What inspires you to write a story?

[Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors]

I was thinking about this, since NaNoWriMo is here again. I tend to write stories based on subjects/ideas that interest me. Do you have any interesting stories about how you ended up writing a particular story or novel?


I wrote my first NaNoWriMo story based on the one concept that my hero would be a bad man. From there, I ended up writing one of my favorite characters I've ever written. And I discovered that he wasn't such a bad man all along.

How about you?

[Arch , Mod]

Themes expires me to write a story. I write my stories around a theme. My first bw/wm or bf/wm story was based around the best friends turn lovers theme. Not only was the girl and boy best friends, the boy's best friend was a black guy.

I like writing theme stories.

[A.M.]

One of my first story, I got the idea when I was watching the news. A woman who went in labor, while in route to the hospital, she knows she not going to make it so she stops at a fire station and a firemen ends up delivering her baby.

My love of music and jazz in particular also inspires me and helps my muse bring my stories to life.

[Roslyn]

I can be inspired by nearly anything. A lot of my stories are inspired by music; Let's Do It Again was inspired by Mellencamp's Jack & Diane. I wondered what happened to that couple after high school. Pussycat Death Squad was inspired by a photo I saw about Quadaffi's all female personal guard. I thought, "What would happen if I threw in a hot Marine?" Rock Star came about through my passionate obsession with the band, Alice in Chains. When the lead singer, Layne Staley died I started working on the story. My husband says it's a love story to Layne. Santa Baby's inspiration is obvious. Try a Little Tenderness came from my fascination with viruses and strippers.

[Delaney]

So many things inspire me to write stories. It could be a novel I read, a movie I watched, or something that happened in real life.

I got the idea for a tabloid scandal in Fight for Love because around that time, there were celeb scandals in the news where men had cheated on their wives (Tiger Woods, Jesse & Sandra Bullock). I thought to myself, what if they didn't really cheat? And what if they wanted to work things out but because their business was blasted all over the news and it was so embarrassing, it made it hard to do? The story took off from there, and I threw in a secret baby theme.

Worth Waiting For is a sweet romance I wrote last year but couldn't find a home for. I'm not sure where the idea came from except I wanted to write a story where the heroine was wealthy instead of the hero. After I wrote it, I read an article about the changing dating scene where more professional women are dating blue collar men. I saved the article to share on my blog for when the book was released.

[Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors]

It's really neat to hear how everyone came up with story ideas. Thanks for sharing.

I often watch movies and get ideas based on those. I am not afraid to admit I wrote one of my stories based on an idea in the movie "Snow Dogs." I really liked the story I wrote, and it's actually quite different, but I am glad that this movie inspired me in the first place.

[Arch , Mod]

Music, movies, TV shows and commercials are inspirations as well. They lead to themes for me. They can also trigger a scene.

[Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors]

Absolutely. Music definitely gets me inspired as I write.

[Arch , Mod]

Off Topic: It's like bald men are popping up out of the blue, since I have started writing about my bald hero - Cop.

I watch this show called Flashpoint and one of the men is bald.

[Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors]

You do become more perceptive to things after/while writing about something. Everything seems to feed my Russian obsession, but that's alright with me. :)

[Delaney]

That's a good point about triggering scenes. Sometimes it's not even a whole story, but a scene idea can come from something I see or read.

[Arch , Mod]

Delaney wrote: "That's a good point about triggering scenes. Sometimes it's not even a whole story, but a scene idea can come from something I see or read."

I like when this happens, because I do like 98% of my writing in my head.

[Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors]

I admit that scenes mainly come to mind when I write. I wish I was more of a planner and plotter on paper, but it just doesn't seem to be my writing style at all.

[Delaney]

How do you do that, Arch? You must have a photographic memory or something. If I don't write down my ideas--for example, descriptions or dialogue, I'll lose them. I usually have a notebook with me in case I get inspired while I'm out and about.

Another weird thing is that I get ideas when I first wake up in the morning. LOL. I have no idea why. Sometimes an entire scene will come to me, so then I have to grab my notebook and scribble as quickly as I can.

I'm not a plotter, either, Danielle. I keep trying to turn myself into one, because I think it would be better, but my stories don't really gain momentum until I start writing.

I know who the characters are, their conflict, and from my notes I have ideas of what I'll have them do, etc. But it's as if the characters and emotions start to come alive after I start writing. As if once I start, I really get to know their personalities and can dig into the story.

[Roslyn]

Ideas always come to me in the shower. I keep threatening to hang a white board up in there! When I'm really stuck and don't know where to go in a story I take a long shower. It shakes things loose almost every time.

[Arch , Mod]

Delaney wrote: "How do you do that, Arch? You must have a photographic memory or something. If I don't write down my ideas--for example, descriptions or dialogue, I'll lose them. I usually have a notebook with me ..."

Delaney, it's something I have always done. I have scenes in my head right now that I need to write.

I usually know how my story is going to end, before I begin writing.

[Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors]

I'm very similar, Delaney. Outlines are just too static for me. Plus, my issue is not the major aspects or scenes. My hardest time writing is the in-betweens, getting from one scene to another.

I don't write mystery because I think that requires a degree of advanced plotting I don't possess. However, I think I need to work on that since I want to write detective urban fantasy.

I make up songs when I'm in the shower and I do have scenes in my brain in various moments throughout the day, including when I'm getting ready sometimes (if I'm awake, which might not be the case).

[Dahlia]

As I think back about it, I was inspired by my friend's cat, believe it or not.

I was visiting, we were chatting, when her Maine coon cat came into room and jumped up on the couch next to me, looked at me and said "meow".

I wondered, "she's talking to me like she expects me to answer."

And it all blossomed from there. Interesting how these things happen. The next story I'm working on was inspired by an Irish spring commercial.....

D

[Arch , Mod]

I haven't seen an Irish spring commercial in a long time.

[Fiona]

I have dreams often with entire plots in them. Sometimes I just get a couple of scenes, but other times I wake up with the whole story arc there. Then I spend time fleshing out the characters and their motivations and back-stories. I think my brain just tries to entertain me when I'm sleeping because I'm so darned busy when I'm awake! Now I just need to clear some time so I can write!

[Chaeya]

I love writing fantasy - not the typical high fantasy with medieval settings - but creating alternative universes, other planets and so on. I enjoy world-building, so my series that I'm working has allowed me to weave my love of science, fantasy and to add in all the social and cultural issues that interest me. I'm like Arch, I do a lot of writing in my head, especially when I first wake up. Sometimes I have to scribble down notes so I won't forget topics of dialogue that come to me. I've worked out plenty of plot problems that I wasn't able to do during the day, early, when I'm in between sleep and awake. My characters are very active then. I guess that's why the book's taken me so long, I don't really want to let go of the characters because I've grown so close to them.

[Tara]

This time it was a dream. I had the wildest dream last night. I woke up at two in the morning and outlined the whole thing. It is pretty unconventional (heck...like I ever am) but will fit in nicely with my Alphas and Omegas series. Afraid this one is not interracial though. But others in the series is.

[Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors]

My sister has very vivid, cinematic dreams. I always tell her she should write them as stories. She's a very good, although not prolific writer. Much better than I am.

I don't have very interesting (story-worthy) dreams, alas.