Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Inspiration in the Everyday

Sometimes, I get jealous of people who have these amazing dreams that inspired their books.  Twilight famously began with a dream.  I see it all the time on Facebook and Twitter (or so it would seem).

Some people get sparked by a dream, some by a single question around a theme.  For me, inspiration can come from the most mundane of things.

Oracles Promise started off the meaning of a name.  The name became the MC's but I crafted the entire world and story to revolve around the meaning of her name.

Lodestar started with the itch of an idea to write a paranormal story of some sort.  I researched paranormal beings and narrowed the list then a single idea hit me with regards to one of them and the entire crafted world sprang from there.

My current WiP was inspired by an element in a computer game I played the demo of.  Add in a dash of Dorian Grey and a liberal sprinkling of both Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm, with a base of Tolkien-esque milieu fantasy and you've got my current WiP.

I never know where my inspiration will come from.  Right now I've got a dystopian setting brewing in my head (no idea where it came from as it's not a genre I love but I'm willing to give it a go if I can read more in the genre) that came about from a combination of an argument with my brother over teacher salaries and things I've learned about No Child Left Behind.  I have an adventure novel that's been stewing for ages that was actually sparked from a dream, but that's unusual for me.

Most often my inspiration comes from the everyday around me.  Where do you get your inspiration from?  Do you know?  Have you thought about it?

3 comments:

  1. My inspiration comes from everywhere when I'm writing. The big idea for a book usually just jumps in my head when I'm not thinking about any thing else.

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  2. It's also fascinating to see how writers get inspiration. My newest WIP was inspired by a dream, I guess, but it's changed so radically that the original dream has practically nothing to do with the current situation. :)

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  3. I get my inspiration from so many different places. Sometimes it's because I want to write a particular story, sometimes it's because someone says "That would be a funny scene in a book." My simple idea to write a story about a boy destined to become a king has become a five book series, and the boy mentioned isn't even the main character anymore. Though my ideas can come from anywhere (including dreams) a lot of my characters come from observing people in the everyday.

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