Writing is a socially acceptable form of getting naked in public.
-Paulo Coelho
Where Do My Story Ideas Come From?
Writing | No CommentsI’ve read that a lot of authors get asked this question. I personally have so many ideas that it will take me a while to get through them. My challenge isn’t so much the big picture idea as it is some of the plot details (in other words, I get fuzzy around the middle of the story sometimes). I know how my story starts and ends, but the path from A to Z isn’t always clear. The other challenge usually revolves around technical knowledge. An easy example would be if I have a crime, how does it get handled?
As goofy or as obvious as it may sound, most of my stories come from dreams. Literally. Not daydreams, but the stuff that goes on when I’m asleep. I’ll wake up from a dream with an idea for a story, often knowing who my characters are and what they are about. Sometimes I can pretty well have the whole story figured out, and sometimes it’s not so clear or easy. Sometimes, it’s more like a good short story, but not enough substance for a full length book. 
I’ve had instances of wanting to immediately grab the laptop and write stuff down, while other times it has taken me a couple of days to mull it over in my head. The mulling over usually involves whether there’s enough there to even bother writing it down, or if I should just be entertaining myself with it. Which I often do. I don’t think there’s many days that go by that I’m not working on a story in my head. It’s just a matter of whether or not what’s in my head sees print. Of course, I always have my best scene, dialogue, or plot twist ideas when I’m nowhere near a point where I can write it down. I’m sure my best stuff will always be lost from memory.
Actually, I suppose my really good stuff is lost in dreams. Sometimes I can’t remember everything when I wake up. There are also those dreams that have nothing to do with romance and would be better suited to a horror book or science fiction. I have dreams where I wake up thinking I don’t even know how to explain that, but if I could have a video recorder inside my brain getting all that down, boy, that would make a heck of a blockbuster movie. I could make a fortune off some of my dreams, but the only ones I can really retain and think through to a full story seem to be the romances and not the Spielberg stuff. 
If it’s made me wake up crying or jumping out of bed in fear, I’m not sure I want to really remember it anyways. I’m the girl that refuses to watch horror movies, so I don’t imagine me writing a horror novel. I guess if I ever did a horror, it would be about spiders since I used to have a recurring spider dream that my husband still tells people about. I guess I’ll have to share some of my whacked out dreams with my blog readers. I can’t let all that good material go to waste just because it doesn’t make sense for a book.
Other than my dreams, a few of my ideas have come from watching movies or TV shows, but those usually being more like fan fiction, and I write the story in my head and keep it to myself. It’s not true fan fiction though, because I insert myself in as a female character that didn’t exist in the movie or show usually. A handful of my stories that I’m actually writing for future print are inspired by movies, but they aren’t rewrites or anything that resembles plagiarism (hopefully!). Heck, there are those who do get away with rewriting other’s work, but I like my own ideas.
For me, it’s almost like I don’t even have story ideas if I didn’t dream them. It seems near impossible to just sit down and think ‘what will I write a story about’ and something just pop in. As though purposely thinking about it makes the ideas not come. Kudos to all those that can plot and write an entire novel that didn’t involve a dream, their life, someone else’s work, a news event, or drugs or alcohol. I hear that drugs and alcohol produce some really great story ideas, but I feel like I have enough dreams that I don’t need to resort to either of those. If I ever become an alcoholic or drug head, you’ll know I ran out of dreams.