“Everything you look at can become a fairy tale and you can get a story from everything you touch.” (Hans Christian Andersen)
Inspiration can truly come from anything, if we leave ourselves open to it. Anything you see, hear, smell, taste, feel, or dream could become part of the story that you’re writing—or maybe the seed of a new story!
I’m working on some stories set in a fantasy world, in which there is the usual assortment of races. One of them is a race of stone giants. I hadn’t come up with a name for them. One day I was driving through Denver and spotted a sign for the “Humboldt Kitchen + Bar”. That lit up a couple of LEDs in my brain, and my giants became “Humbolds”. It evokes the idea of “boulder”, and it fits my image of them very well. (No, they don’t hum. They speak in a low, gravely voice.)
That’s a pretty simple example. It doesn’t affect the storyline, it’s just a name. But my world also includes magic, and some people have the ability to link minds with another person. I was playing the game “Dishonored 2”, and it includes a “Domino” power: Up to four opponents are connected so what you do (sleep dart, etc.) affects them all. Will I be working a version of that into my world? You can bet on it.
Movies, television, and even games, can provide strong inspiration because they include both sight and sound. Are you writing a series of police thrillers? Watch a season or two of the original “Law & Order”. They all start the same way. Someone discovers a body. The police arrive to investigate. “Bump-bump”, and the next scene is usually the squad room. Then come the investigation, the false leads, and frequently that “special Law & Order twist”.
You’ve got a general outline for your series right there. Is it original? Of course not. That opening structure was used back in the pulp era for series like “Doc Savage” and “The Shadow”. Of course, you’ll put your own spin on your series. But formulas like that work well because people are familiar with them and they know what to expect. And if they’re done well, they sell well.
(There are people who don’t think this is a good idea. I once attended a talk and book signing by Harlan Ellison. During the Q&A part someone asked if he would ever write a sequel to one of his most famous stories, “‘Repent, Harelquin!’ Said the Ticktock Man”. Ellison stood up and did a five-minute rant about how no author should ever write a sequel because it made both the writer and the author lazy. A couple of minutes later someone raised the issue again (which made me cringe), and asked it it wasn’t good to give the reader a story that they were familiar and comfortable with. Ellison snapped, “No. Next question.” Ellison did not like his readers to feel comfortable with his stories.)
Maybe you’re writing noir fiction and you need some snappy dialog. Watch crime movies from the 1930s and -40s! I was watching an old James Cagney movie once. A character walks into the room and someone says, “Hey, Joe, whaddya hear, whaddya say?” That is a great line! And probably authentic for the time period.
Or read stories by Damon Runyon. He hung out with the gangsters of the day and wrote stories about them. The play/movie “Guys and Dolls” was based on two of his stories. If you watch the movie you’ll notice the exaggerated formal way the gangsters talk. They really talked like that, because they thought it made them sound upper-class.
Looking for some romantic conflict? Watch any movie with Humphrey Bogard and Lauren Bacall. Need a wisecracking heroine? Watch comedies starring Katherine Hepburn. A little light bantering between a man and a woman in your thriller? Check out “The Thin Man” movies. You get the idea. (You might be thinking that I really like old movies. You’re right. But contemporary movies can work just as well.)
Have you ever had writer’s block? Me neither. But I’ve found that one of the best things to do when the unthinkable happens is to set my work aside and do something else. Get out of the house. Take a walk in the park and watch people. Do you see anything that you could use in a story? Go to a coffee house, bar, or restaurant and listen to the people around you. (Not one of those restaurants with high, bare ceilings where all you can hear is echoes.) This is the way people talk, and it can help make your dialog real.
Someday we’ll be able to go out and do these things again. But if you’re stuck at home, you can still escape from your current story and break your brain free. Watch a movie. Read a book. Get out of the genre you’re writing in! If you’re writing thrillers, read some humor or watch a comedy. Read poetry! Read or watch something in a style you don’t like. Or something really bad… check out books or movies with a lot of one-star reviews. Yes, it can be painful. But keep thinking, “I can do better than this. What if the main character did this instead? Look at that huge plot hole!”
Another good source of inspiration is writing prompts. Do a web search and you’ll find a lot of sites that post daily or weekly prompts. Scan the list, pick one that rings your bell, and start writing. I was stuck once and opened a random writing prompt site. The first prompt on the site was one word: “Breakfast.” I opened my writing program, opened a new document, and wrote, “Breakfast is ready.” Half an hour later I had written three chapters of a new story. (I will finish it someday, I promise!”)
Here’s a prompt I just found on a Reedsy blog:
“Set your story at a convention for a hobby most people have never heard of.”
I had a couple of unsettling experiences with conventions when I lived in Chicago. I worked in The Loop, the business center of the city. (So named because that’s where the elevated trains looped around.) On one occasion I was going out to lunch and passed a hotel just as a convention of tall people was leaving for lunch. I’m 6′ 4″ tall, and suddenly I was surrounded by people taller than me. Another time a convention of twins was leaving the hotel, and there were two of everyone on the street. If I had been writing fiction instead of computer code back then, I would could have used those experiences for a story. What if you woke up this morning and everyone was twice as tall as you? Or if there was two of everyone but you?
“CSI Las Vegas” used this idea several times. There are lots of unusual conferences in Vegas, and they tried to pick the strangest. One episode featured a murder at a convention of little people, and another had an investigation at a furry convention.
If it’s good enough for a mega-successful TV series, it’s good enough for you. So take it and go! Write a story, right now!
Where do you go when you need inspiration? What helps you get past writer’s block? Please add your comments below.
(Photo by Dstudio Bcn on Unsplash)
I agree with you and Hans. Thanks!