Where do your ideas come from?

www.ideas’r_us.com.

Just kidding. Ah, that question. The one that every writer gets at some point. It’s a very logical question for a reader to ask, but a difficult and often puzzling one for writers to answer, because, I think, readers and writers come at that question from very different perspectives. A reader sees a writer, and thinks “that person’s a writer. Therefore, they need ideas to write about. I wonder where they get those ideas.” This makes perfect sense, except that the experience for writers is exactly the reverse of that sequence.

Asking a writer where they get their ideas is like asking a beleaguered doctor in an under-staffed emergency room where she gets her patients. And you’ll get a similar response from both: I don’t know and I don’t care. I just try to fix them up as best I can and send them out into the world. But I do wish that whoever is sending them to me would slow down a bit.

Most writers are writers precisely because we are constantly getting ideas. And a lot of us would be quite happy to have fewer of them cluttering up our mental waiting rooms, thank you very much, because the only way to get those ideas out of our heads is to write them down into stories. Until we do that, they exist as nattering voices reminding us that they are waiting to be born onto the page.

Let me give one example: my story “The Red Bird” (which appeared in On Spec #45) is an epic fantasy that combines martial arts, a lonely beach, and a very singular bird into a fable set in what might or might not be late 14th century Japan. So where did I get the idea for the story? I’m not sure, but I can explain the events that led up to the idea arriving.

As a child, I spent many summers with my family at a rented cottage on Georgian Bay, just north of Wasaga Beach. My favourite memories are of early mornings, windy and overcast, walking on the wide sandy beach, alone except for the crashing of waves and the cries of the gulls. Many years later, I began studying karate with my oldest son. One summer, our club held a weekend camp at Georgian Bay. Much to my surprise, the location they chose was the same collection of cottages from my childhood summers, and I spent the weekend practising and sparring on that same beach. At the end of the weekend, I walked that beach again, remembering those mornings of long ago. Somewhere in that stroll, the story was born, initially no more than a strong image of a strange bird with burning plumage and god-like powers of life and death. I don’t know from where that image came, but just being in that physical environment with all its past and recent memories stimulated the creative process for me, and influenced many of the elements that appear in the story.

I give a much longer answer to the question of “where do you get your ideas?” here: http://www.smithwriter.com/readers_writers_and_that_question

What are the points of genesis for a story?

Sometimes it’s an unusual image, such as that strange red bird. Or a giant arch built from encased corpses (“Enlightenment”) or a house as big as the world (“Going Harvey in the Big House”). Sometimes it’s an opening line or a title, such as “By her hand, she draws you down” or “The universe ended at noon. Again.” (“The Walker of the Shifting Borderland”). Other times it will be an idea or situation, such as a drug that turns all emotions, even pain and sorrow, into joy (“Scream Angel”). I have also written several stories (and plan to write more) that were inspired by a line or situation in a Bruce Springsteen song (“Going Down to Lucky Town” and “Radio Nowhere”).

Finally, it can be a character who shows up, and you know you need to figure out their story, how they came to be where they are, and where they will go from there. That’s how the Dream Rider series started, with the idea of this young man who has the strange ability to enter our Dreams and go anywhere in that world, but in real life, his acute agoraphobia means he can never even leave home.

And not all ideas that show up are good ones, so a writer must perform some sort of triage on the ideas sitting in their mental waiting room, to reuse my earlier analogy. I have to decide which ones need to be pulled into O/R now and written before they drive me crazy (crazier?); which ones need more time to diagnose and should be kept waiting; and which ones are the malingerers—ideas so incredibly stupid that I’ll try to ignore them and hope that they go away and stop bothering me until I see someone else resurrect them in a movie.

Once I’ve decided to develop an idea into a story, for me, I need to know my characters. I can’t tell any story unless I can tell it as a character’s journey. If I don’t understand my characters, who they are, what drives them, what they want, then I can’t tell the story. For me, everything in a story is character. Plot turns must be based on character decisions. Even setting is character, since what the reader learns about the story’s setting must be through the senses of the story’s point-of-view characters, so what that character notices and cares about in the setting is what the reader experiences as well.

I’ll give one detailed example of the genesis of a story, which also illustrates something else that I’ve discovered—that a single idea is often not enough. A story is stronger if it combines multiple, often seemingly disparate ideas.

