Coming up with story ideas…

[FrancesScott]

I seldom have this issue, but asking for a friend.

For me, the littlest things can provoke an idea, which might turn into a 5,000 word story, or 30,000 word novella. People I see, things that happen to me, places I have been, maybe a scene in a movie or TV show that I can twist to my own purposes, world or domestic events. Obviously things that I have read. In some cases, just a word can suggest a storey (cf. my short lesbian story, Bilingual).

Where do you get your inspiration from?

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Frequently, I get inspiration from song lyrics, but listening to people being interviewed has also present me with ideas.

 

[Cagivagurl]

My stories start from similar situations.
Overheard conversations. Related stories from colleagues. Newspaper headlines. There are gems unearthed every day...
From little things, big things grow.

 

[NotWise]

I seldom have this issue, but asking for a friend.

For me, the littlest things can provoke an idea, which might turn into a 5,000 word story, or 30,000 word novella. People I see, things that happen to me, places I have been, maybe a scene in a movie or TV show that I can twist to my own purposes, world or domestic events. Obviously things that I have read. In some cases, just a word can impose a storey (cf. my short lesbian story, Bilingual).

Where do you get your inspiration from?

My stories are often inspired by photographs. I might not realize it until later when the idea grows on me and when the link back to the picture may not be obvious. I've had one story inspired by a video, but it was only a couple characters and a technique used in the video production that made it into the story.

Several of my stories originated as dreams.

Aside from that, my stories usually come from brainstorming. I know something about what I want (a character, a category, a plot device, etc) and I build the story around that.

 

[filthytrancendence]

I usually have a bunch of little ideas floating around in my head, and if there's something I hope might be good enough to turn into a story, I sit down and try and start it.

Often that does not work, so I just throw the beginning in the vault and let it sit there.

At some point, I'll get an idea that lets me weave 2-3 smaller ideas into one story, and that is nearly always a lot better. At that point, I can go back and use whatever fragments I abandoned either as a starting point or reference material to start the bigger idea.

In terms of where they come from? I peruse writing prompts regularly and save the ones I like. Sometimes it's just something I see at random that provokes interesting questions I want to answer. Like someone dressed in an interesting way, or a fragment of some sentence that strikes me as profound.

Sometimes they come from somewhere deep inside me, a desire to bring something into the world but that something is usually too big and amorphous to be useful as a grafting point for a story. But occasionally I'll see or hear or read a thing that crystalizes that something into a starting point.

 

[StillStunned]

I wish I could give a sensible answer. The truth is that ideas spring from everywhere. The trick is to latch onto the ones that feel promising and give them a bit of flesh as soon as possible. Not necessarily by writing them down, but just explore the possibilities in your mind.

 

[Writer61]

My first series, 'The Fall of Laura', is the back-story of a character from an as-yet-unpublished lockdown story.

'Adam in Asia' features some greatly exaggerated versions of my own experience.

'Adam in Public' is a back-story for Adam based on as many ways as I could think of to get him naked.

I have a future story based on a jokey title.

 

[yowser]

When the arousal level reaches the right pitch, inspiration triggers are almost infinite. A closed door at a mountain retreat. A photo found in an attic trunk. Song lyrics. The beach. A neighbor walking the dog. A conversation at the pub/work/backyard barbecue. A vivid memory. A personal 'what if?' situation. The food scene in Tom Jones. More than once just having a cute story title pop into the brain makes for a potential tale. My current WIP was launched with the title: Sgt. Purple Hearts Club Band.

 

[iwatchus]

My shorter stories tend to come from imagining a scenario, often just seeing a twist on something I actually see. What would happen if instead ...?

My longer stories come from seeing or imagining interesting people and what they are going through. I was at a restaurant yesterday eavesdropping on a conversation between two thirty-ish men, discussing their troubles finding a serious relationship -- my SO has complained about my eavesdropping for years. I suspect one of them will find his way into a romance in the next few months.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

I get my inspiration from everywhere. Real life writes the plot, and many things I took from stuff that either I've witnessed, or that I went through. My own worldview also shapes the plot. Some ideas I've gotten in the shower, others I've gotten while I was reading, listening to music, playing videogames, watching movies... even music videos spark a lot of ideas. Hell, I've also had ideas come up to me in the middle of sex!

