How are Your Stories Born?

I'm told they're born in a cabbage patch and then brought by the stork.

No. I always start with a concept, just a "what if" idea. Sometimes it just occurs to me, but more often it's spawned from the most random thing I won't even remember later. From there, there's brainstorming and notes and outlining. Along the way, characters and plot and all that crop up. Eventually it's a story.

 

I agree with this, but I should specify, most of what I read isn't fiction. I tend toward a lot of ancient writings, subjects like mythology, fairy tales, and a lot of esoteric religious interpretations and things like alchemy, gnosticism, hermeticism etc. I find it to be a great break from contemporary thought and all the shallowness and materialism we're surrounded by.

 

To extend the metaphor, the sad truth is, I birth too many idea babies to be able to take care of them all. For me, that's the easy part, and the stack of unfinished work is staggering. I've more recently forced myself to concentrate on one project at a time, and it's paying off. I still have ideas written down and even outlines, but I've had to stop jumping to the next project every time I have a new idea. It's so hard though. The newest one always seems better and more fun!

I think I'd like a job where I come up with the ideas and plot and characters, but someone else writes it. I know they do that in Hollywood all the time, but I want to try it with novels and short stories. I need to find someone with the opposite problem, someone who can kill eight pages a day but has nothing to write about.

 

It works great. I eventually had to create a list of upcoming books because I used to just go through my ideas and pick the one that appealed to me the most at the time (invariably the most recent and shiny) and never write any of the books that had been sitting there for a while. Now, they get done in order. Anything new goes at the bottom of the list. It would take something pretty amazing to move anything up.

 

My 12-year novel Shadow War:
I started playing an RPG called Baldur's Gate and didn't believe I'd really enjoy it. So I named my character I'Ma T'Ree Anyway, I really enjoyed it and there came inspiration for my novel. I decided to name my MC Heinrich for the longest time. He eventually became William Reus, and this is the character who's been with me since I was 19

Collab that took 5 weeks - No One to Save Her:
I was chatting with my co-author about how I was bored visiting family and the most exciting thing that was supposed to happen that day was going out for a doughnut with my sister and 3-year-old nephew. Well, he fell asleep so we ate a snack in the car and never made it. I was SO MAD because I was already so bored and that boring event of going for a doughnut was literally the most exciting thing that day and WE DIDN'T EVEN DO THAT! Anyway, so my co-author said wouldn't it be fun to start a story like that, 'It all started with a damn doughnut" We got talking and a misunderstanding led to us thinking that the other person wanted to do a collab. So began our dystopian romance where a bomb was planted under a pile of doughnuts and a massacre was avoided when our characters Soren and Serycia got involved

Current WIP, without a title for now:
I was in a group chat with two other writers from this forum (all of us former mods actually!) And we were just laughing and joking because it was the lockdown. I don't know how the conversation started but there they were, while I was lurking lol, joking about how I should write a crime novel about a detective who discovers a murder in China Town, with some Green Jade Chinese restaurant or something. I was bored and amused and had been looking for something to write. I'd just finished my fantasy Shadow War about a year prior and still hadn't come up with anything else to write, and I knew I wanted to give high fantasy a rest and I've always enjoyed reading and watching crime fiction and had wanted to give it a go.

So... An urban fantasy crime was born. I'd wanted to use the name Lynx for a while as that name came to me years ago but I never found a story for him. So Lynx Wu was born. I'm now 54k words in after writing for roughly 3 months. So close to the finish line and then I can start editing. From my last query process for the ultimately rejected Shadow War, the publisher said I can address her directly with my next submission - that would be Lynx. So, crossing my fingers and all my toes!

 

Aw there's something really beautiful about a character being with you for so long. Related note, I may be starting Baldur's Gate soon! Now I'm more pumped to play it than ever!

 

IDK, something just kinda hits me and I run with it.
They can't all be winners though.

 

I don't write anymore but it used to be almost exclusively other novels that fired the inspiration. Not necessarily the story or plot, but sometimes the tone, style etc.

I think what I'm saying here is that I spent all my time as a 'writer' trying to emulate others.

 

They come crawling out of the bottom of a bottle of 140 proof moonshine. Or at least that's what you'd think considering what they look like once the beer goggles wear off.

 

The Circle was an attempt to save my sanity from a 7yr long recurring nightmare. I hated writing, but since I couldn't chew my brain off like a coyote, I decided I would write what I saw and let hate cleave the demon. I determined to be as visceral as possible - a super-saturation technique from a psychology class. After realizing (to my horror) I had finished one paragraph, I determined to write in such a ridiculous and outlandish manner that I would corner myself and give up.
Backfire!
As soon as 'what-if' gripped me, I started caring about what happened to the characters. They were people, too.
Incredibly, my hunt-and-peck typing was my salvation in that it slowed down my ADHD brane enough to finish a thought, and therefore a sentence... paragraph... chapter.
I wrote a chapter!
Now, it's around 30 chapters, and only a third done.

The New Tyranny was with me ever since a stormy night with an off-roading buddy. We cowered in one tent for fear we would be swept off the cliff, and told each other stories to distract from the sound of the tents around us snapping and blowing away.
Fortunately, no one was hurt, but the carnage in the morning as we emerged has stayed with me since 2003.
A dozen or so years later, I was into my first story by a few chapters and I realized I could actually take a stab at writing my disaster scene. That was sometime in 2016, I think.
Around 260kw, I am still in the middle of them both, and the scenes keep coming.

 

I have similar experiences with story ideas. Mostly I am a visual person and very influenced with artwork, anime, or movies. Any of these can cause a story or scene to pop into my head. I am also inspired by music. Like you, I like listening to classical music but I would say classical helps me think rather than create ideas. One album that has always inspired ‘dramatic action’ stories for me is Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love album. It’s dark and to me full of emotional tension. Sinead O’Connor’s Troy song has a similar dark emotional tension to it.

Of course, growing up and still to this day, movies have been an inspiration for stories. Whether a great western, gritty detective/crime drama, or action movie, the characters either motivate me to want to add to their stories or create alternative ideas for stories. The same can be said about books as well.

 

A few years ago I started an idea file as well! I guess I got tired of having ideas and then forgetting them when I was writing. I’ve even started a name database. In another forum thread, the issue of creating names was raised. Having a good name for a character is as important as the character themselves. Whenever I have a good name (which can inspire a character as much as support the personality you’ve created), I add it to the database.