"How do you get your ideas?"

[deathpixie]

Something I was thinking about today - how do other writing people get their ideas? Not the actual idea for a story; I mean to process after, the process of elaborating and expanding that initial "Hey, wouldn't this make a good story".

What prompted it was I had another one of my flashes this morning - those sudden intuitive leaps that connect one part of a story with another, in a way that you've apparently been leading up to all the time, without realising it. It's how I plot; I get the initial idea, construct a rough plot around it (kind of a Start and End, with various scenes I want in the Middle), and then start writing. The bits in the middle are filled in with these starburst flashes, where I've obviously been thinking about various problems with the plot in some forgotten corner of my brain, and then when I have the answer, it leaps out at me. Usually when I'm just waking up or in the shower or riding into work.

So, now I'm curious (and bored - I ran out of work and my inbox is empty) - how do you write?

Comments

[wgsarah.livejournal.com]

I write in bits and pieces. Usually I have an opening sequence in mind and an eventual resolution, but once I have that opening bit written I write whatever section comes to mind first. Except the end. The end is alwaysalwaysalways last. And then I go back and re-write the whole thing. ::grin::

I would like to say that I only work on one thing at a time and write from beginning to end, but I'm easily distracted.