I write them all, in a notebook, and pull them out whenever I need them.

As for their extension goes... I never know that until I start writing them, but usually I can assign them a wordcount limit and it doesn't explode on me seeking to grow further than that.

There's a reminder about it though: ideas are, at best, worth about 0.03$. Even if I love them, their price can never go higher than that. Execution, on the other hand, is what matters.

 

[PennyThompson]

 

[GrantBricksly]

Yeah...like most have said already, inspiration can come from anything/anywhere.

Dreams/fantasies are a common starting place for me. And the dreams often stem from either personal experiences, or fantasies.
Fantasies come from something (or someone) I've seen, or read. Something someone said, a song. Anything that has sparked my intrigue. Got my motor running. Perhaps it's a fantasy of something that I've never experienced and likely never will...

Either way, the idea begins to form, and I not it down. Or if it's really got me going I'll just start writing.
Like most authors here, I've got a folder full of unwritten ideas, just waiting for me to get to them.

 

[Ssbbw4u1974]

Usually my inspiration is a muse, someone in my current life that sexually excites me..
I love knowing some of their fantasies, and writing my own spin on it.

 

[TheLobster]

 

[onehitwanda]

dreams and daydreams. Or simply seeing one of the many beautiful girls somewhere in this part of the world, then my inner cocaine squirrel mind going and constructing a full back-story for them...

sigh.

 

[StillStunned]

I wish I could give a sensible answer. The truth is that ideas spring from everywhere. The trick is to latch onto the ones that feel promising and give them a bit of flesh as soon as possible. Not necessarily by writing them down, but just explore the possibilities in your mind.

Adding to this: the idea for the story is only the very first idea that goes into crafting the story. For me, writing is an ongoing process of spawning ideas and seeing how they fit the rest of the story.

Beyond the initial story germ, further ideas usually just grow out of the actual writing.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

Most of the time, just my imagination. Sometimes through discussion here, or reading something else.

 

[crookedletter]

The ideas and inspiration come from anything and everything. An amusing typo, an overhead -- in many cases probably misheard -- line of conversation. Anything that prompts the question "What if..."

The ideas are constant and unabating. They bounce in my head like endlessly popping popcorn. The challenge, usually, is to stick with the unfinished one I've been working on before I step aside for the newest hottest butteriest idea that's calling for my attention.

 

[TiberiusPrime]

It all depends. Sometimes it's the the title of a different story that sparks an idea to do something odd or a line from something I'm reading.

 

[ElectricBlue]

That sudden zing I get when I connect with someone for the first time, or see something or someone and look back. I write a fair few "casual encounter" stories, to the point they're almost a diary.

 

[THBGato]

Originally, Literotica was my inspiration.

After reading everything lesbian by @onehitwanda and @BrokenSpokes (amongst others) I wanted to read more, but was also inspired to write my own. I think I'd so internalised the hetero-normative nature of most traditionally published fiction, that it never occurred to me that I could write (and people would want to read) stories about women discovering their sexuality and falling in love with other women.

Since then, I've taken inspiration from real life (Forty), teenaged fantasies (On a wing and a prayer), gypsy woman I saw down the market (Desire & Duende) and songs (Thirty) to name a few.

 

[TaniaTulle]

Great thread!

For me, story ideas often start with a single sexy image. I begin imagining a backstory—how things got to that moment—and it basically turns into a little porn movie in my head. From there, I mix in a blend of personal experience and pure fantasy.

One of my recent stories actually came from walking home one evening. It was a warm night, and I passed a row of shops with small flats above them. For just a second, I thought I saw a stiletto heel in one of the upstairs windows. I looked again—it was just a trick of the light through the curtains (and, of course, my filthy imagination). But that tiny moment sparked an entire two-part story of seduction and submission.

 

[ZombieBrainz]

dreams and daydreams. Or simply seeing one of the many beautiful girls somewhere in this part of the world, then my inner cocaine squirrel mind going and constructing a full back-story for them...

sigh.

Wish my panty wearing cocaine squirrel could cum up with a story let alone a boner

 

[SinclairGroupLLP]

For some reason, the bulk of my story ideas come to me in the shower.

 

[Writer61]

For some reason, the bulk of my story ideas come to me in the shower.

Do you write a lot of plumbing stories?