Where do Ideas come from?

Well, when the mommy idea and daddy idea really love one another. . . .Wait, it ain't that easy. Ideas for writing come from a diverse plan of existence. Truthfully, I don't know where most of my ideas for fiction stories come from. I was always an imaginative kid. Always living in my own little world. Something that drives math teachers nuts. A lot is just the way I think. Gary Larson, the great creator of "The Far Side" once said: "It isn't that I couldn't do a strip like "Blondie," but in my version Daisy would bit Dagwood, he'd get rabies, and go attack Mister Dithers." Stephen King said something similar in his book, "On Writing." People often ask him why he writes horror. His response is to ask what makes them think that he can write anything else.

Most stories are organic. They come from how you think and where your interests lie. Sharon Kay Pennman writes historical fiction, because Medieval Europe fascinates her. Ann Rice writes vampire stories, because the idea of an afterlife bothered her after she lost a daughter.

Ideas can be rather lame at first. If you love British history, and want to write a story about King Henry III and his son Edward I, you might find it pretty dry. Then you could do a little more research, and find that Henry had a antagonist in his brother-in-law Simon de Montfort, who wanted to extend the Runnymede Charter and planted the seed for democracy, by capturing the king and holding him hostage while he ran the country and forced these new laws on the other barons. Prince Edward stood against his uncle, killed him in battle, and put his head on a pike on the battlefield as a warning to those who would stand against the king. Edward I would become known as Longshanks, and would be immortalized in the film Braveheart. Cultivating the idea, giving it time to grow is important.

I don't do a lot of outlining, I find it too confining, but I do mull a story idea over for a few days before I start to work on it. By the time I start on a story, I have a pretty good idea where it's going. There are a few times that it will surprise me however, and I actually like that, as it means the story and the people in it are taking on lives of their own.

I have had ideas for stories come from unusual places. Once when cleaning the attic of our old house, I came across a suitcase, a pillow, a child's red jacket, a dolly and a newspaper from 1947. I put all that together and came up with a pretty good horror story about a little girl, Martha May, who was killed in an accident by her drunken father. Dark area of my mind to explore, as I have my own little girl, but it made for a good story.

Right now, I'm working on a series of zombie stories, and the first one has been published on the web at Tales of the Zombie Wars: www.talesofworldwarz.com/stories/ I've been on that kick lately, and don't know why, but the series has developed into a character study, in a horror setting. More about how people survive and continue with life rather than just blood and guts. The first story I wrote in this line, actually didn't get published, but will end up as part of the back story, and elements of it will be included in the series. That story itself was inspired by the Rhianna, Disturbia video. So, one little clip of less than five minutes has thus far inspired eight stories an roughly thirty thousand words.

Always be open to ideas. Some keep a dream journal, some people are just dreamers, some base their stories on fact. I've done a little of everything along that line. Just because an idea seems too limited, doesn't mean it can't or won't grow. You have to give it the room to do that.