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How do you *spark* your ideas, and creat your stories?

Ghost

Inkling
@Ouroboros, I actually have to disagree with you...I've always felt the "ready-made" character with a self-evident past written all over his/her appearance and/or attitude to be kind of...(no offense intended)...cheap. Like "Where was I when this character was developed? Oh...they weren't." But then again I tend to king of over-develop my charaters somethimes if that's possible.

We operate differently, that's all. For me, the setting is almost a character on its own and it strongly influences people who live there, so my settings aren't as mutable as yours are. My plots are about people and things that frighten, astonish, or intrigue me, not about things that happen in my daily life. I don't disagree with the way you write. It just wouldn't work for me.

I think I can see where you're coming from with the idea that this type of character is cheap, but I'm not sure what you mean by a self-evident past. If it's the runes as a means of restraint for mental patients, well, that was on my mind before this character. I wasn't going to use a viewpoint character to tell that part of the story until she showed up. The package I referred to is conflict and setting, like a character running away from an insane asylum. I have to find out her past and future on my own, along what makes her her.

It's basically like a snapshot or stills from a few moments in someone's life. I have to create a story to explain what I saw. I can see fragments of myself in those characters, so I know they're truly mine.

I've never played Mass Effect.
 

Liu Xaun

Dreamer
My characters were made first, strangely. Compared to them and the plot my world is fairly new.
What sparks my ideas though? It's weird. Usually sitting alone waiting, or riding the bus home causes everything to just fill in.
 

Thalian

Scribe
The way I did it was I created my world and brainstormed the beginning of my story, and as the first few chapters unfolded I brought in characters and if they felt like they should be important then I started to develop them into main characters. Now, halfway done I have main characters fleshed out and my plotline is finally set as I kind of flew by the seat of my pants for the first half. I know this is most likely unorthodox, but it seems to have worked for me so far!
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
I need to see a lot of inspiration. If you put a blank page in front of me I usually don't know where to start.

One thing I find useful is to read classic literature, looking for ideas and characters and experiences that will translate well into a fantasy genre. For instance, I recently read through the Count of Monte Cristo, where a man is falsely imprisoned, breaks out of jail, discovers wealth, and returns like an undercover cop infiltrating their lives to extract vengeance on those who set him up. Coincidentally they're currently revisiting that story in ABC's Revenge, but could you imagine that set up in a high fantasy setting? Imagine a person being falsely imprisoned, breaking out, discovering a source of magic and returning to mingle with the wizards he or she wants to destroy. That story could have incredible potential.

But that's just an example, I don't really mean to steal old literary ideas. I go in looking for much smaller points of inspiration. In the above story, Monte Cristo plans for years to break out of jail, devising an elaborate scheme with his partner. Finally, when it comes to the attempt, his partner dies of a seizure, and Monte Cristo escapes by hiding in his body bag as it's thrown over a cliff into the ocean. If you're doing a jail break, the story beats are worth looking at. He's desperate, then he's inspired by his "insane" partner, their scheme has one problem after another as his partner, a priest, won't condone violence, then they become like family, then everything goes wrong, and then an opportunity presents itself amid loss. In the broad outline I think you can find inspiration without copying the actual events of the story. That's closer to what I'm looking for when I read.
 

lawrence

Troubadour
The Count of Monte Cristo is a GREAT story ! :)

For me, the Spark can come from something I read, especially real historic accounts. For example, the account of the two roman officers who were charged with defeating Germanic armies, and the officer of noble birth would not take orders from his senior out of sheer class arrogance, and his thirst for personal fame cost thousands of lives. Such events will spark ideas.

As for plot, I try to have a basic idea/objective underpinning things, but keeping it fairly vague so that I can give the characters room to create the story themselves, as they move through their environment as living thinking breathing beings. I think its important to not make your MC a slave to your plot. Something you do not envision may happen. Characters need to be more than puppets dancing to the tugging of our plot lines. I don't necessarily manage it, but thats what I aspire to.
 

aderyn

Scribe
This is a great topic, it's interesting to read how people come up with their stories and begin their development.

Most of my ideas are sparked by something I hear or see, could be another story, but could be 'real life'. An example - one of the stories I am curently working on was sparked by a conversation I was having with a friend who told me about a man he knew who lived on a boat. We live in an extensive lakes system, this man will move around the lakes, spending a week here, a week there. I found it interesting and I began to wonder what that might be like. Then I realized I got an idea for a story.

After I get the initial idea I spend a lot of time living in my head, imagining the story, the character and the setting. It's really just like day dreaming. Then I will write a plot outline. I have to be careful with this though as I have a habit of spending too much time on the outline when I could be writing the story.

So that's how I usually begin :)
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
The spark comes from different places for me.

'Falling Towers' came out of an old play by mail game I spent two years or so mucking about with. The game set up a premise which I found to be interesting, even though it wasn't really relevant to the game itself.

The inspiration for 'Empire' came from the opening to an otherwise forgettable Warhammer game module.

'Pilgrim' came from Kim Stanely Robinsons 'Short Sharp Shock' (though Pilgrim has been in the research and small fragment stage for like fifteen years now).
 

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
I come up with about one or two ideas for stories a week. I'm not at a loss for ideas. Are they good ideas? Who cares? They're ideas! Some of them are great, some not so great. I used to have trouble coming up with ideas because I wanted everything to be perfect. Now I don't care anymore. I think I'm sort of outside the bounds of most fantasy writers as I don't really have a "set" way of writing or creating something. I just write it. I don't think of worlds or characters. I just write them. If they suck, then they suck. I can always fix it. If they're awesome and great, even better.

I think generally my ideas are sparked by just thinking, "What if _____ happened?" Then I go from there. I take notes and there you have it!

I try to think of the audience I want to aim for. Sadly, most of the time I have no idea.
 

Alex

Troubadour
Well, I watch a lot of movies and read a lot of books, usually I can get a random spark of inspiration from a movie I have watched or book that I have read. After that, the world and the people in it spawn from the initial seed of an idea in my head. Basically, I know what I want to write, I just have to put the characters in and design the world to fit the plot and time period
 

Jess A

Archmage
I will imaginary role play as the character, and try to document whatever comes into the experience... It's kinda silly, but in a quiet space where you can just let your mind wander, and channel your inner 10 year old, I get some great stories...

I do this with my characters too. I try to look at various angles and play out each one. I try to work out what fits best, what is the most interesting, what serves the plot etc.

I also like to visualise certain places in the world. You would be surprised what can 'spark' from something as simple as placing your mind and senses within the setting. Quite a few of the major 'settings' in my book are based on places I have been to - climate, landscapes, animals and plants, geography, topography. I can bring myself back to those places very easily because I have been there.

A lot of my ideas come when I listen to magical songs, the more I listen to them, the more ideas spark.

This also helps me!
 
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W.k. Trail

Scribe
I don't really create my characters on purpose, for the most part they appear to me fully-formed (though they change a lot over the course of the stories.)

I also find that a good enough character will make the story write itself.
 

Dakkle

Dreamer
Characters tend to come to me more or less fully formed, I role play them for a bit and see where they end up. That's how the story tends to begin, and then I just have the joys of trying to work out the middle and the end. Sometimes I'll be bumming around with friends and come up with an idea based on a story they've told me. One of my best friends is pretty good for this. We've talked about writing something together one day.
 
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