Many (though not all) of the ideas for my fiction originate as a visual image in my imagination of a single character. These images are emotionally compelling, and I usually feel that I want to discover and tell the story of this character.
For example, the image of an elderly man, standing outside, looking nostagically at pictures on the screen of an electronic book, while his grown grandson watches him from the window of their nearby farmhouse. Just an image, but it gave rise to my story “Covenant.”
The image of the crazy monk sitting out of sight of the door with his knees tucked under his chin and pretending not to be home when a friend came knocking. This became “The Tale of Blue Butterfly Girl.”
There have been so many others: the girl veiled entirely in black but with hands tattooed like the branches of trees and nails painted with the swirled patterns of seashells; the mutated monster wandering through a flat and dusty wasteland looking for his mother; the graying man in the bookstore with a pile of romance novels under his arm, which he is buying because his wife loves to read them, but is too sick to go out.
All of these characters – and others besides – have captured my imagination at various times, and have been the seed-images for different stories.
Now as for the images, I don’t know where *they come from.
That’s a neat way to get ideas. Mine occasionally start with a character, but most of the time I have an idea or part of a plot idea to start with.
An off the subject question…how do you get the “other blogs I read” and “links to creative people” widgets? I didn’t see them on the list. (also, thank you for adding me to your list.)
-Mary
I loved how you describe this. I kind of feel the same way. The idea for my current (and unending) project became the prologue. Interesting, because the main character doesn’t even make an appearance until chapter one. And that image I got rocking my son to sleep one night. Strange how it happens, but it does happen.
By the way, I read the short story you have posted here and I thought it was very fascinating. Loved to think one thing all the way through and then realize you were wrong.
Mary: Sometimes I will start with a plot idea, too, but the character stories usually end up being my favorites.
As for the widgets, go to your dashboard, then go to “Manage” then select “Link Categories.” You can add and name your own categories. Then every time you add a new link, you have the choice of where to put it.
This sounds like a great way to come up with ideas. Usually a general idea will either pop into my head or be inspired by something I hear about or see, then come the characters.
What you describe sounds like a great way to not only get an idea for a story, but develop the story in a way that would really fit the characters.
Thanks for posting this. I’m going to try this approach and see if it works better than my normal fumbling.
Shari: Isn’t it amazing how things can just spring from the imagination? And it’s neat to think that as writers we put those ideas into a form we can share with other people.
And thank you for the compliment on my story.
A. Fulkerson: Yes, give it a try and let me know if it worked for you, too. Good luck!