Early in my novelette, “Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase, by Van Gogh,” the main character Maroch reads a plaque beside the painting of the story title:

“This still life is not mentioned in van Gogh’s letters and has puzzled scholars as to its place in his artistic production. Most certainly a late work and possibly the Museum’s first painting from his Auvers period (May-July1890).”

That is taken from the actual plaque in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City for the actual painting, “Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase” by van Gogh.

Art is a passion of mine (as a viewer, not a creator). When I travel, I try to visit the local art museums in that city, with a special interest in European art from the mid-1800’s through the surrealists. But my favorite artist has long been Vincent. I’ve seen (I think) every publicly viewable painting of his in every museum in every city I’ve ever visited. I’ve read his letters with his brother, Theo, and ever so many biographies.

I’d always wanted to write a story about Vincent. I’d tried to write that story many years ago, a story about a woman in our time in love with Vincent who (somehow) managed to meet him. The “somehow’s” that I tried didn’t work for me, so that story stayed in my head as one of those annoying little voices tickling me every now and then to remind me that it was still waiting to be born, until I found myself in front of “Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase” in the MMoA.

I’d never seen the painting before, which was cool enough, but when I read the plaque, I knew that I had to use this somehow in my Vincent story. Van Gogh is one of the most researched artists of all time, and because of his extensive letter correspondence with his beloved brother, Theo, we have a running commentary of his entire artistic career, including what paintings he was working on at any time. For a painting to be unmentioned and undated was a wonderful mystery.

But I still didn’t have my time travel “somehow.” Then one evening, a writer friend was discussing remote viewing and how it had been used in the field of one of her own passions, archeology, to search for the lost tomb of Alexander the Great.

Somewhere in that conversation, the penny dropped, and I knew I had my “somehow” to link my heroine in modern time to Vincent in the past. I did some research on remote viewing, from which came another part of my story: my main character, a former CIA operative. I added some tragedy in his past and a search for lost paintings, and the story (finally) started to take shape.

So sometimes a story idea has a very long stay in the waiting room.

You really get into your character’s minds, both human and non-human characters.

I don’t really differentiate between the human and non-human characters. Writing a story for me means understanding my characters and telling the story via their journeys through it. An alien may be completely different from us in physiology, intelligence, culture, spiritual beliefs, and moral code, but all sentient creatures will be motivated by something, both as a race and as individuals. It’s just a matter of understanding what is important to a character.

And when I say understanding a character, I don’t mean completing one of those “character sheets” that often get foisted on beginning writers. I couldn’t care less what my character’s favourite colour is or what they like for breakfast. If those details are needed in a story, fine, I’ll figure them out when I need to.

But that isn’t understanding a character. Understanding a character means knowing what makes them tick. What gets them out of bed each morning? Or why do they dread getting out of bed? What are their passions? Or maybe they don’t have any. What do they truly fear more than anything? What do they want more than anything? What was their trauma? What are their scars? What is their pain? What would they die for? What would they kill for? And most important for any story, what are they are missing in their lives right now that will drive all their decisions in their story?

Planner or Pantser?

I’m a “headlights on the highway” writer. I take that term from the writer, E. L. Doctorow, who once compared writing a novel to driving across the desert at night. He said you can only see as much of the road ahead as your headlights illuminate, but you can drive across the entire desert that way.

That describes my approach. I think of it as a compromise between outlining and pantsing.

I’m a character-based writer, so I can’t / don’t start until I know my main characters. I know where I want a book to end up at the climax—the city at the end of the desert road. And I generally know the main signposts and turns along the way—the big twists, events, or surprises that happen, generally at the end of Act 1, 2, and before the climax.

Then I just start writing, usually with the next 2-4 chapters outlined roughly either in the manuscript or in my head. If I’m happy with where those chapters go, I move on to the next batch. If I’m not, I fix / change / redo that batch.

I know my highway will get me to my destination, even if I’ve never driven it before. I don’t know all the twists, turns, crossroads, etc. I’ll encounter. But I can see enough of the highway ahead to keep driving.

It’s an approach that lets me make discoveries along the way, but still keep control of the overall direction of the book. Most of the cool things that show up in my stories come from this approach. Morrigan, the witch in the Dream Rider trilogy, appeared in this way. I was writing a scene where our heroes were encountering a pair of the villains I’d introduced earlier, and I felt the scene—a major confrontation and turning point—needed a new and even deadlier opponent. After writing that scene, I liked Morrigan as a character so much, I knew she would survive the first book and play a major role in the series. I’d never have discovered her using an outline. The story is discovered in its writing.

