Where Do You Get Your Ideas From?

It’s the thing we get asked, all the time.

Douglas Adams famously responded, “The fact is, I don’t know where my ideas come from. Nor does any writer. The only real answer is to drink way too much coffee and buy yourself a desk that doesn’t collapse when you beat your head against it.” Stephen King, in his On Writing (read it, seriously), advocates blotting out all distractions, up to and including covering the window. This, of course, was in the days before electronic gadgetry. These days, we have bigger things than windows to worry about.

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However.

King also talks about ‘Clubbing the Muse’, which is something that’s always stayed with me. Your ‘Muse’, whatever you may call him, her, them or it, is not something that deigns to visit you and gift you with a sparkling sunbeam of inspiration. You have to go the fuck out, track it the fuck down, club it the fuck over the head, and drag it the fuck back with you.

He didn’t swear quite as much, tbf.

So, where do you get your ideas from? How do you go club that wonderful, frittery and oh-so-elusive creature?

As with all writing advice, these things are personal. We know what it’s like to have a genius idea in the middle of the night, to scribble or type it down, and then wake up in the morning wondering what the hell you meant by ‘Sandals of Time’. Or to find your Muse unexpectedly lurking in the shower, scrabble out to get a towel, only to realise that they’ve vanished again.

For me, I walk. I walk a lot anyway, the air and exercise help, and (with a little effort) I can drill-focus my mind in the right space. I start with a concept, and then ask myself questions: What’s my starting place? Who’s in it? How do they feel about it? What do they want? Where are they going? And, inevitably, how do I throw shit in their path, and give them a hard time? Navigating each question, carefully and systematically, can slowly bring a narrative together.

For a physical visualisation, imagine a ‘spider chart’. You start with that single concept in the middle, and then draw expanding, extrapolating lines, each one out to a new node, and so on, spreading out fractal-style. Works a treat for world-building, as well.

There are various sites that will do star-, radar-, or spider-charts for you, but I honestly recommend doing them personally and old school. Use post-its, if they’re more your thing, shifting them about ‘til they work. Use Excel spreadsheets, if you’re that ruthlessly organised, but use your loaf (as my Mother used to say).

As for the central concept itself, well, things that you’ve been reading, watching or gaming can give you the kick up the butt you needs. There’s a scene in Children of Artifice that came directly from Breaking Bad, the one where Jesse finds the child in the addicts’ filthy house (was incredibly harrowing, and must’ve stayed with me). Sister Augusta’s original adventures, Mercy and The Bloodied Rose (both available in The Rose at War antho), were inspired by the cathedral in Diablo III. The Martyrdom of Sister Laurelynn was inspired by the siege of Bastion’s Keep, later in the same game.

No matter what, keep something upon which to make notes. Doesn’t matter if it’s your phone, a notebook, or anything else, but whatever the idea/concept is and whenever it strikes you, write it down. On top of that, keep those notes updated and in order, don’t just leave them ‘til you forget what they mean. Very often, the simple act of fitting them together can help fill out that spider chart for you.

More than anything, you can’t just wait around for circumstances to be ‘right’. For the right desk, the right light, the right mood, the right music. There are stories in everything, everywhere you look. It’s just a question of seizing them, and weaving them together.

Reading: Max Brooks’ World War Z which isn’t quite what I expected. It’s very intense, packed to the limit with political information and so well-informed it feels very, very real. And, with the rising threat of society’s collapse, quite frighteningly topical.

Watching: Blue Eye Samurai, and wow, it’s pretty. The animation is very simple and elegant, the story the same, but both are so beautifully executed that it’s absolutely captivating.

Playing: D&D, The Keep on the Borderlands, and going right back to our roots. I’m sure that this was the very first module I ever played, way back in the Eighties when I still at Uni. My then-boyfriend ran it, but honestly, it was so long ago that I don’t remember quite clearly.

As gateway drugs go, though, it’s still a doozy.

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