Hi all!

I've been reading this forum for a couple of weeks and found some pretty good advice, since I do want to write some good sf books and become famous my only problem this far seems to be that I can't think of anythng to write about, taht has not been written allready. I hate reading good SF books/novels because that always gets me irritated because I didn't think of that idea myself, I mean I would've loved to be the one to come up witht he idea for Asimovs short story "The Last Question", or anything else He has written and yes, OSC's books do the same thing to me too, don't worry
Anyway, this far I have never really managed to write anything fictional where I haven't stolen the idea from somewhere, so where DO you all get the great ideas? So pretty please everyone try to answer and tell me where you get your inspiration from, and how and when
I've been thinking a bit about writing some SF connected to some old religions, or the bible, because there are lots of things that you could easily translate into Science Fiction, but I haven't managed to come up with any real good ideas yet. Someone did give me the idea to write about Jesus, and make him a vampire which would really explain how he got out of that grave, but I don't think I want to go that far, because I'm pretty sure that would upset lots of people, including my fiancee so if I ever want to be happily married I better stay away from that subject
I was also considering making something out of Noah's ark, with the arc being a spaceship saving a few humans from somewhere and ending up on earth (without the reading realizing what the story is based until the end of it, but still with subtle clear hints everywhere), although I'm pretty sure that something like that has been written sometime before too
I've always been interested in all kinds of mythologies and religions so I guess that's why I'm interested in doing something like that, but I never seem to be able to come up with some real good ideas to make of it, so maybe I should just forget about that and try to come up with some original myself...
oh well, enough of my rambling, but I would be happy for any advice any of you could give me as to how to come up with good ideas because I really need that

[This message has been edited by Wyclef (edited January 21, 2001).]
 

In any case I'll give just a brief summary of how I've applied his technique. The process is all about asking questions. Say you want to start with creating your main character. Ask yourself basic information (gender, age, ethnicity) then ask things about their situation (married? single? employed? unemployed?) You really want to get to know this person. Along the way look for how or why questions. 'Why is he single?' 'Why is she unemployed?' 'How does she feel about men?' 'How does he feel about being the only white kid in his neighborhood?' During this stage you can even think up multiple answers and branch out all over the place until you find something that rings true for you.

Of course, you don't have to start with character. You can use this method of questioning to interrogate an idea. You can decide that in the 22nd century owning a gas-powered machine of any kind is illegal, not only that, it's punishable by death. You could pursue the why and how of it, finding all the back-story, until you have at least a unique story if not a unique idea. (Feel free to experiment with this one if you want, it may seem silly but it'll let you get a feel for how it's done)

Again, I haven't done the technique justice here so consider buying the books. If I'm infringing on any of OSC's rights I'm sure Kathleen will let me know. Hopefully, though, you'll find this helpful, if not at least it's a fun game to play.

"If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?"--Voltaire
Jessi
 

My suggestion is - just start writing
 

OSC's books, mentioned here, are a great read, and have helped me a lot. Also, the other books in the Elements of Writing Series, of which Card's book is a part, are helpful also.

As for my ideas, I just let them come to me. Sometimes a mental picture appears in my head or a photo of a character, and I begin shaping a story around that. A lot of times, images and feelings that remain with me from dreams are the start for stories.

One last thing... I've kicked around an idea for a story about the second coming of Christ in my head--- he is born through human cloning from DNA taken from the Shroud of Turran. Never wrote the piece because I felt I didn't know how to treat the subject matter, or how I felt about it. Anyone here is free to use it if they think it's a good idea.

[This message has been edited by TheUbiquitousMrLovegrove (edited January 23, 2001).]
 

And JK, along the same lines...why not throw Catherine and Heathcliffe into space and see what marvelous things result? You may find that your resulting story takes a life of its own and the only piece of the original that remains is the theme. Or maybe the theme gets trashed and the only things that remain are the names. Whatever...I think you're just as able to make it succeed as TUML is with his. (I'm sorry if I seem very happy and optimistic today, it's some new narcotics I've been prescribed. Tomorrow I promise to be my crotchety ol' self because I think these drugs are bad, bad, bad)

Jessi
 

actually I have to admit that I am kinda stupid after I posted my first post here I noticed that the book I was reading, Isaac Asimov's "Gold", a collection of his short stories and essays about SF and on WRITING Science fiction the book actually has like a sectiong "on writing science fiction", with about 20 short essays where he answers and talks about things that people, like where he gets his ideas, originality, names etc it doesn't really tell you HOW to write that much, just some little advice to how he did some thing.
But next time before I ask anything, I'll go look through my collection of books first
But I will go and see if I can find those books by OSC you mentioned, because I could still always need some more help with figuring out how to start

About that second coming story someone mentioned, I remember that there is a story about that where Jesus came back, but he was a giant mantis instead of human, and it was written in a "biblical style", like one of the gospels... I'm pretty sure you all can imagine how the religious people liked that story myself I just think that mixing up religion in a story, christian or otherwise, can result in very good ideas for stories, but I would myself never mix up Jesus in any second-coming-story or anything, because that would be bound to upset a lot of people, and I always try to be respectful of other peoples religious opinions and beliefs

oh well, thanks for all the replies and comments, now I'll just try to figure out something good to write about and get started

(and yes, I like using smileys)

[This message has been edited by Wyclef (edited January 24, 2001).]
 

