Writing Excuses 10.1: Seriously, Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Writing Excuses 10.1: Seriously, Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2015/01/04/writing-excuses-10-1-seriously-where-do-you-get-your-ideas/

Key points: Writing Excuses, Season 10, will be structured as a master class. That means homework! How do you generate ideas? Geewhiz and then struggle to a story? Do something like... Tone, theme, idea? Wow, I want to blow that up? I wonder what that would be like if... See the related podcasts on being influenced. Some ideas bring their own outline or structure with them. How do you find the gems? It has attractive depth, suggesting ramifications and ideas. Does the idea excite you? Does it suggest conflict and a story? Sometimes you need to reward yourself for generating an idea, but you can't work on it now -- so write it down! But how do you get ideas? Go two deep! Push past the first idea to a deeper idea. Read and follow new and old technologies. Ask "What could go wrong?" Don't grab the first thing in the garden of low-hanging fruit, look for fruit that's higher in the tree, that's different. Synthesize!
( Is this going to be on the final exam? )

[Brandon] We said at the beginning that what we want to do is start giving you writing exercises rather than just prompts. This won't be every time, but we will be doing it consistently. For a given month, we would probably build on the exercises we have given you. We'll wipe it clean for the next month with the next topic, but if you do these, you can then use them the next week with the writing exercise we give you. If you skip a week and don't do it, we will make it so that each exercise can be done cold as well. But we're going to give you this writing exercise today.
[Mary] I want you to write down five different story ideas in 150 words or less. Think of them as little notecards. I want one story idea to come from interviewing or talking to someone. One to come from research. So reading some... Reading a magazine or a book. One from observation. Take a walk. If you see someone walking down the street, think why are they going that direction and see what story comes from that. A piece of media. Something that you've watched. Take an idea and shift it slightly. Or music. See if you can be inspired by music, either the lyrics or the tune. The tone.
[Brandon] Excellent. Well, this has been Writing Excuses, Season 10. Hopefully, you will enjoy this master class as we go through it this year. You are totally out of excuses, so now go write.