Short Story//Where does the idea come from ...?

Every profession must have its weakness. Doctors, for example, are always asked for free medical advice; attorney always is hounded to provide free legal information; and a gravedigger is always published by a person who has never been their destination before the direction of the conversation is transferred. If you can always question from where we get the idea to write.

At the beginning, I often give answers that are not funny, and also frivolous: "From the Monthly Ideas Club," I replied, or "From a small idea store in Bognor Regis", "From dusty old books in the basement of my house complete with idea "or even" From Pete Atkins. "(The answer is a bit esoteric, and needs a bit of explanation Pete Atkis is a scriptwriter and novelist who is none other than my own friend, and also there has been a long time since we got the question from where we got the idea of ​​writing, I would answer that I got an idea from him, and he was from me.

Then I was tired of giving an answer that was not too funny, and because of this release I decided to give the correct answer:

"I created the idea," I replied. "From my imagination."

Apparently this person also likes this answer. Somehow. They did not look very nice to hear it, considering I was trying to trick them with that answer. As if there was a big secret, and, to my own advantage, or I deliberately covered up the secret from them.

Of course that's the wrong view. First of all, I do not know where the ideas came from, whatever brought them, or their day will stop coming to me. Secondly, I can not guarantee people who ask about the origin of the idea to listen to the three-hour talk about the creative process. And Third, the idea is not important. I'm serious. Everyone has an idea to write a book, a story, a movie, or a television series.

All the authors whose work has been published must read the story of how a writer is approached by people who are busy declaring that they have a good idea. And they always say it's a good idea. So Unique they want to Involve the Author. The offer is always the same - they will tell you the ideas (the hard part), then the writer will be asked to write it down and become a novel (the easy part), then the author and the owner of the idea of ​​sharing the results. Half a half.

I want to be polite enough for people like this. I'll admit to them that they have ideas popping into my head, and that my daily time is not enough to finish those ideas. Then I will say "Good luck" to them.

Finding Ideas is not a difficult part of writing. Ideas are just a small part of the whole story. Creating characters that are trustworthy to exist, and who can do everything the author asks, is more difficult. And the most difficult part is the process in which the writer has to sit and place word for word to build whatever he wants to build: then make it interesting and new.

Still, the idea is the main question for most people. In my case, they also want to know if I get the idea from the dream. (Answer: No. The logic in dreams is not the same as the logic of the story, just try to translate your dreams, you'll see what I mean, or try to tell the dream you think is important to someone: "Well, I'm in a house just like the old school building of SD-ku, then I met a nun who was an old witch, then she left and left a leaf I can not look at the leaf and I know if I touch it something bad will happen ... " and see how that person is staring at you.) And I rarely give a firm answer. Until recently.

My 7-year-old daughter, Holly, persuaded me to speak in front of her class at school. The teacher is very enthusiastic ("The kids have learned to make their own books recently, so maybe you want to come and share their experiences with what it's like to be a professional writer, also tell me a few small stories. ") And so I came.

All the kids sat on the floor while I sat on the bench. Fifty pairs of eyes 7-year-olds looked up at me with their heads tilted up. "When I was your age, people always forbid me to imagine," I told them. "Now they pay me for it." I talked for 20 minutes, then it was their turn to ask questions.

Finally, one of them asked the question.

"Where did you get the idea?"

And I realized I had to answer that question. They are still too small, and therefore the question comes from a sincere place. Besides, the question is also not a stupid question - unless you are faced with the same question at least once a week.

Here's my answer:

You can get an idea of ​​your daydream. You can get an idea when you're bored. You can get an idea anytime, anywhere. One thing that distinguishes the author from others is ... we can recognize their existence quickly.

You can get an idea when you ask simple questions. The most important question is, 'What if ...?'

(What if one day you wake up have wings in your body? What if your sister turns into a mouse? What if you know that one of your teachers is planning to eat you one by one at the end of this semester - but you do not know who?

And another important question is, If ...

(If real life were the same as life in Hollywood musical performances, if only I could shrink as much as a button for a shirt, and there would be a ghost who would finish my homework.)

Then there's another important question: I'm curious ... ("I wonder what he's doing when he's alone ...") and If It's Forward ... ("If it's forwarded, then all the phone machines will talk to each other and therefore humans will not again needed ... ") and Interesting yes if ... (" Interesting yes if this world was once dominated by a cat? ") ...

The questions, and other similar questions, and the questions that these questions later asked ("Well, if cats used to dominate the world, why do not they master it now? And how do they feel about it?") Is one the place from which the idea originated.

An idea does not necessarily take the form of a whole story, but enough as the place where the author begins to do the creation process. The storyline will take shape by itself as the author begins to question the starting point of the story.

Sometimes an idea comes in the form of a character ("There's a boy who wants to know magical science"). Sometimes in the form of a place ("There is a palace in the end times, which is the only place that still exists in the world ..."). Sometimes in the form of a shadow ("A woman observes a dark space laden with empty faces.")

Often ideas come from two commonly attended concurrently. ("If a wolf-bitten man turns into a wolf, what happens when a chef's fish gets bitten by a werewolf? What happens when a chair is bitten by a werewolf?")

All forms of fiction are a process of supposition: whatever you write, in any medium or genre, your job is to create a convincing, interesting, and new world.

And when you have an idea - that you hold tight when you're about to start writing - what do you do?

Well, after that you write. You string together until the story is finished - whatever that is.

Sometimes it does not work, or at least the process is not as fast as you want. Sometimes that does not work at all. Sometimes you have to throw away your initial writing and start again.

I remember, a few years ago, when I got the right idea for Sandman's story. About the succubus monster who gives ideas to writers, artists and songwriters in exchange for life. I titled the story Sex and Violets.

It seems like a clear story of the plot, but once I start writing it, I realize that the process is the same as trying to grasp the fine sand in a fist: every time I think the sand is clutched, it always escapes through the cracks of my fingers and goes away so only.

At that time I wrote:

I've started this story twice, and each time I'm only able to finish half of it, before I'm forced to witness the death of the story.

Sandman should be a comic book of horror genre. But none of the story development I wrote caught my attention like the story I am now going to throw away (while the deadline is long past). Why? Maybe because the story is too close to my own life. Those ideas - and the ability to write them down on paper, and compose them into stories - that's what makes me a writer. That means I do not have to get up early and ride the train with people I do not know, to do a job I do not like.

To me hell is a blank sheet of paper. Or blank screen. And I'm in front of him, unable to think of any thing that deserves to be conveyed, a character that anyone else can trust, or a story that has never been told before.

Stare at blank paper.

Forever.

Though, in the end, I managed to write and get out of that dark hole. I'm desperate (that's an honest and frivolous answer to the question from where-you-got-yours. "Despair." He is near "Boredom" and "Deadline." All of these answers are true for a given situation) and embrace my own fears, also the main idea I had, before I finally composed a story called Calliope, which I can reasonably explain from where the authors got their idea. The story is in a book called DREAM COUNTRY. You can read it if you want. And as I was writing the story, I stopped worrying that my ideas would leave me.

Where do I get the idea?

I created them.