So, if you read a story and like the idea, and that idea stirs up your creative juices, do your thing with it. As long as the story isn't outright copied, which would be a problem, it would be cool. If it becomes too similiar to the original, then you can consider it a writing exercise. And if it takes itself off into somethinmg fantastic and different, the all the better!

Will.
 

I'd be willing to bet that if I were to tell you what I thought of when JK mentioned doing a science fictional version of WUTHERING HEIGHTS, it would be totally different from what JK is thinking about. (I really liked the idea, and I'm hoping JK does something with it.)

Part of what helps us to do things differently from how someone else would do it is that we will bring in different ideas to add to the suggested idea. (Not to mention all the different things we all have in our backgrounds.)

So don't worry about coming up with original ideas. Worry about making ideas that appeal to you =your= ideas by putting your own personal spin on them.
 

(I suspect that's what happened when they came up with the idea for the movie with Michael Douglas and Glenn Close--why can't I think of the name?--where she was the stalker and tried to kill him and his family.)

Another thing you can do is change the time period or the place--as JK suggested doing with WUTHERING HEIGHTS.

Another thing you can do is start reading a story and stop after the first few chapters. Write down how you think it will turn out.

Then, after reading to about the middle, stop again and write down how you think it will turn out.

Then, just before you get to the resolution, stop again and write down how you think it will turn out.

If you've been reading a story with lots of surprises, you'll have three new stories that all end differently from the one you read.

And if you like any of them better, make some changes in the beginning, add some twists, and write the story you really would like to have read.

One more thing--don't try to write something based on just one idea. Put at least two ideas together--that will help make the story more original, too, because no two people are likely to put the same two (or three or four) ideas together in the same story.
 

What if you wrote a story about someone who has decided that Jesus was a vampire to explain him rising from the grave, and that person tries to prove it by hunting for him?

You could have another character who doesn't believe that for a minute, and either tries to stop the first character, or follows to see what happens, or maybe both.

Stephen King says, in ON WRITING, that he starts with a character and a situation and lets the story grow from there.

You might grow an interesting story with a situation like that (if you make your characters interesting, too, of course).
 

Btw, has anyone ever tried reading a bunch of Donald Duck's and seeing how many ideas for stories you could come up with from them? I just started thinking about that while reading the latest Donalkl Duck 256-page pocket book ( No, I'm not 12, I'm 21 ) and started thinking... ALL of the stories in it would easily converted into good SF stories Yes, the comics are sick and twisted, but if you strip away all the too extreme things and only concentrate on the basics, there's a lot of ideas to catch And yes, you could probably get ideas from other comics too, but I think Donald Duck is the best, because ANYTHING can happen, they don't have any "storyline" they follow, so they don't have to worry about what happens now making sense with the last issue so now you all better go and put your kids to sleep and "borrow" their comics for a while, it'll be worth the trouble, trust me

 

ok I admit that some parts of that story where a bit too hard to believe, like that they would have just happened to invent that time machine at the right time, but when you think about it, they invented it that exact time because of the paradox, there wouldn't have been a paradox if they hadn't invented it and scrooge hadn't sniffed the sleep-elixir...
so they do have some interesting ideas lots of times, and I'm still trying to figure out just how many little kids would actually get the point of stories like that Most 10 year olds probably wouldn't understadn what they mean with time paradoxi, or the implications of Donald inventing the Wheel and Fire, which would mean he's the reason we have our civilization today.. but that brings up the question if the stone age people would have ever invented Wheel and Fire, without the help of the time machine, but we could have never invented the time machine without the wheel and fire first, right? and what would have happened if they hadn't sent Donald back in time?
Reading comics for little kids does get more fun when you can start to actually understand and analyze everything they want to tell

and I know, I'm a smiley-junkie, I have a problem and I need help but look at the bright side, it makes my posts a lot easier to find.. if someone for some weird sick reasons would actually want to read my ramblings
 

Take your Jesus-as-vampire idea. If I were doing it, being a practicing Christian myself, I'd immediately want to reconcile his vampire nature with the fact that he was the messiah. How did he reconcile his role as savior with his nature as vampire? When he sucked people's blood, did he suck the demons from them? And the sin, too? Was that painful to him? Did he feel guilty about getting his sustenance from them while healing them? But all gods (pagan gods, anyway) get their sustenance from their worshippers (a sacrifice is ‘a sweet savor to the Lord’)—this is only slightly more direct than the usual method. You could build this up into a meditation on the reciprocal nature of the relationship between man and God. Then—what a turnaround when at the end Jesus offers his blood to his followers—‘I will feed you as you have fed me.’

