Authors On Ideas

AUTHORS ON IDEAS I read what other authors should say about writing. I wouldn’t say I read that “obsessively,” but undoubtedly “often.” You ought to be doing that toâ€"and, I guess, when you’re reading this right now . . . you're! Though I don’t do visitor posts here at Fantasy Author’s Handbook, I thought perhaps this week I’ll more or less turn it over to a few different authorsâ€"from articles and interviews of theirs I’ve read , as regards to concepts and inspiration. How does a story really start to type in an author’s thoughts? How does it transfer forward from obscure idea to finished prose? This is the Big Mystery out of all the many and varied Big Mysteries within the realm of creative writing. Where do ideas come from? What is the supply of human creativity? I have no idea, so let’s see what a couple of sensible individuals have to say . . . Neil Gaiman tackles this head on in “Where Do You Get Your Ideas?” where he concentrates on an writer’s internal dialog: You get ideas from daydreaming. You get concepts from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and different individuals is we discover once we’re doing it. You get ideas if you ask yourself simple questions. The most necessary of the questions is simply, What if . . . ? (What if you woke up with wings? What if your sister was a mouse? What if you all found out that your instructor was planning to eat considered one of you on the finish of termâ€"but you didn’t know who?) Another important query is, If solely . . . (If only real life was like it is in Hollywood musicals. If solely I could shrink myself small as a button. If only a ghost would do my homework.) And then there are the others: I wonder . . . (‘I marvel what she does when she’s alone . . .’) and If This Goes On . . .. (‘If this goes on telephones are going to begin talking to each other, and reduce out the middleman . . .’) and Wouldn’t it's attention-grabbing if . . . (‘Wouldn’t or not it's interesting if the world was dominated by cats?’) . . . Those questions, and others like them, and the questions they, in their turn, pose (‘Well, if cats used to rule the world, why don’t they any extra? And how do they feel about that?’) are one of many locations ideas come from. Often concepts come from two issues coming collectively that haven’t come together before. (‘If an individual bitten by a werewolf turns into a wolf what would occur if a goldfish was bitten by a werewolf? What would happen if a chair was bitten by a werewolf?’) Isaac Asimov, the Grand Master of Grand Masters of science fiction, wrote an essay called “How Do People Get New Ideas?“ in 1959 that, though more concerned with the event of recent scientific theories, nonetheless has lots to inform us about creativity generally and the dichotomy of creating as a strictly personal, isolated pursuit and the idea of the “cerebration program,” which we might name a †œwriters group”: My feeling is that as far as creativity is worried, isolation is required. The inventive person is, in any case, frequently working at it. His mind is shuffling his data always, even when he is not aware of it. (The well-known example of Kekule figuring out the structure of benzene in his sleep is well-identified.) The presence of others can solely inhibit this process, since creation is embarrassing. For each new good concept you could have, there are a hundred, ten thousand silly ones, which you naturally don't care to show. Nevertheless, a meeting of such individuals could also be desirable for reasons other than the act of creation itself. No two individuals precisely duplicate one another’s mental stores of items. One individual could know A and never B, another could know B and never A, and either understanding A and B, each might get the ideaâ€"although not necessarily without delay or even soon. Furthermore, the information may not only be of particular person gadgets A and B, but even of combinations similar to A-B, which in themselves usually are not significant. However, if one person mentions the weird mixture of A-B and one other the weird combination A-C, it might be that the mixture A-B-C, which neither has considered individually, may yield a solution. It seems to me then that the purpose of cerebration sessions is to not assume up new concepts however to coach the participants in details and reality-combos, in theories and vagrant thoughts. But tips on how to persuade artistic folks to do so? First and foremost, there must be ease, relaxation, and a general sense of permissiveness. The world normally disapproves of creativity, and to be creative in public is particularly dangerous. Even to invest in public is rather worrisome. The individuals must, due to this fact, have the feeling that the others received’t object. If a single particular person present is unsympathetic to the foolishness that may be sure to go on at su ch a session, the others would freeze. The unsympathetic individual may be a gold mine of data, but the harm he does will more than compensate for that. It seems essential to me, then, that every one people at a session be keen to sound silly and take heed to others sound foolish. If a single individual present has a much larger reputation than the others, or is extra articulate, or has a distinctly more commanding personality, he might nicely take over the convention and scale back the rest to little greater than passive obedience. The particular person could himself be extremely helpful, but he might as properly be put to work solo, for he's neutralizing the remainder. The optimum number of the group would most likely not be very excessive. I ought to guess that not more than 5 can be wished. A bigger group might need a larger whole supply of knowledge, however there can be the tension of ready to speak, which may be very frustrating. It would probably be higher to have a number o f classes at which the individuals attending would differ, quite than one session including them all. (This would contain a sure repetition, however even repetition isn't in itself undesirable. It is not what people say at these conferences, however what they encourage in each other in a while.) For finest purposes, there should be a sense of informality. Joviality, using first names, joking, relaxed kidding are, I assume, of the essenceâ€"not in themselves, however because they encourage a willingness to be concerned within the folly of creativeness. For this