Catching Ideas

One of the mostly commonly asked questions to writers everywhere is, “How do you come up with your ideas?” It is often a mightily loathed question because a lot of authors have no clue where their ideas come from. It’s like asking someone who is funny how to be funny. They don’t know, they just are.

I’m going to admit something that I have never admitted before. Brave, right? (Especially to admit it in a public forum called teh Internets, which never forgets…)

I know where my ideas come from.

Ideas are not just fluttering around in my brain like butterflies all the time waiting for me to pluck one out of the air and use it. If that makes me less of an artist (which I imagine, to some of you, it does), so be it. That’s just not how it works for me. I have to work for my ideas a lot of the time. This is a little embarrassing, as I’m a fiction writer and supposed to be a veritable font of story ideas.

I’ll give you an example.

I was working on a book I’ve been working on for a while, and it wasn’t really going anywhere, so I decided to put it aside and start something new. Upon this decision, I took a methodical look at my top 10 favorite movies of all time. (Maybe that will be a different post.) After examining my list, I decided that the common things I like in movies are: romance, historical settings, adventure, Christmas, sci-fi and comedy.

I think it’s pretty accurate to say that that’s what I like in the books I read, too. I tend to gravitate toward romances (obviously), and especially historicals and adventure romances. And, I kid you not, I have a special section on my bookshelf just for the Christmas books.

So, what to do with this “new” information?

In a silly mood, I thought, “What if I could combine all of the elements I love into one awesome story?” The one element that kept throwing me off was sci-fi. Recently, though, I’d read a few blog posts about the new steampunk phenomenon. I was intrigued. It was a way for me to fit everything into one story. And thus, the steampunk time-travel Christmas romantic comedy adventure idea was born.

So, see, there’s really nothing mystical about coming up with story ideas, at least in my world. I hammer ideas out, rather than catching them. I sit and think, “I need an idea,” and then I use what I have at my disposal to come up with one.

Authors, where do you come up with your story ideas?Are you an idea catcher or an idea builder?

Readers, do you like knowing where ideas come from, or is it better if they’re metaphorical butterflies for authors to pluck out of the mist of their creative minds?

As always, tell me in the comments!

[Side note: Found a story from Christina Dodd about how she came up with the Chosen Ones idea. So which one is she: a catcher or a builder?]

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