Inspiring Thoughts.

[Marco Polo]

What I mean is, What inspires your stories. Does a particular legend or myth do it? Is it a completely random trail of thought? A dream? A song? A person you see? Someone's elses life? The way you wish your life had unfolded?

 

And any other weird ones I want to know. For example

 

In honesty I can say the one of my stories was started because of the name of a font style I found called 'Anger Is a Gift' which spurred a story of the same title.

 

Also my short story 'The Pre/Post Debutante' was created as I was walking one night with my Ipod on shuffle and a succession of songs that conjured up a complete story line allowing me to finish it in one night.

 

Plus my Novel, 'the Pack.' was thought up by a single dream about werewolves and their life in a suburban town.

 

As you can see, I've had a varied selection in my writing career so I want to hear any of your tales.

 

the stranger the better.

 

_Marco

[Graeme]

Some stories I can remember the inspiration for, and others I can't.

 

New Brother was inspired by a paragraph in a story by Drake Hunter (sadly, it's no longer on the Internet), where a character mused that he lost two friends by coming out, but for completely different reasons. One, because he was gay, and one because he hadn't trusted him enough to tell him earlier.

 

Falls Creek Lessons was inspired by the old Steve Jackson roleplaying novels, where you made decisions and flipped to the specified page. I tried to do that in an online version, and it was a complete disaster, but the story itself survived, with some of the features I had been looking for.

Heart of The Tree is one where I'm not sure what inspired it any more. I think it was partially stories of the Lourdes in France, with the reputed powers of the healing waters, but I really can't remember any more.

 

My current novel was inspired by the idea of being in the closet. I wanted to explore what it would be like to be a closeted straight guy in a gay world.

 

As for my short stories... there's so many different sources of inspiration I don't think I can name them all. One was inspired by an episode in a TV drama (All Saints for the Australians). Another was inspired by a kids cartoon about Mary Shelley and Frankenstein. The anthologies here have inspired a number, where I've gone looking for unusual takes on the nominated theme. Many I can no longer remember where the inspiration came from.

Edited April 8, 2009 by Graeme

[W_L]

A lot of things inspire me, science, fiction, and science fiction, hehe!

 

For my first story, Worlds of Difference, I guess what inspired me and is still inspiring me were frame of reference stories and movies: Slaughterhouse Five and Jacob's Ladder. Let me just say, many time travel and personal framed reference authors should commend and thank Slaughterhouse Five, which is one of the basis for most of our modern fiction. (Dan, you may not read this, but I am betting with 1 in million odds that you read that book at least once in your life, too)

 

(I love the idea of free will versus destiny, which is basically coming down to something that I've subtly or not so subtly added into my stories' themes on the nature of an inorganic plan for the universe aka God's Grand design versus the chaos in "free will" in terms of human ideals.)

 

Exodus was my second story and I was inspired by two concepts: the Battlestar Galactica concept was my most obvious with the fleet of exiles. The less obvious concept was the roots to human organization and functional society building. If a group of homosexual men and lesbians, along with a sizable amount of bisexuals, left to form a new society among the stars with a good deal of technology and experience of the innate evil present in humanity: How would they start? Would they fall down the same road the rest of humanity have picked? Dividing the true homosexuals from the bisexuals forcing them into a new norm. With the majority of the population teenagers and preteens on these ships, we're looking at a new culture and hopefully a new type of humanity.

 

Third, for production sakes, Conscience, George Orwell definitely was major inspiration with Animal Farm and 1984. Additionally, I wanted to get into the mind of a person that wanted revenge and change for the better of gay rights, seems almost like Hitler in a scary type of way, but he has more conscience. It's a character study of Gay Rights' at its noblest peak and its possible darkest depths.

 

Finally, sorry for the long thread, Fourth story on production was Love and Again, I already said it was based off Worlds of Difference concepts, but I am rethinking it. The more I think about the concept the more I realize I am actually basing this off a famous Chinese Novel, Liao Zhai. It's about love between humans throughout time, rank, nations, and even life/death. I am also incorporating more 19th century ideas based for this story. It's odd, but the notion of a repressive society and progressive desires from those under it seems perfect for this story.

 

Jane Austen was just my first. Expect Dickens to come around, he's my favorite Briton. I might conceptualize Byron never written anything like his style before and he's also a fun bi/gay writer. Hugo is my favorite Frenchman, we have similar styles so it should be close.

 

I am already thinking up new ideas and perhaps might even come out with a new short vignette sooner than expected.

 

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Now after all that I hope it explains my inspiration.

[rec]

The stories can come from anywhere, especially in this genre where you can take a hetero love story and turn it around.

 

The novel I'm working on (albeit slowly) now, Palouse, is based on a series of newspaper articles about an adopted half African-American boy in Eastern Oregon who is a child prodigy at the cello. He was so good that he was invited to play at the birthday party for Isaac Stern, the violinist, and to work with Yo Yo Ma. Something happened that took the drive to excel away from him, and he lost his way, becoming angry at the world, staying out all night with his girlfriend, etc. There are elements of a good fictional story that can be extracted from these basic events. Let the boy be gay, for example, and make that the reason for his change of attitude. So I started Palouse, of course with a change of venue, racial background, musical instrument, background circumstances and the introduction of a love story. It has evolved into something different, but the basic news story was the inspiration.

 

You can also take a minor character in a novel that you like and create a world for him or her.

 

You can take an incident that really happened to you, such as the opening of Jake's Hand, and just spin it. What if subsequent events were different? Instead of never seeing the person again, suppose that that person reentered your life. Let a true event evolve differently and you may have the makings of a story.

 

So, there are lots of sources of story lines.

[David McLeod]

Good question. If we could identify and replicate sources of inspiration, how easy it would be to write. On the other hand, I suspect inspiration is different for all of us.

 

The story, "Barrett the Beggar" was inspired by a painting, "The Young Beggar," ca. 1650, by Bartolome Esteban Murillo.

 

"The Translator" was inspired by, well, a daydream. I wondered what would happen if one of the people from World was transported to our Earth-analogue and arrested for vagrancy. Since he could not speak English, the police would have to call in a translator.

 

"The Paladin" was inspired by...okay...a cute trainer at the gym I go to. Naturally, I changed his name, but the gym is really at the hospital where I receive physio.

 

"Book of Heroes: George of Sedona" started from notes I made of a role-playing game session, and grew like Topsy. One line that I stuck in the first chapter (for no reason that I can recall) led to "Master of Fire."

 

Okay, enough shameless advertising. I'll repeat what I said earlier, and then go away. I think that inspiration is going to be unique to each of us.

[DragonFire]

A dream!

 

I know, I have a weird ass imagination & read far too many horror fantasies for my own good. But the main concept of the story, which I haven't revealed yet, is based on a dream I had. The rest I guess, without giving to much away, will be what I've always wanted to see in a story.

[Dolores Esteban]

My stories Case Dismissed! (and the sequel Journey to London), Two Feathers and Dare the Impossible were inspired by a biography I read. The book was about a politician and poet. He died in Vienna. I thought his life was sad. So I asked myself: What would have happened if he had not died? I wrote three stories.

[Ieshwar]

1. My own life: This is mostly for the dark stories. I twist the things a bit, erase a few things, add some more and stretch the facts here and there. But even today, when I read certain stories, I see myself in there.

 

2. What if's: Going through the lane of fantasies. I wonder what it would be to be in Love, to be with the special ones. Soft romantic songs put me in the mood and silly romantic stories come out.

 

3. Brainstorming: Sometimes (for challenges, anthologies), I sit and go through different ideas in my head. I keep what I like and try to transform it into something good.

 

Take care,

Ieshwar