purpose I suppose a meeting in someone’s residence or over a dinner desk at some restaurant is probably more useful than one in a conference room. Probably more inhibiting than anything else is a feeling of responsibility. The nice ideas of the ages have come from individuals who weren’t paid to have great ideas, however were paid to be academics or patent clerks or petty officers, or were not paid in any respect. The grea t concepts got here as side issues. To feel responsible as a result of one has not earned one’s wage because one has not had a great idea is the surest method, it appears to me, of constructing it certain that no great idea will come within the subsequent time either. For a more religious take, within the introductory material for his graphic novel assortment Screaming Planet, mad genius Alexandro Jodorowsky wrote: I admit that I would usually get down on my knees and pray to my unconscious: “I can’t imagine my means out. Please, give me the answer!” After some time, the solution would pop into my mind. I do imply “pop,” as a result of I wasn’t crafting it. I simply contented myself to receive it totally shaped in my mind. In those privileged moments, my heart would beat faster and with an exquisite joy I would exclaim: “Thank you, my unconscious! Thank you for this gift!” And in the additional materials for my online Horror Intensive (which is beginning up once mo re in a pair weeks), I quote the nice Stephen King thrice on the character, supply, and wellspring of ideas. The first is from an interview with Rolling Stone: I can keep in mind as a school pupil writing tales and novels, some of which ended up getting printed and some that didn’t. It was like my head was going to burstâ€"there were so many things I wanted to write down all of sudden. I had so many ideas, jammed up. It was like they just needed permission to return out. I had this large aquifer beneath of stories that I wished to tell and I stuck a pipe down in there and every thing simply gushed out. There’s still lots of it, however there’s not as a lot now. Next, from a Paris Review interview during which he discusses commenting on, or being inspired by, present occasions or trends: Take Cell. The idea took place this way: I got here out of a hotel in New York and I noticed this lady talking on her cellphone. And I thought to myself, What if she received a message over the cell phone that she couldn’t resist, and he or she needed to kill individuals till someone killed her? All the potential ramifications started bouncing round in my head like pinballs. If everybody got the same message, then everyone who had a cell phone would go crazy. Normal people would see this, and the first thing they might do can be to call their associates and households on their cell phones. So the epidemic would unfold like poison ivy. Then, later, I was walking down the street and I see some guy who is outwardly a crazy individual yelling to himself. And I want to cross the street to get away from him. Except he’s not a bum; he’s wearing a suit. Then I see he’s got one of these plugs in his ear and he’s speaking into his cellphone. And I thought to myself, I actually want to write this story. It was an instant idea. Then I read a lot about the cell phone business and began to take a look at the cell phone towers. So it’s a really present e-book, nevertheless i t came out of a priority about the way in which we talk to each other right now. Then he doubles down on his warning to leap on those ideas when they’re still there on this interview with the Los Angeles Review of Books: But for me, you reach some extent of diminishing returns. Also, I’m older. I wrote extra after I was youthful, working on two completely different initiatives: I’d work on something new within the morning and something that was carried out at night. But it was never carried out to earn cash. It was carried out as a result of all those ideas have been there. They had been all screaming to get out on the identical time and they all appeared good. Personally, I get my concepts from a demon child that lives in my brain and tells me things by whispering them into my soul. Y’know . . . like they do. â€"Philip Athans About Philip Athans Great post, Phil! I love studying or hearing authors talk about the craft. In reality, even if I don’t learn that exact writer’s works, I love it. When my wife and I first moved right here, I was a fish out of water and fell into a funk. Even though I all of a sudden had extra time to write than I’d ever had before I couldn’t get within the temper â€" I had no concepts. My wife purchased me the Masterclass with James Patterson. I’d by no means read any of his books (nonetheless haven’t), however just watching the videos and just listening to him discuss about the sheer joy of writing and creativity got my batteries charging again. In reality, I in all probability read more writers’ books about their writing than I truly do their stories here these days. And Neil Gaiman and Stephen King are two of the best at this (present firm excluded, in fact). Thanks for sharing. I definitely agree that daydreaming is the most important factor for getting concepts. I learn an article a while in the past that argued persons are changing into much less inventive because we've no time to be bored. We are always related. When we're ready for one thing, we have our head in our telephones, studying news or articles or no matter. But you want some time through the day when there's nothing to do but simply assume, to get lost in your head. Most of my ideas come to me either after I am in bed, or when I am driving in my automobile and listening to music. I am simply too distracted during the rest of the day to think about irrelevant things. I used to get the most effective concepts while out walking. I live in West Virginia, way up on prime of a giant mountain with bears and bobcats and all kinds of scary issues, so a great walk across the mountain, or even to my mailbox (which is a mile round trip, I kid you not) gives me the perfect alternative to run off steam, mirror on the day, plan things forward, or create stories in my head as I look via the trees. But, typicall y I don’t want a big, dramatic walk by way of the gravel roads. Sometimes I just get an idea at random. Random concepts are the scary ones as a result of you could or might not keep in mind what it was before you get an opportunity to write down it down!