Thread: Inspirations

I was reading some of the older threads in this section and came upon one that asked "how did you come up with your NaNo idea?"
That seems like a good question to me...so, how did you come up with your NaNo idea? What do you think inspired you?
I've related at some length how I was inspired by some previous works and by current events and technology-will briefly reiterate here.
The genesis of my story was the Discovery Channel. There was a documentary about ants. Certain species of ants, in Africa, Australia, and South America, are able to keep bacteria from infecting their foodstock and themselves, by secreting an enzyme.
Thinking about that led me to a story idea. What would happen if people were able to synthesize that? Further research led me to a series of ideas, including different areas of research into health problems, and a look at the methods of distribution of such medicines got me into the political arena. That spread out into thinking about the Human Genome Project, and some of the implications of that, and couple with the above led me to brainstorming about the possible misuses of such information.
A small epiphany involved health insurance companes, who are closely allied to pharmaceutical companies on the lobbying front, and putting all of that together led to my setting.
The desire to turn a number of sf cliches on their pointed little heads led to my casting a nebbish as the main character and doing some possibly wonky things with the plotting, and reading some classic sf books solidified my ideas.
Hmm, that wasn't so brief after all. My bad. But there you go.

This is a good topic, moderan.

Mine came to me as I was sitting daydreaming about my other novel, about werewolves. I wanted to make them a bit different from your regular howl-at-the-moon lupine. So I took an old idea about a moondial and applied it to a werewolf story. Then I got thinking, if it's some sort of mirror that bedazzles them (but doesn't kill them), then their transformation must be more psychological than physical. Then I needed some sort of instrument that would change them, other than the moon, if I were making them psychological werewolves. So I looked through my notes to another mythical 'tool' and came up with a gillet. Then I just thought about a backstory.

So I created an MC who needed to be ambigious, another character who knew about wolf-hunting, but couldn't kill them because he was humane and a girl who would because she only saw things as black and white and didn't see the people behind the wolves.

Sorry - that's long-winded

I think it's facinating how we come up with ideas

Hey, good topic.

My idea to write a book that features a dragon breeding compound started when I got into betta fish breeding some months back. I'd been wanting to write a dragon novel about a facet of dragon life that hasn't been worn into the ground. Then it struck me that you usually don't see stories about dragon breeding or rearing their young, at least from a scientific standpoint. Normally it's more cutesy with sentient, personified dragons.

Then I thought that since there are several types of dragon-like creatures (wyverns and lindorms), that I could include them to, in order to make it seem more like a real species with sub species and such. And actually, my novel features more lindorms and wyverns than dragons (with the wyverns' courtship and mating habits being based off betta fish).

The rest of the idea (you know, the important stuff with my MC and his conflicts) just sort of happened as a sunny afternoon game of "How much can I make this kid suffer on several different levels?" That, of course, only serves to prove my suspicion that in order to be a writer, you have be kind of a sadist.

It might sound weird but the only way that I get inspired with anything artistically (whether its painting, sketching, floral designing, or writing) its been done while listening to Enya. There is something about her music that stirs my artistic soul.

this probably had nothing to do with the topic. sorry

I didn't really put a whole lot of thought into the basic idea. Actually, I more or less stole the idea from a notebook in my bro's room. I told him I stole it but he didn't really give a crap. He was just like "Another one of my half-arsed story attempts", so he basically did give me the story. I was also looking for something to help me develop my fantasy planet of Valacia where I'm wanting to write a trilogy based on my Dragon Riders (lame idea, I know, but I love some of the chars I've developed for it). So that's what I'm doing.

Basic idea is that somebody founded a guild of strong magic users called the Mage's Guild (real original, right?). They were at peace for a while and blah blah blah. Time passes, the founder dies and war starts. For about 80 years, it doesn't affect small villages, but of course it strikes the villages. A 12 year old boy named Magnus is the chosen by the deities on Valacia to strike down the Guild.

Yeah. I know, crappy description, but I'm horrible at describing my stories.

I have no freaking idea where the idea for my story came from. It found me, I didn't find it.

I don't know a soul who has been through what my MC has, but it doesn't seem hard to write. It's like the MC is telling me his story.

Crazy, huh?

You want to hear something AWESOME?

I found an amazing streaming radio thing. If you like the music of John Williams (think Jurassic Park, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter soundtracks, etc) this is the station for you! It actually inspired me to deviate quite a bit as far as conceptualizing my "world." I am so stoked!!

Oops... here's the link:

John Williams Radio – Last.fm

John Williams the composer is pretty damn good. I spend more time listening to John Williams the classical guitarist but in general John Williams is a pretty decent brand name.

Gotta agree with you there

Yes, I agree with me too. *shakes hands with self* Good job, me.
Good link too...

Originally Posted by Raging_Hopeful

If you like the music of John Williams (think Jurassic Park, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter soundtracks, etc) this is the station for you!

Just because I'm anal about this one -- John Williams didn't do LOTR. That was Howard Shore.

But that's a great link! Thanks for sharing!

Oh yeah sorry. The LINK has music by all those kinds of composers. I kind of lumped them together, whoops!

Most of my story was from the 11 pages of notes I took when I woke up a couple months ago from a dream. It had to be the longest dream I've ever had (well it felt longer than most dreams), and the minute I woke up I just wrote it all down because I thought it was one of those flashes of inspirations that come once in a blue-moon. Took me about an hour and half and I lost a few details by the end of it, but I've manged to cannibalize other scraps of writing from my notebook to fill in some of the gaps...

11 pages of notes from a dream? Zounds! I rarely remember my dreams. Were ya channeling Robert Louis Stevenson? Don't burn it!