As writers we’re used to people coming up to us with‘great ideas’ that they are sure we can turn into masterpieces.
I get it all the time, usually at parties. A drunk guy will stumble over and say he has this fantastic idea about a penguin who has insomnia.
Not to say this isn’t a tremendous idea that could really inform and teach about the tough realities of a penguin’s life, however, generally I prefer, (as I’m sure, most writers do,) to come up with my own ideas.
So where do ideas come from if not from drunk guys at parties?
I believe they’re always stimulated by something we’ve seen, heard or read about. We may not even realize that our idea came from one of these sources. We might wake up from a bad sleep and immediately say, “penguin insomnia.”
Stephen King said "I get my ideas from everywhere. But what all of my ideas boil down to is seeing maybe one thing, but in a lot of cases it's seeing two things and having them
come together in some new and interesting way, and then adding the question
'What if?' 'What if' is always the key question."
Of course everyone has their own concept of what a great idea is. However, in my opinion, most great ideas consist of a) being simple and b) exciting.
What I mean by simple is that we read the idea and we understand it immediately.
Take that show on TV, Resurrection. The concept is basically that citizens of a small town return from the dead.
You can’t get more simple than that.
The second item I mentioned was that the idea should be exciting. It has to make
us wonder what is going to happen next.
In Resurrection, we wonder what is going to happen when the dead people come into this small town. How is that going to affect the town, the people etc.
Ideas work the same in books. If you mention your novel idea to someone and they say, “Wow, I’d like to read that,” that means your idea is simple and exciting, and you may well be the next John Grisham or maybe, Steve Shrott (if you’re really really
lucky)
Have fun every day!
Steve
I get it all the time, usually at parties. A drunk guy will stumble over and say he has this fantastic idea about a penguin who has insomnia.
Not to say this isn’t a tremendous idea that could really inform and teach about the tough realities of a penguin’s life, however, generally I prefer, (as I’m sure, most writers do,) to come up with my own ideas.
So where do ideas come from if not from drunk guys at parties?
I believe they’re always stimulated by something we’ve seen, heard or read about. We may not even realize that our idea came from one of these sources. We might wake up from a bad sleep and immediately say, “penguin insomnia.”
Stephen King said "I get my ideas from everywhere. But what all of my ideas boil down to is seeing maybe one thing, but in a lot of cases it's seeing two things and having them
come together in some new and interesting way, and then adding the question
'What if?' 'What if' is always the key question."
Of course everyone has their own concept of what a great idea is. However, in my opinion, most great ideas consist of a) being simple and b) exciting.
What I mean by simple is that we read the idea and we understand it immediately.
Take that show on TV, Resurrection. The concept is basically that citizens of a small town return from the dead.
You can’t get more simple than that.
The second item I mentioned was that the idea should be exciting. It has to make
us wonder what is going to happen next.
In Resurrection, we wonder what is going to happen when the dead people come into this small town. How is that going to affect the town, the people etc.
Ideas work the same in books. If you mention your novel idea to someone and they say, “Wow, I’d like to read that,” that means your idea is simple and exciting, and you may well be the next John Grisham or maybe, Steve Shrott (if you’re really really
lucky)
Have fun every day!
Steve