Comments on Nathan Bransford, Author: How Did You Come Up With the Idea for Your Work-in...

Wow, there are a lot of posts here, but none the s...

2010-02-09T00:55:13.539-08:00

Wow, there are a lot of posts here, but none the same as mine. My current novel began with the dream I had for my own life when I was ten years old. It was a big dream and I knew there would be a lot of obstacles, but living on an island in Alaska, I had time to daydream and work out all the details. I never had the opportunity to fulfill that dream, but I liked to write and my dad gave me Arthur C. Clark's "Rama" when I was thirteen. I devoured sci-fi (the real stuff, not the horror/fantasy stuff). At fifteen I wrote my first sci-fi novel. At nineteen I got married and at 21 began a decade of childbearing in which my short-term memory took a hiatus and I wrote only in bits and pieces. But the dreams I had as a child still visited me often and when I reread that first novel I knew the concept was good. So I made a up a character who could be what I had wanted to be. Thus began my WIP, enriched and more informed by two additional decades of daydreaming. It feels oddly autobiographical to me even though it's totally outside my life and set in the future.

Does anybody else feel like they're telling too much about themselves when they write?

I am delving in writing about my fantasy world of ...

2010-02-03T16:31:59.802-08:00

I am delving in writing about my fantasy world of Vampires and how I became inspired is not by the enddless movies/T.V shows but simply I want to write my own preferred ending I wnat to show so much struggles between my characters that when they do get together it makes complete sense and a relief to my readers. I really don't like when an author makes it by selling loads of their books and then the following books in the series is a huge disappointment.

As always! I started with a simple idea--what if s...

2010-01-31T22:56:13.529-08:00

As always! I started with a simple idea--what if someone took part in a "noble" project, was warned by an acquaintance it wasn't on the up-and-up, and their continued involvement created dire consequences? Then decided a general on my two main characters and jumped straight into a conflict scene with them. (I've found my characters detail themselves that way.) After that, I shot back to the beginning of the story and began TRULY writing. (I always know that first written scene will never hang around, it simply graphs my characters.) From there out, I simply set down and hammer out what my characters are doing in my head--and sometimes it seems like utter nonsense, but the stories ALWAYS wrap their way around and, in the end, it all makes sense! My characters always spin my story a way I never dreamt of, but I think that makes it better!

I at least hope it does, because now that it's complete/polished, I have begun the query process! (YIKES!! That's more stressful than voices bantering back and forth in my head--even when I think, "That doesn't make sense!", to something one of them has said, and it RESPONDS, "Just shut up and write it! You're working on a word processor, if it doesn't make a ring in the end, you can take it out!")

On a two-hour car trip, ideas started flowing. Wh...

2010-01-31T20:12:08.635-08:00

On a two-hour car trip, ideas started flowing. When I got home I wrote seventeen pages, which eventually were expanded and polished into a 339-page novel.

Along the way I visited some of the real locations I wrote about to tidy up descriptions, and did a Google search for my character names - good idea, as my original name for the name character was a real person in the same city with the same sort of job!

WIP 1: I originally started with a scene in my min...

2010-01-31T17:16:31.043-08:00

WIP 1: I originally started with a scene in my mind and worked through what happened. Eventually, I came up with an extra character for the story I liked so much, I created a story around her I liked much better and have been working on since then.

WIP 2: I again imagined a scene and created a story around it. I guess it's what I usually do.

I was doing homework. No joke. It was on a piece o...

2010-01-31T13:07:40.507-08:00

I was doing homework. No joke. It was on a piece of paper I had set aside for math scrap paper, and it was written in red pen. What I wrote that day, without knowing WHO the narrator was, turned out to be the introduction - and frame work - of my entire novel. My other WIP - the sequel to that idea - was written for NaNoWriMo because my narrator woke me up in the middle of the night and said "HEY! SEQUEL IDEA!" or something like that.

Needless to say, this stuff hits me from my subconscious. I'm sure it's the little weird things I think everyday, complied somehow.

Well, there's already over 300 of these so I d...

2010-01-31T12:08:59.308-08:00

Well, there's already over 300 of these so I doubt you've time to read them all, but I'll give'er a go.

I was inspired by the idea of knowing the future and having the choice to make changes, only to discover that in the end, you made things worse. This, of course, led to the fantasy series I'd like to finish.

My inspiration came from two songs (1. "I Kil...

