likes Received:
    23
    Usually while talking to people or watching movies. Someone might tell me a story and I'll suddenly think up a weird twist on it ("I really like this girl but she has a boyfiend..." - what if you decided to make her boyfriend disappear without a trace?). With movies it's similar - a twist on the story or the character might come to me out of nowhere (kind of like how Big Lebowski is a Raymond Chandler novel but instead of a hardboiled detective you have a stoner for a protagonist).
     
  21. Uber Aubergine

    Uber Aubergine New Member

    Joined:
    Nov 5, 2014
    Messages:
    5
    Likes Received:
    2
    Location:
    Scotland
    What I do is listen to movie soundtracks (just before I go to sleep at night, passenger on a long car journey etc) and envisage my novel in the form of a film. It worked incredibly well for me.

    It might to do with different emotional cues in the music that cause you to view your narrative in a more sad/fearful/tense light, I'm no neurologist but it makes sense.

    You might want to check out "Time" by Hans Zimmer and "Mind Heist" by Zack Hemsey both from the film Inception, as well as the soundtrack from the World War Z film. "Sunshine" by John Murphy is also very good.
     
  22. SocksFox

    SocksFox Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023

    Joined:
    Jun 21, 2012
    Messages:
    1,798
    Likes Received:
    595
    When I create my pocket: iPod in, turned up to a level that blocks out all other sound and people everywhere. I disappear into the chaos, knowing no one will notice me. Time suspends and I'm there. My characters are right where I left them or a new flight of fancy comes winging down, whatever the case may be.
     
  23. Skyes

    Skyes Member

    Joined:
    Nov 2, 2014
    Messages:
    27
    Likes Received:
    4
    Hey folks. I am writting a new book, and this is the 4th one that I write. The problem that I am facing now, is that I oftenly get a lot of inspiration from reading, watching TV or listening to music. I write them down in a different document, so I can browse it and use it on my book later. But the problem is that when I go back to my book, I can't organize these ideas. They all seem a lot out of context, or chronologically wrong. I feel like I have to "cut and glue" them in the story in order for them to work out.
    It looks like you have a lot of cool pictures in your hands, and now you must organize a puzzle in some kind of order.
    And I loose myself a lot in this proccess. Right now, I am trying a different approach. I just write out the ideas I have, just as they come to mind, without any kind of formatation. It all comes out very childish and etc, but at least Ican write it down. And then I will try to re-read and correct it all, writing formally.
    Does anyone have any other idea?
     
  24. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2014
    Messages:
    10,462
    Likes Received:
    11,689
    You may want to do some work off the computer. I'm not normally a very visual person, but when I have too many ideas and am having troubling figuring out a good structure, I find it useful to get a big sheet of paper and a pencil and write things down that way. Bubbles, arrows, question marks, dotted lines... whatever I need.

    I've also heard of people having good luck with index cards (put different ideas on different cards, maybe colour-coded, and rearrange them as needed). It's never worked for me, but I know there are people who swear by that method.

    There is software that tries to replicate this experience (Scrivener, etc.) but for me, there's something about actually writing on paper that activates a different part of my brain.

    Good luck!
     
    EdFromNY, Skyes and Tesoro like this.
  25. peachalulu

    peachalulu Member Reviewer Contributor

    Joined:
    May 20, 2012
    Messages:
    4,620
    Likes Received:
    3,807
    Location:
    occasionally Oz , mainly Canada
    When I work on novels I sometimes, temporarily, name the chapters in order to figure out where things go. In my first novel, which dealt with serial murders, I knew where each murder took place due to the titles and I could put information about them in each folder. Back in the day I was using paper, folders, and a filing cabinet. All my notes got little abbreviations so that I could put them into the right folder.
     
    Skyes likes this.

Share This Page

  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice