When browsing the archives of TKZ, I sometimes find two or three blogs on the same or complimentary subjects. Today we have three articles on story ideas and character creation. The link at the end of each section will take you to the entire post, which I encourage you to read.
Please feel free to comment on other reader’s comments and strike up a conversation.
One of the questions writers hear often is where do we get our ideas. Depending on the situation, my standard answer is that I subscribe to the Great Idea of The Month Club. And when someone asks how they can join, I have to tell them that members are sworn to secrecy and forbidden to divulge that information.
If I’m pressed for an answer, I say that I can give some sources away, but only if they don’t tell where they got them. If they want to write murder mysteries, for instance, I aim them toward THE MURDER BOOK 2008, a blog by Paul LaRosa that records all the murders in New York City during 2008. There’s enough material there to keep a writer going for years.
But in reality, our ideas can come from almost any source at any time. Writers’ minds are in-tune with their surroundings ready to see the telltale signs of that little spark that could be used in a story or even become the basis of a whole book. – Joe Moore, 8-27-08
Often, when I speak to book-loving groups, I tell the Klansman-in-the-store story to illustrate why I write thrillers. As an author I am always trying to make my readers feel some of what I felt when real villains crossed my path, and I realized that they could do me serious harm. And I also realized at some point that my father wouldn’t always be there to make the world safe again. I have met more villains than I can count, and I do my best to protect myself and those I love from bad things and evil people to the best of my ability. Some evil is obvious, but most of the time it lies just beneath an innocuous and seemingly harmless surface. And sometimes the most dangerous things come to us with open arms and a smile. But seeing evil first hand allows me to write about threat and fear. Evil isn’t usually all that well defined, and it certainly is not simple. Villains should be complex, and human, and understanding them well enough to adequately portray them (in words) remains the ultimate challenge for writers. – Joe Moore, 8-23-08
John Mortimer, creator of Rumpole, wrote that “most of the interest and part of the terror of great crime are not due to what is abnormal, but to what is normal in it; what we have in common with the criminal rather than the subtle insanity which differentiates him from us.” I couldn’t agree more – for me, it is the commonality rather than the abnormality that makes a villain truly villainous.
Take Doctor Crippen – an unremarkable man in real life, the least likely man perhaps to have poisoned and dismembered his wife or to have been pursued across the Atlantic with a young mistress in tow disguised as a boy. Part of the fascination with this case is the sheer ordinariness of the supposed murderer – and now, with DNA evidence casting doubt on whether the woman whose body was found was that of Doctor Crippen’s wife, Cora, the mystery of what actually happened may never be solved.
In fiction of course, some of the most fantastical crimes that occur in real life can never be used simply because readers would never believe them. Take for example the man who murdered his wife over an affair that happened 40 years before and then left her body as a gift beneath the Christmas tree. Writers have to walk a fine line with villains too, making them both believable as well as intriguing. Are they merely the flip side of the protagonist? Are they an ordinary person pushed to the brink? Or does some deep psychological wound create the monster within? – Clare Langley-Hawthorne, 8-18-08
What is your favorite place to find story ideas?
How do you approach character creation?
What are your thoughts on the subject?
What is the craziest story you have ever heard about how an author got an idea for a character?
Good morning, Steve. Thank you for this morning’s curation. It is a wonderful way to start the day.
For inspiration, I follow Yogi Berra’s advice and observe a lot by watching. That merges into one of your follow-up questions. The craziest story I’ve heard concerns the horror novella “Sour Candy” by Kealan Patrick Burke, which was inspired by a trip to the supermarket and the meltdown he witnessed therein.
Have a great weekend, Steve, and stay dry!
Good morning, Joe. Reviewing the wisdom of the past is always a good way to start the day.
“You can observe a lot just by watching.” Great advice. And I would add, you can learn a lot by just listening. A good reason why we writers have license to eaves drop.
You’ve piqued my interest with “Sour Candy.” I’ll have to check that out.
Have a great weekend, and stay out of the rain!
Just training your mind to ask “What if?” all the time will give you more ideas than you can shake a keyboard at.
Thomas Harris based his serial killer Buffalo Bill on six, count ’em six, real life killers, one of them being Ed Gein (aka Norman Bates in Psycho). Yeesh. Not sure I’d want to go down that particular research rabbit hole!
Great advice, Jim. Just don’t tell your spouse all the crazy ideas you’ve come up with, or your spouse will be the one shaking the stick. (or making an appointment for you with the psychiatrist)
Yeah, six research holes would be enough to make me want to take a shower. A sure-fire way to have nightmares.
“Just don’t tell your spouse all the crazy ideas you’ve come up with, or your spouse will be the one shaking the stick. (or making an appointment for you with the psychiatrist)”
– or calling the police…
Good one, George.
Another reason why we writers should become buddies with the police.
I live in those rabbit holes. LOL
And you remain so normal…and sweet, Sue…or do you?
Just kidding! Do you have any intentional methods you use to partition the research from the rest of your life?
Not while digging in the research rabbit hole, but after a deep-dive into madness, I flick on a wildlife documentary (Sir David Attenborough are my favorite) and all the evil melts away. Good medicine for the soul. 🙂
Sounds good, Sue. Wildlife documentary. I like a walk in the woods. The beauty and wonder of nature. Thanks!
I have an idea tree in my yard. Sometimes the fruit isn’t ripe yet; sometimes it gets overripe. Some ideas fall off the tree. The squirrels get others. But eventually, there’s enough fruit to start on a book.
Or, more realistically, I start with a ‘what if’ and see where it leads. Ideas often show up when you’re looking for something else. I’m not looking for evil. I don’t write those books, and I don’t read many of them. I prefer people trying to do their jobs and getting caught up in situations they didn’t expect–and didn’t want.
I love trees, Terry. Any tips where I can buy one of those Idea Trees? Or could you send me some seeds? Wouldn’t that be a great side hustle for a writer? Or…a villain who markets them?
“Ideas often show up when you’re looking for something else.” Or when you’re having a normal conversation with a normal person, and you can’t help but share your new idea, and your normal friend then knows for sure that you’re not normal.
Thanks for your ideas, Terry. And when you start marketing those Idea Trees, let me know.
Steve, thanks for bringing those excellent posts from 2008 to our attention. That was before I knew about TKZ so hadn’t read these. Wonderful observations.
Ideas usually come to me from a real-life experience someone tells me, either about themselves or someone they know. I feel a physical reaction–shiver up my neck, a light bulb going off in my head. That’s my subconscious yelling, “Pay attention! Great story idea!”
Listening to people is a bottomless well.
Thanks, Debbie. I’m enjoying the searching through the archives, because that’s before I started following this blog, too.
Which reminds me that August 2008 was the month the blog started – 14 years old next month. We should have some kind of celebration. The floor is open for suggestions.
I like your “electric” reaction to feeling a new story idea. If you discover a way to “record” that burst of idea data, let us know. I think in analogies, and ideas are hitting me all the time, but I usually forget them quickly. I guess I should carry a notebook.
Hope you have a weekend full of ideas.
And then there was the lovable Harlan Ellison, who, when someone in an audience asked where he got his story ideas, would reply, “Schenectady.” When pressed for details, he would add that he paid $25 a week for a six-pack of fresh ideas from a writers’ inspiration service in Schenectady. Sadly, some would approach him after a presentation asking for the address of the service.
Great story, Mike. With his personality, I’m surprised Ellison didn’t give an actual address to those who asked. I wonder if any writer has ever actually tried to market such an idea. Maybe TKZ could provide such a service. Wouldn’t it be fun to record and send in our wackiest ideas to TKZ, where they would be bundled into a six-pack, then sent to those who subscribed to our “idea service?”
You mean there isn’t a subscription service in Schenectady (I think Heinlein said this one time) where he gets his ideas from? And all this time I’ve been sending money to Schenectady?
What if a guy goes there to find Heinlein’s idea store and it actually exists?
And off we go.
To be honest ideas come from experience, things we’ve seen or heard about or read about or people we’ve met. I think ideas are like fireflies-you have to reach out and catch them or they’re gone.
Names are different. Sometimes I get them out of the phone book. Like ideas, they sometimes emerge from the subconscious.
Edwin Silberstang talks about how he started his first novel in his “The Fiction Writer’s Guidebook”. He sat at his typewriter that had sat unused in the hall closet for years and began.
He wrote “Benny Katz stepped into his apartment and shut the door wearily. His wife, lying on the couch, smiled at him. Such a pale smile, he thought, she’s so pale.”
Then, Silberstang wondered, “Where had this come from? Who was Benny Katz? It was all a mystery to me. But I kept typing.I typed on and on.”
The result was his first novel “Rapt in Glory”. a nifty crime novel set in 1950s New York.
I’ll close with a plug for the TKZ Library. Kind of like an MFA in a can.
What if you could get an MFA in a can, chug it down and you’re Vonnegut? Maybe it comes from Schenectady too.
Robert, it sounds like your brain is brimming with ideas. I like your analogy about ideas and fireflies. That reaching out and capturing them is what I need to work on. Good point about names. I put in some time and research to find the perfect name for the character I’ve created.
And I’m with you on the TKZ library. The library is the text book. Participating in the blog is the attendance at the lectures. You get an A+.
Love “MFA in a can”, Robert!
Another wonderful dive into the TKZ archives, Steve. When I was in college and struggling to come up with stories, I spent a summer on ideation, but I missed a crucial element–story conflict intrinsic to the idea. “What-if” is a very useful question to ask, but I need to figure out where the conflict is.
My “path of fiction writing craft” studies trained both “me” and my subconscious, and now, after all these years, I finally appreciate how we work in tandem. I often imagine the subconscious standing behind soundproof glass, gesturing at me to understand an idea, character or plot twist it created, but I’m too dim at first to figure it out. It can take some time to “grok” what my subconscious has given me.
For me, characters show up, like patrons walking through the door into the library, or people at a party, and then I get to know them. Sometimes well, sometimes only on the surface. (Which usually means I need to dig deeper).
Have a wonderful weekend!
Thanks, Dale. I look forward to reading what you dig up in the archives on 8/13, while I’m recovering from cataract surgery. I’m confident you will make us put on our thinking caps.
I like your ideas on the “me” and the subconscious for story ideas. I see what you mean. I get those ideas from the subconscious all the time. I drive my wife crazy when I change the conversation to work out the details of the message from the subconscious.
Your point about characters is a good one. Those of us who had the privilege of working with and meeting many different people in our previous occupations have an advantage of a wealth of examples for potential characters. I never cease to be amazed at the spectrum of “normal.”
I hope your weekend is filled with many new ideas from the subconscious.
The only killer I ever saw in real life was the medical examiner in Panama City, FL. He was convicted of killing his first wife. I had a bad feeling about him. I wasn’t surprised.
Thanks for sharing your observations, Cynthia. I wonder if there is a difference in our reactions between seeing a real person who later turns out to be a killer vs. seeing a killer in a movie or reading a book. I once met a young man who later was a killer. The only impression he made on me when I first met him was his dishonesty.
Hope you have a weekend free of shady characters.
My favorite answer from an author is the Dollar Store. Ten ideas for a dollar. Most of my ideas come from dreams, or the premise will jump up and bite my nose, and I go from there.
Some time back, I taught a course about how to find a premise and move from there to construct the entire novel. Worksheets included. I’m currently posting it on my blog. Click on my name here and scroll back on my blog to “Part One” of “The Big Question.”
Good one, Marilynn. The Dollar Store. With inflation, isn’t the price up to $1.25? Still hard to compete with that.
Dreams is a great suggestion. Do you keep a notepad by your bed to record ideas during the night or in the morning? I need to restart that.
Thanks for the link to your blog on “The Big Question.” I’ll check it out. Four parts? Will there be more in the future?
Have a good weekend.
“The Big Question” will continue for the next few months. I only post once a week, and the course is completely written, so I may ask my readers if they’d prefer I start posting 5 times a week.
If the dream is powerful enough for me to remember when I wake up and I’m thinking “what if” at that point, I don’t need a dream journal.
I’m looking forward to reading The Big Question installments. I’d vote for once a week.
My ideas come through association from all kind of places: a song I hear, an article of research, a piece of news, a story – read, heard from somebody now or remembered after n years, seen in a movie – then thwarted with what if.
Characters come by asking what kind of person would be the best to make the story happen, then further refined on the same bases – association of ideas with songs, people, (movie characters included), stories…
Thanks for participating today, Marina. You sound very creative, with ideas coming from “all kinds of places.” That is wonderful. And characters that “come by” asking to audition. I envy your creative receptivity to all the stimuli around you.
Did you have to develop that openness to all the stimuli? Or did that come naturally for you?
I hope you will visit us again. Have a wonderful day.
Steve – thanks for including my take on ideas and villains! I have lots of idea notebooks where some of my more half-baked ones lurk and ferment. As for real life – well anyone who watched the Tiger Ling definitely knows truth is stranger than fiction!!!
Tiger King! Perils of trying to comment on an iPhone…
Thanks for stopping by, Clare. Your article was very interesting. I wonder if “real artists” (canvas and oils or acrylics) bring their ideas for writing stories in a different way – particularly setting and what their characters look like – a more detailed or specific look vs. a nebulous idea.
Thanks again for your post from 2008, and for stopping by today!
Great deep-dive into the brains of this outfit, Steve. Enjoyed.
Here’s my Saturday-not-enough-coffee-yet idea:
Watch the *news* (if you dare…)
Ask the “What if?” question during every clip, video, story, statement, etc.
You’ll come up with some craziness for characters and plots; then you’ll find out they’re really a thing.
Sorry, not sorry . . . 🙂
Thanks, Deb. You have a good idea, but I’m thinking I’m getting too much of the news already. I should probably turn the burner down to a low simmer vs. a rumbling boil. When I start thinking about the news and ideas, thoughts of the French Revolution (I better not say more) start creeping in. Maybe I should watch Xanax commercials.
I’m glad you can use current events for your ideas. I will agree that there is a plethora of unbelievable characters. I won’t make suggestions as to how to use them.
Good thing you write about people and relationships. We need more of that.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Favorite place to find story ideas:
To me, generating ideas is one of the easiest tasks for writers. Way more ideas than time to write them. You find them while doing research, listening to the news, reading articles, or sometimes a story question just pops into your mind during the day. Even a phone conversation with a friend can randomly generate ideas. The biggest problem in idea generation is the time to execute on them. 😎
How do you approach character creation?
I’m still developing an approach when it comes to creating characters. Sure, I always work to create well-rounded characters. This post mentions good convincing villains—I’ve got a manuscript shoved in a drawer for a while as I ponder a critiquer’s feedback that the villain is too one dimensional. I concur that my villain needs work. I think fixing it will be easier once I put some distance between myself and the story for a while.
It’s not a ‘craziest’ story but sometimes idea sources can hit you hard. In the last several years there was a story about a person who was randomly shooting horses in the area where I live. I don’t remember whether the person was caught and got the jail time they deserved, but that is one piece of justice I’d like to administer by fiction. The main problem with that story is it still makes me so angry I would definitely have a problem creating a 3D villain in this case because I am severely biased and only the word ‘slime’ comes to mind when I think of someone like that. Will have to wait and write that one when I cool off—which may be never.
Thanks for your thoughts, BK. I agree with too many ideas and not enough time to execute them. I hope you are able to get that character out of the drawer and add some dimension. You’ll find a way. I recently wrote a novella as a prequel to a fantasy adventure series. I did a character oriented story with the MC. That certainly helped me add dimension to the character.
And as for the crazy horse shooter, I immediately pictured a final scene where a herd of wild horses has the shooter trapped in a box canyon, and appropriate justice is administered.
Good luck with your ideas.
Oh! I really like that idea of doing a short story or novella to put my dimension-needing character through his paces and develop him more. And that would take the pressure off of me of being able to write a story with that character without having to deal with the full story context of the novel — just one little piece of it. I’m going to put that on my task list. Thanks for the suggestion!
My pleasure. Let us know when your short story/novella is done. I’d like to read it.
Love the answers to where ideas come from…even though this is the most often asked question I get, I usually try to answer the question because the questioner is so serious about it.
For some reason, I don’t have a bunch of ideas for stories, but when I need an idea, it always comes. And they first come as an impression, like the one for the novella I’m writing. I wasn’t at a place where I could write, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t thinking about the story, and one morning when I woke, I had the image of a woman being chased on the beach. I started asking why? Why was someone chasing her? And it went from there.
Thanks for stopping in, Patricia. I agree with you about giving readers, who are asking serious questions, serious answers. We all were clueless at one point.
Your supply of story ideas is apparently enough. “Ask and ye shall receive..” or “Necessity is the mother of invention..” We only need one idea at a time.
Thanks for adding your thoughts. Always appreciated. Have a wonderful weekend!
Most of my story ideas come from reading, watching, or listening (eavesdropping). I’ll observe something that tweaks one of my brain cells which ricochets off another, and pretty soon I’m in business.
If I’m stuck in the middle of a story with a character that isn’t working out or the plot is stalled, I talk to my main editor (my husband). Just the act of talking about it creates new ideas.
Thanks, Kay, for your thoughts on story ideas and characters. I like your sources: reading, watching, and listening. When you boil it down to the real source, that’s where almost all ideas come from.
I like your “main editor” discussion. I probably don’t discuss story ideas so much with my “main editor,” but almost every other problem is more easily solved when we discuss it. And it seems the act of verbalizing the problem often “turns on a light” and reveals a solution I didn’t see before.
Have a wonderful weekend!