A Discussion at Balticon about Ideas for Stories

What Makes an Idea Worth Exploring?

Ideas for stories: where do they come from? How does a writer come up with an idea? Better yet, what makes an idea worth writing about? I was on a panel moderated by John Appel, with panelists: author Jennifer Brinn, and poet and musician Tavier Dominique.

John asked us about where our ideas come from. Jennifer Brinn’s stories come from developing a character first. From there she wonders about what motivates them, then the setting. Like myself, Jennifer’s a “Seat of the Pants” or “Pantser” writer rather than a plotter, someone who outlines a story before "setting it to the page." From that point, Jennifer knows the beats of a story and sets her stories to a pattern and watches the story come to life from there..

I’m very much a “Pantser” and a natural story teller. The beats of a story, its up and down cycles and plot and subplots often come naturally to me. I don’t start with a character. Ideas come to me in odd ways. For example, I’m not a poet, but I wrote a poem which was published. The idea came from a Music Appreciation course in college. We learned about Beethoven’s Fifth. That symphony was based on a folktale about the Erlkoenig, the Elfking come knocking at a person’s door—Death personified come aknocking.

So, I wrote a poem about the folktale turned symphony. But the Erleonig (Elfking) resonated so strongly with me during that class, that the Elfking, is also a character in the history of my Highmage’s Plight series, which I began writing after that course, too--and took decades of rewriting before it was published over twelve years ago.

The idea behind one of my short stories, published about two or three years ago, is based on a comment I heard about U.S. government budget cuts—and how much the government invests in education. I thought if classes were offered free on the internet “what if” the government stopped funding education for Middle School and High School… A dark cautionary tale was born.

John, as moderator, asked about what tools we used to generate ideas. Jennifer uses a tool, which is basically a deck of cards with motivations, mentioning there are lots of idea and plotting tools on the market.

I’m more of a Luddite. A notebook to jot an idea down from time to time is what I find useful—especially after waking from a nightmare… Oh, where do ideas come from, indeed.

What makes them worth writing about? Some need time to gel, it seems to me. Tavier’s been interested in sunspots, which he remarked is really good timing—as sunspots are very active at the moment. So, he’s been following the research on sunspots that activity has spawned, which is giving him lots of ideas for what he wants to write about.

Timing of stories featuring certain ideas and themes are also important to selling stories and getting them published.

I write what grips me—what won’t let go… and sometimes hit a block during the writing process. So, I work on something else until I sort of stumble on what the original story needs—and get back to writing it as soon as I can

I'll say this discussing where ideas come from made for a lively panel.

In other news, Knight’s Blood is available on Kindle and elsewhere as are the revised editions of Knight of the Broken Table and Changeling Knight are available on Kindle and in other epub formats, You can find those other formats here: Knight of the Broken Table and Changeling Knight. Knight of the Broken Table is now free on Kobo, Smashworld, Nook, and on the iStore. I’m still watching for Kindle to price match, but with Kobo now featuring it for free apparently the Amazon bots should be taking notice.

So, interested in free stories this month? My novella, Dragon’s Curse, set in my world of Highmage’s Plight is available in this promo filled with free fantasy and sci fi stories, Summer Fantasy & Sci Fi Freebies.

Dare to Believe!

D.H.