The Origin of Story Ideas...and Write What You Know

So I wasn't planning on posting right now but the server I'm working on keeps shutting me down and consequently making me want to scream very very loudly. So since I'm unable to do any work I figure now is as good a time as any to do some blogging.

It's been brought to my attention that today's blogging topic should be on story ideas because everyone else is doing it. By everyone I mean Sarah and her friend Matt. Naturally I am required to follow suit. Plus Sarah told me to.

I am sure that everyone has read a book or watched a movie and asked "where do they come up with this stuff!" many times. That phrase can be used in a number of ways, most frequently it comes in one of three ways. Awesomeness, Suckiness and Grossoutness. I assure you that all of my ideas fall under the Awesomeness category...at least I pretend that they do.

I think that the origin of story ideas is quite synonymous with inspiration. So from where does inspiration come? I'm of the belief that regardless of the level of awesome or the level of suck the creator of the piece you are reading/watching has been inspired by something. It could be that dude walking down the street with the really cool sunglasses. Or maybe the horror film guy went to a modern art museum and liked the "sculpture" of the bathroom floor erupting with fleshy grossness. Perhaps someone was smoking pot in their basement and got a "brilliant" idea to write a screenplay about smoking pot. Regardless of the outcome is someone somewhere is being inspired by something profound or innocuous at any given moment.

So since this is my blog and I like to write about myself and my work I'll discuss what inspires me and how I come up with the majority of my own story ideas. While I don't put too much stock into the old idiom of "Write what you know" I do recognize that it some merit. I once wrote a short story about fraternal twins who had different fathers because we studied this event in one of my psychology classes and I thought it was a great idea for a story. I also wrote a short story about a group of teenage girls at a camp (like the one I went to as a teenager) playing a prank on the boys cabin (which I did). I even wrote a triptych of very short stories starting with a little boy buying a puppy, the second was the boy in high school with an adult dog and the third was the boy as a man and his poor puppy was too old to play anymore.

All of the above story ideas came from aspects of my life or information I had learned. "Write what you know" can be taken too literal. I was never a boy with a puppy but I was a little girl with a puppy and I'm obviously not a fraternal twin. However I was inspired by bits and pieces of my life and information I had soaked up and stored away. However most of my story ideas come from very vivid dreams.

I've always been a "dreamer", I dream in color and I dream whole scenes that I am not a part of. My dreams tend to be like watching movies and I'm frequently just an observer. Usually I'll wake up and remember an image or bits of dialogue but sometimes I'll remember an entire sequence of events. The origin of The Blood of Renatus came from a dream. I dreamt of a young woman stealing a bag of coins from a weary traveler. The weary traveler was looking for someone and he caught the thief, recognized her and then chased her through the city until she climbed a roof to get away. I wrote it out the next day, I think it was about 8 pages. It also does not appear anywhere in my book. Oh the weary traveler (Rafe) does get his coins stolen by the thief (Katze) but it's completely different and completely re-imagined.

What inspires you and what starts as the origin of your story does not necessarily end up being any part of the end product. The point, I think, is to be inspired at all. The point is to have a starting place, to see a character or an image and feel like there is a story behind it waiting to be told. And you're the only person who can tell it, it was your inspiration after all. Who else but me would tell Katze's story? And really, if nothing else The Blood of Renatus is Katze's story. Who else but Sarah would come up with her ideas? Who else but you can tell your own stories. Not me, not the person sitting next to you. Everyone has something inside of them, everyone has an imagination it's all about what triggers that imagination.

Also keep in mind that there are good ideas and bad ideas. This goes back to the Awesomeness, Suckiness or Grossoutness factors. However all ideas should be given weight and it's up to you to decide if you want to write it/film it/trash it or whatever. The other night I thought up an idea that I think would snuggle into the middle of Suckiness but I'll probably write at least a few chapters of it (eventually) before I make that decision. It might have some potential, you never know. Because you'll never know I think that the good, bad and gross ideas that a person has should be written down. Even if it's just an image of a girl sitting beneath an apple tree, or humans with wings unable to fly because of pollution, or bathroom tile erupting with the fires of hell-it is still worthy of taking note. You did think the idea after all, it wouldn't be fair to just ignore it.

[edit]I'd just like to note that intelligence should not be denoted on the usage of non-words. Sometimes non-words are quite fun and really should be up for dictionary nomination or however it is that words become official "words". Also I really hate the word "accountable" and I'm very aware that the above post is incredibly disjointed. FIE! [/edit]