Huston Piner
Inspiration is the great mystery; if I knew how to conjure it at will I'd go into business marketing it.
That said, one thing that works for me -- which Stephen King mentions he uses in his excellent book "On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft" -- is to think up a situation. That inevitably presents one or more characters from which a story can develop, and from which a basic loose concept of a plot line may begin to form. What must be said, however, is that you've got to be open the Muses and allow for those radical left turns you had not anticipated (cf Raymond in "My Life as a Myth"). It is moments like that which can make a story glow.
That said, one thing that works for me -- which Stephen King mentions he uses in his excellent book "On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft" -- is to think up a situation. That inevitably presents one or more characters from which a story can develop, and from which a basic loose concept of a plot line may begin to form. What must be said, however, is that you've got to be open the Muses and allow for those radical left turns you had not anticipated (cf Raymond in "My Life as a Myth"). It is moments like that which can make a story glow.
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