One of the questions I get asked a lot is “where do you get your ideas?” I often shrug and say that I don’t know, but the real honest answer is that ideas are everywhere. I keep a folder on my computer and when something occurs to me, I write a note and stick it in the folder. This “kindling’ is often what it takes to get a story going. The ideas are simple, often not more than a thought or an image. A bowling alley in mid-town Manhattan, a woman who has lost everything in a fire, a sign that says “Hard Bodies”. All of them are kindling for a new story.
Often, for me at least, it’s when two of these little notions collide. In P-town, a man running away from trouble and a picture of a boat called the P-town Queen came together. In my current work in progress, a commercial about the wrong character at a birthday party combined with a write up on an old theatre- together the start of a new romantic comedy.
Of course, it’s a long way from notion to final story. Lots of things happen along the way. That’s the best part; I never know exactly what will turn up and how things will turn out when I begin. I write to find out.
0 COMMENTS
Sue Swift
14 years agoI get my ideas from Sears. They sell them in lots of ten on the lower floor between the barbecues and the exercise equipment.
ute carbone
14 years ago AUTHORI did not know! They really do have everything.
Tristram La Roche
14 years agoMy mind never stops from the moment I wake up. Ideas are everywhere.
ute carbone
14 years ago AUTHORTrue that, Tris. Harder part is writing them all into stories. I need about 100 years worth of uninterrupted time, 🙂