2010-01-30T23:59:23.603-08:00

My inspiration came from two songs (1. "I Killed Poor Sally's Lover" The Avett Brothers 2. "Long Black Veil" The Proclaimers) It was a very rough idea at first. The music I've listened to along the way has inspired most of the pivotal scenes. I'm currently finishing up the 1st draft.

My mother got pregnant, married and divorced in th...

2010-01-30T22:49:41.932-08:00

My mother got pregnant, married and divorced in the space of a year in the 1940s. She was embarrassed of it and didn't talk about it, even up to her death 10 years ago. I've wanted to write her storyfor a long time, but everyone who could fill in the details is dead. So for five years I've been pondering how to write her story. And then it hit me: make it up.

The inspiration for my WIP came to me while I was ...

2010-01-30T16:50:50.118-08:00

The inspiration for my WIP came to me while I was in Rome. Our local guide had taken us to the Roman Forum and mentioned something that had taken place at the time of the Roman Republic. I’ve read a lot of books about the Empire—a period that I am not interested in, and I have no desire to compete with THE ROBE or GLADIATOR. I saw a niche that had never been filled, and I have filled it.
Thanks for asking, Nathan.

Barbara Bockman

Interesting read through the comments! This is on...

2010-01-30T10:05:33.905-08:00

Interesting read through the comments!

This is one of those questions writers get asked the most, and the least satisfying one (for the asker) to have answered. I think they expect: "I sit in a darkened room with candles, work myself into a fevered pitch, wrestle with my demons... and then... IDEA!"

As for me, the current WIP came to me nearly fully formed in a dream after postulating an unfinished "what if?" in my journal before bed.

make of that what you will.

I almost always seem to get my ideas when I'm ...

2010-01-30T09:10:02.567-08:00

I almost always seem to get my ideas when I'm driving to my day job! (funny how that goes...) The commute is pretty long, so it normally gives me plenty time to work the basic idea into something large enough for a short story or novel.

The idea for my current project came from something I caught a glimpse of for half a second on my usual daily drive. The rest of the plot was all there by the time I arrived at work. The characters took a little longer.

There's something about driving that makes it an ideal time for coming up with & working on ideas. You can just sort of 'zone out' of the task in hand, and put your mind to more meaty stuff.

Please do not surmise that I am a careless driver.

I read Homer's Odyssey this summer for fun, an...

2010-01-30T06:51:58.110-08:00

I read Homer's Odyssey this summer for fun, and enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. In the middle of all those descriptions of the ships and of sailing across the sea, I thought to myself: what if this were set in space? And then, for some reason, I imagined Telemachus as a girl, because that seemed more interesting (and challenging) to me than having him be a boy. I combined it with the world of my then WIP, and a potential love interest popped into mind, and from there, bam! Story.

I find that story inspiration is kind of like smashing a window: once your ideas have reached a critical mass, some catalyst comes in and causes a plot thread (or several plot threads) to suggest itself, moving across the ideas in a line that you couldn't have really seen or controlled beforehand.

1. my semi-finished WIP---I had insomnia in the la...

2010-01-30T00:11:32.593-08:00

1. my semi-finished WIP---I had insomnia in the later part of 2008 and the night I was finally falling asleep, the story came to me. needless to say, I did not fall asleep that night.

2. I read a series and thought "I can do better" and came up with a series idea that is waiting for my attention.

3. I held up a box of matches :)...this one will be interesting

4. My current WIP is inspired by my mother's life.

**word verification: KARMARTH*** a relative of karma perhaps???

It just hit me one day when I was searching for ne...

2010-01-29T18:51:05.686-08:00

It just hit me one day when I was searching for new authors to read. As I wrote it, three characters decided they wanted their own books. The titles and some of the premises are based on constellations of the zodiac (astroNOMY, not astroLOGY) and someone asked if I planned to do the rest. Now I'm sitting on a 13-book plan with the first one 98% written, the second 50% written, and ideas/outlines for another 10. The last one is still eluding me. But the more I write, the more the ideas come to me.

My current WIP was an idea that spun out of the la...

2010-01-29T12:51:43.587-08:00

My current WIP was an idea that spun out of the last book I finished (which was dreadful and shall never be mentioned again). I thought of a really great idea that just didn't fit that first story, so I worte it down and came back to it later when I'd thought about it more.