What holds your stories together? What’s the most critical element?

I’m a character-based writer. I always start with character (or characters). My story ideas, as Zelazny once said, usually arrive as an idea, an image, or a character. If it’s one of the first two that prompts a story, then I don’t (can’t?) start writing the tale until the characters that will tell it are clear in my head. I tend to think in character arcs. Where is this character (in their life) when the story starts, how do they fit into this story idea, and how will they have changed by the story end? The old “what’s their problem and are they going to resolve it?” If so, how? If not, how and why will they fail?

Once I know my characters and their arcs, the next decision is who of the case will be the POV character(s). I personally consider this to be the most important decision in deciding how to tell a story. Any story will change considerably depending on whose POV you choose. For me, it ties into why I’m telling the story. I’m currently writing a novel from the POV of the Dead Man character in my novelette “Memories of the Dead Man.” I purposely wrote the novelette first to explore Bishop as a character as other people saw him. I wanted to keep him a cipher to a large part, and not get into his head yet. So, although the Dead Man is arguably the main character in the novelette, I chose another character, Mary, as the POV character, as she looks back on her time with the Dead Man. That character’s motivation in the story is simply to try to understand the Dead Man better.

What tip would you give on developing plot in narratives?

Characters drive plot. Start with an interesting character with a problem. Plot twists and turns should come from choices your characters make as they struggle to solve their problem.

If your characters act simply to advance your outlined plot, it will come across as false to the reader. You can’t move characters like chess pieces. You need to have a plot in mind, but that plot must advance by believable decisions your characters make.

Also, start your story as close to the character’s problem and the key action as you can.

Do you let the book stew and then come back to it to edit?

Always. And with short stories, too, though I tend to just set them aside for a week. A writer needs that space to forget the story, so that they can read the words again as if for the first time, as a reader will.

Places or people who have inspired a scene or character

I’ve never based any character on a real person. All of them come out of my head. Most arrive uninvited and stay until I exorcise them by writing them into stories. For places, I’ve set a lot of my stories, including the Dream Rider series, in Toronto, or elsewhere in Canada, but I can’t say that any location has “inspired” a story.

No, wait. One did. When my kids were young, we’d go to a touring circus each summer. My youngest son is physically handicapped, so we’d sit in the area reserved for wheelchairs at ringside. Being that close let me notice that all the performers did double duty as circus hands—setting up equipment, acting as safety catchers, or even shoveling up after the horses and elephants. Seeing the trapeze artist, who’d just dazzled the crowd in a spiffy sequin outfit, show up in coveralls to clean up elephant poop gave me the idea of a down-and-out circus of aliens. That led to my story “Scream Angel,” which won Canada’s Aurora Award.

As a writer, what does your day entail? / Writing space and routine?

Ideally, I get started by 11am. I sometimes write in my office at home, but I’m most productive when I get away from my house. My favourite spot is a local library, which is very modern with lots of wood and glass, with great views of the nearby green spaces. Or a local coffee shop.

By going somewhere to write, away from any distractions, my mind set becomes “Well, I’m here to write, I might as well do that.” I try to use Pomodoro sessions: write for 25-minute sprints, then take a 5-minute break and walk around or stretch. Four to five hours is about the right amount for me. More than that, my mind turns to mush, and less than that makes it hard to get a decent word count.

I always listen to music when I’m writing, via earbuds, to drown out any noises nearby. It can’t be music with lyrics or any strong emotional flavour. So, despite my love of rock, I listen to orchestral pieces that are more cerebral than emotional, such as Bach and Corelli, but Vivaldi is my go-to. I think I have over 17 hours of Vivaldi on my player. It’s stimulating intellectually but I can put it into the background and focus on words without it competing for that part of my brain.

Computer, graphic organizer, pen & paper, audio to text, iPad?

Laptop for writing, typically in Scrivener these days. A small Moleskine notebook or voice memos on my phone for ideas that come along when I’m away from the computer. For short stories, I keep a computer file of story ideas. For novels, I’ll have a file in Scrivener with all the characters and their arcs, setting details, plot outline ideas, and research notes.

What is your biggest challenge when writing?

Without a doubt, it’s the first draft. My writing method (or temperament) has always been to write a bit, go back and reread it and edit it a bit. That means I’m slower in getting a first draft done, but when it is finished, it tends to be pretty clean.

Do you have a motto, quote, or philosophy you live by?

Chase your dreams. Never give up, never surrender (although that one may be taken).