This week I’d like to talk about where writers get their story ideas from for and also I would like to know where you get your ideas. For me a story begins with an idea. This idea has to be a sort of mini-story. Perhaps, for many of you the seed that will sprout into a story is just a mental picture, a word, or just the simple craving to write something. A writer should always trust his/her creative spontaneity when it comes to get ideas for writing. Some of the best works in literature have been born out of flash of spontaneity. Consider for example The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. This great American novel began with a mental picture. “The picture was of the muddy seat of a little girl’s drawers in a pear tree, where she could see through a window where her grandmother’s funeral was taking place and report what was happening to her brothers on the ground below. By the time I explained who they were and what they were doing and how her pants got muddy, I realized it would be impossible to get all of it into a short story and that it would have to be a book.”
This week I was reading that Garcia Marquez inspiration to write One Hundred Years of Solitude was his childhood’s memories. How fascinating is to think how these colossal and magnificent works of literature started from a simple thing. Ideas are everywhere, floating in the air, waiting for you to inhale them into your creative brain. Just this past week I thought about this great ideas for a story. I was at the library the other day reading when I overheard this woman teaching English to this old Mexican lady. I wrote this dynamic (American lady teaching ESL to this old woman) in my little notebook I carry everywhere for ideas and thoughts on writing. Whenever I have the time to write, probably after this semester, I will go back and develop this image into something more complex. Where do you get your ideas? Let me know. 
If you have time for a good novel check this one out;
I get ideas really randomly. Sometimes I'll just be sitting around when something hits me that I really want to write about. One time I had an idea for a story simply by thinking, "I want to write something about a guy in prison." The thought came out of absolutely nowhere.
ReplyDeleteMy ideas of what to write often start out from the characters that start the story or a single scene. Something as simple as one character ranting to another spirals out of control, growing bigger and bigger as I fill in the gaps in the information.
ReplyDeleteGreat post. I usually have a minor incident pop into my head, and I see how I can develop it into a story. The short story I'm writing right now, though, came from a single quote I heard the character say in my head one night. Inspiration comes randomly, so I also believe it's a great idea to keep a notebook handy to write these things down. I have lost/forgotten so many great ideas because I didn't seize the moment and write it down.
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