A s a writer, one of the most common questions you get asked is ‘where do your ideas come from?’ or ‘how do you know what to write?’
I REALLY wish I had a clear-cut answer, because that would make the job of writing MUCH easier.
I often equate writing with any other creative endeavor, because I believe that whether you are using paint, or stone, or light, or words, every artist is trying to do the same thing: create an event in the mind of another person. Whether that event is an emotion, a realization, or change in perspective, it always starts with a single, crystalizing idea.
If I knew WHERE those ideas came from, I’d have written WAY more books by now!
I believe there are as many answers to these questions as there are artists in the world. Everyone gets their ideas from different places, obviously, but often, in my experience, anyway, I get my ideas from different places from one book to the next. In fact, my brain is such a chaotic storm of fragmented images, ideas, characters, beginnings, and endings, that it always strikes me as a minor miracle when ANYTHING crystalizes in there!
One of my books started with the idea of theme songs: what if each character had their own theme song, and I shaped their journey, their personalities, and even their ultimate dispositions within the story, on a single song?
I figured I might be able me to keep each character consistent through the story while providing a scaffold upon which to build their arc. There was an over-arching story, of course, that had to be served by all that work, but I figured the songs would help me keep everyone straight.
I was intrigued, toward the end of that project, when I realized that most of the characters had followed my planned trajectory despite the fact that I had completely forgotten their songs by that point, while two of them, whose songs were still with me, had grown far beyond their humble musical roots.
So that plan didn’t work quite the way I’d planned it, but I was still very happy with the story, which is half the battle right there.
I was at a wedding years ago, an outdoor event in Vermont (where I spent 4 years of my life in my younger years, without feeling a lot of inspiration), and as I sat waiting for the ceremony to begin I looked to the side where a picturesque white fence with a wide gate separated the wedding guests from a beautiful field of cropped grass surrounded by a forest of tall, dark pine trees, the Green Mountains rising up in the background.
I was suddenly struck by a very vibrant image of knights jousting in that field, with the trees and mountains behind them. It was such a powerful sensation; I could almost see the big horses, hear the crowd.
I didn’t have a story at that point, but I knew I was going to write a story that would feature jousting knights.
Of course, the stories grow and change in your mind, constantly twisting and turning despite all attempts to chain them down with outlines and treatments, until you’ve locked down your final edits. The tourney circuits of Crimson Snow, Crimson Sand bear little resemblance to the romanticized jousting tourneys of other books and movies, but that field is still there; those trees and those mountains are still there, and damned if that feeling I had in Vermont all those years ago didn’t find itself right onto those pages.
Inspiration, and ideas, can come from almost anywhere.
To round this post off, I’d like to briefly tell two quick stories looking at these ideas from the other direction.
Recently I went on a Boy Scout camp out with my son to Mount Monadnock, right here in New Hampshire. Dependent on who you talk to, they will tell you that Mount Monadnock is either ‘the second most hiked mountain in the world’ or ‘the most hiked non-volcanic mountain in the world’ (Mount Fuji being the most hiked, apparently). It’s very accessible, with a few challenging stretches here or there, and I’ve done it many times in the past. I hiked to the very top with my son when he was five (ok, that was pushing it a bit), and a couple times since then. During college, after a particularly bad breakup, I actually jogged the mountain about once a week for most of a summer.
But this time, that damned mountain kicked my butt.
I was brutalized. My son drank all of his water on the way up, so I gave him most of my remaining water for the trip down, and then proceeded to have both of my legs cramp up in agony for the last half of the hike down.
The pain was excruciating.
And I was magically transferred to a scene from one of my books where a character, during a rigorous bout of training, almost collapsed while running through the woods.
I smiled, despite the pain, because that connection, between my very real discomfort and my character’s situation were so similar, I KNEW, in that moment, that I had nailed that moment.
And finally, the night before the hike, setting up my tent, I had a moment, looking down at the mess of fabric, cordage, and poles in utter despair; I’m not a tenter, and never have been. But looking at that tangled mess, I suddenly smiled again.
In my most recent novel, Rise of the Alchemist, a character is thrown far beyond his comfort zone and forced, at one point, to set up his own tent.
Standing there on the very flank of the (second) most hiked mountain in the world, staring at tangled puzzle that SHOULD be able to keep me warm and relatively safe from the swarming mosquitos, if only I could figure it out, I felt JUST like that character had felt.
Whatever the inspiration had been for that moment in the story, I knew I’d hit that note, too, as truly as I could.
Luckily, unlike my hapless character, I had a LITTLE more experience, and DID manage to put my tent together before the bugs had sucked me dry.
But then, sometimes we need to suffer, for the coming triumph to be all the sweeter.
I may have slept better than Nicholas did, in our respective situations, but I didn’t go on to change the course of human history.
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