Two problems to solve—after you’re done getting people mad at you, that is: How is it that Jesus spends most of his time running around in daylight? And isn’t the end a let-down—so he gets out of the tomb, but so what? Is he still running around?

I could get into writing that, even if it were unpublishable. Point is not that you should take it this way—only that whatever way you take it has to be interesting and meaningful to you, or it’s just a head game.

 

Sure you don't want to write this?
 

quote:

---

Kathleen, sorry, but an SF version of
Wuthering Heights is going to take a while. I
kinda have a backlog of ideas and current
projects that I can see taking years to finish, and there are only so many ideas I can work on at the same time (people here worry about having too few original ideas, and I'm worried about having so many ideas I can't do them all in my lifetime. Ironic?)

---

Ironic, yes, but it also means that you have one of the things that you need to be a writer--too many ideas that you want to work on.

People who worry about having too few ideas just need to learn how to look for them and keep them where they'll remember them, and so on and so forth. You've already learned that, I would think.
 

Jessi
 

I suppose it would be nice if those of us with extra ideas could just share with those in need, but do you think it would work? I get the feeling that the ideas only have meaning in the context of my own knowledge and experience and it would be a one in a million miracle if they interested anyone else enough to write about them.

Jessi
 

second part of your quesion - no.
 

if you want to read his reply, check the thread at the other board sicne I thought it was more fitting to be posted there

and why I'm posting this here, I'm just merely grabbing MY thread back from you people using it to discuss other things

and how come the smileys don't look the same on all the Hatrack boards? that's not nice to us smiley-junkies

[This message has been edited by Wyclef (edited February 01, 2001).]
 

Anyway.
 

Awhile ago I had trouble coming up with ideas, but now I see them all abound, and many, like Brinestone(an above post) said, I do not feel I could do them justice. Maybe when I am much more experienced?

Do any of you try to preserve an idea 'til later, or do you just start writing it?
 

Sometimes, I fail. That doesn't mean the idea won't work again later, when I'm more practiced, but if its's something I care about there's nothing wrong with writing it now. I might not fail. Now, when inspiration strikes might be the perfect time. Later it might be stale.

Here's the most important thing though...challenge yourself. If you only write things that are mundane, that you've written about before, or with ideas that are similiar to the way you always write, how will you ever grow as a writer? You have to challenge yourself to improve at anything.

Write that story!
 

I only learned to do this after becoming frustrated over forgetting great story ideas that I thought I would retain, but wound up slipping away before I could act on them.
 

I also get ideas from dreams, from things I see when I'm out and about, from things I see on television or hear on the radio, from things I read, from things people say to me or say to other people that I overhear.

The key is to keep your eyes and your ears open all the time. There are always things around you that you can use. Sometimes they are things that will blossom into a key idea for a story; other times they are just little details, little grace notes that you can file away and go back to when you need a moment in a story.

As an example of this, one day when I was driving to school, I saw two little boys walking to school. They had to be brothers, they looked so much alike. One appeared to be about seven, the other about five. The younger one looked upset, as if he might have been crying. The older one was walking along beside him, his arm cradled around the younger one's shoulders, speaking directly into his ear, with the most patient, compassionate look on his face. I saw all that in the space of a couple of seconds, and the scene has stuck with me in the several years since I saw them that morning. I could build a whole short story, even a whole novel, around that couple of seconds. I can imagine a number of different ways that fleeting image could be a springboard for a story. On the other hand, it might be just the little detail I need to make a moment in a story seem more real.
 

Unless you have other ideas already that you can put your new idea with, you're going to need to save that idea until you do.

You won't have enough for a story with one lone idea.

People who start writing when they only have one idea usually find that the story fizzles out after a while. If it doesn't fizzle, it's most likely because other ideas have come in with it and they are working together to build the story.

So get out that notebook and write the idea down, and if you really like it, start putting it together with other ideas you've already written down until you have enough ideas for a full-fledged story.

I had an idea that I really liked but couldn't seem to write up, and then a couple of other ideas came along to join it, and I wrote a 10,000 story in a day and a half. (First draft, of course, but I finished it.)
 

And yes, a notebook is essential. I almost never get really good ideas when I am somewhere it is convenient to write them down. Even if you don't carry the notebook with you, keep a pen or pencil and some kind of paper you can slip into wallet or purse until you can get them home and write them down permanently. I used to to hate cash register receipts until I realized they are great for notes to myself. The one thing about that system, though, is that you have to maintain the discipline to copy the ideas into a notebook as soon as you get home. Usually, one lost slip of paper with a really good idea on it is training enough.

Oh, and as an alternative to a notebook for those who just see them as too reminiscent of school, three by five cards in a file box work as well.

[This message has been edited by littlemissattitude (edited June 07, 2003).]
 

You can also lay them out in a grid and play "match game" with them, or arrange them in any of a number of ways to see them next to each other and to generate stories.