The main character dies every morning come sun up, rising again at nightfall. He spends his time (alive) looking for his brother and acting as an occult "salvage consultant".

I liked the idea of a supernatural character who had a terrible flaw, but no real powers to speak of. It forces him (and me) to use brain power to get him out of bad situations.

I'd say out of my fear of dying! For years, ev...

2010-01-29T12:43:50.119-08:00

I'd say out of my fear of dying!
For years, every night, I went over the same scene, imagining every gesture, everything I had done, or I hadn't...over and over. And each night I told myself to let go of the past and not to carry it around.
At 17, I had already decided to become a writer, but I left Iran in 1983 and went to France. It meant that I couldn't be a writer anymore. Then I moved to the US in 1996, and - already lost between languages - I learned a third one.

In 2006, I realized that to get rid of my nightly ritual, I had to go after my all time dream: writing; I had to write about everything that was haunting me.
This is how I was inspired to write my first novel.

The novel I'm working out was inspired origina...

2010-01-29T11:10:17.917-08:00

The novel I'm working out was inspired originally by a night out with an unexpected group of people. I have long toyed with the idea of "giving into the night" and where it takes you which mostly is good and sometimes disastrous.

I'm constantly thinking of characters and writing down random phrases that I want to use at some point.

I don't have a problem coming up with ideas, o...

2010-01-29T08:13:16.168-08:00

I don't have a problem coming up with ideas, only in expanding on them. I get ideas from dreams, what-if brainstorming sessions with my hubby, ideas sparked by books and movies, and roleplaying games.

It's funny, but gaming is what got me back into writing. I created characters, and then in order to "get into character," I had to create enough backstory and traits to help me determine what my persona would say and do in various situations. And next thing I knew, I was creating basic stories around them.

You in corporate circles when they divide everybod...

2010-01-29T08:08:01.770-08:00

You in corporate circles when they divide everybody up by their attributes, interests and strengths? I'm typically standing alone or with one or two other people. Apparently creativity doesn't come instantaneous and natural for most people. Took me almost my entire life to finally realize that I was just born with that good fortune.

I was putting my baby daughter to sleep and wonder...

2010-01-29T05:00:29.692-08:00

I was putting my baby daughter to sleep and wondered whether I'd love this much if I was just pretending to be her mother (and why on earth would anybody want to pretend to be a baby's mother).

Of course, there's nothing from this idea left in the novel. That's fine with me.

WV: misfi=even the "t" didn't fit in

Created some charcters many years ago, created som...

2010-01-29T01:50:54.284-08:00

Created some charcters many years ago, created some more, linked them all up in multiple family trees. Come up with the stories from there. (My WIP is a multi generational story with a lot of strands)If an incident is based on real life it is often noticed by me well after. I find the varying relationships of the charcters often in ways I haven't noticed before (eg- what do you mean they're second cousins?) and that is enough to set off a story

I realize I'm a bit late coming to this, but I...

2010-01-29T00:03:27.814-08:00

I realize I'm a bit late coming to this, but I couldn't resist commenting. I write romance, short stories and literary fiction. The romance is always geared toward a specific publisher, so written toward their guidelines, not much inspiration there.

The short stories and literary writing, on the other hand, is completely me. I have these whacky dreams. Not scary but sometimes just so completely strange that I wake up and think, "Wow, I have to write a book about that." I have two like that now. I won't write what they're about, but I am SO excited to write them that I practically burst every time I open the files.

So dreams. That is my big source of inspiration. The crazier, the better.

I decided since my favorite genre wasn't selli...

2010-01-28T22:57:06.694-08:00

I decided since my favorite genre wasn't selling all that well and fantasy was, I'd write what was selling. So I got a bazillion books, took copious notes, and found a Sweedish fairy tale that screamed, "Rewrite me in modern times." The rest is history. When I get stuck I go read more books and pace the floor and eat chocolate. If I sell this book, first thing I'm gonna do is replace the carpet.

1. For the novel I'm about to shop... Why do ...

2010-01-28T21:41:46.167-08:00

1. For the novel I'm about to shop...

Why do ghosts wear clothes?

The clothes are not apart of a soul. Neither really is the face, the body, the physical image. We're not seeing a soul, then. We're seeing a memory.

Combine that with a twist on traditional necromancy and a love of fantasy political intrigue.

2. My current WIP (56k in):

Resurrection is possible, but illegal. Mister Maxwell Gallows doesn't care.