Ideas… & Where to Find Them

Finding ideas tends to be something writers and other artists think about a lot. Why? Because it doesn’t take much imagination to realise that ideas are any creative’s bread and butter. Want to paint something? Write something? Carve, sculpt, knit, cast, or compose something? You need a starting point: that’s just common sense. 

So it’s not surprising, then, that in almost every author interview you stumble across, someone has asked the big question. ‘Where do your ideas come from?’ 

(Let me give you a hint: they’re not in a treasure chest or underneath that really promising-looking rock.)

So, what’s your point? Tell us where ideas come from!

It is, at least on the surface, a legitimate question. Without ideas, there is nothing, right? Every story begins with that tiny kernel of a thought that forms the heart of the final work. We are thus in eternal search of the perfect, transformative idea that will propel us into the story we were made to tell… 

Except it’s a little more complicated than it first appears. Why? Because, unlike popcorn, ideas don’t come in a foil-lined paper bag that we chuck in the microwave and zap until puffy. You can’t just buy a bag of them. (Nor should you want to, because then they’re not really yours in the same way). 

Thinking of ideas this way—as discrete, complete entities that appear to us fully formed—endows them with a power beyond their reality. Much like revering the concepts of ‘motivation’ and ‘inspiration’ (as I discuss here), enshrining this aspect of creativity and creation as mystical, inexplicable or hallowed only serves to make it more unobtainable to us. 

Okay… so what does that mean?

Undoubtedly, ideas are beautiful and important and magical.Everyone’s ideas matter, and have merit (creatively, at least). But that does not mean the process of discovering them is a transcendental journey into the psyche steeped in mystery and ritual. 

Rather, the exercise tends to be almost painfully quotidian. (I did say ‘almost’.) A few weeks (months?) ago, someone in my amazing online writing group shared this pretty damn good article about How to Get Story Ideas for Fiction Writing.

And this quote from therein really resonated with me.

The secret to generating ideas is the same “secret” that solves every writing problem: writing itself.

No one who reads much of my thoughts on writing will be surprised to hear that I’m on board with this methodology. As I mentioned in my recent post, ‘Why Bother Writing at All?’, I believe creative production is the answer to most creative problems, regardless of the product. 

So where DO I find ideas?

In the journey. As always, in the journey. Fully formed ideas very rarely, if ever, leap into our skulls… or, if they do, they almost never do so on our timeframe. Rather, we often find our best ideas while already engrossed in the process of writing, because we don’t need to know what we’re writing to start.

An image, a interesting character, a strange word or great title: those can be enough of a jump off point. Those simple-sounding starting points can generate the idea you’re searching for: like a string of fairy lights, one unchained thought can lead to the next and the next.

But if you’re really stuck, look up from the page. Describe what you see: regardless of how ‘mundane’ it may seem. Let go and let your mind take you wherever it will. You might be surprised by what you find there.

–A.