Where Do Story Ideas Come From?

Many authors grapple with the question, where do your story ideas come from?

Immediately, they think back to the time they first discovered the kernel of an idea for the story they’re working on. Their mind goes to how those ideas were scaffolded, by what events and when, and then it’s just, man, I don’t know. They ponder their completed works. What happened there? Wouldn’t it make for great conversation, if they could just figure out where this idea came from?

But the world is as caustic as it is beautiful, so accountability must be had.

Some people vow that they don’t know where their ideas come from. The story concept was just there, like a snap at the end of an aw-shucks moment. To them, so many of them, this fiction writing thing is a wondrous mystery based on luck and skill. Because nothing is actually good or bad. Storytelling is really a mere matter of perspective.

To recap, to many of us, storytelling, fiction writing, is not bad or good and ideas don’t really come from anywhere. The real skill is to make a natural-like plot. It’s all about the plot.

I’ll take it a step further. Because many authors don’t own up to their ideas, they don’t feel responsible for them. In example, “I didn’t say that. My character did.” Ironically, the character only spoke to them, and only in their mind.

And it’s not as if they take their royalty payments and drizzle it around their community because they don’t know whose idea it is. Why fear someone stealing your story idea if you don’t know where it came from to begin with? It could have come from the person you’re accusing of stealing.

With all that said, I’m just going to go ahead and say where your ideas come from. Your stories come from you. They come from you, even if it’s based directly off something else. If I wrote a Slaughterhouse-five sequel, that’s my story based on Vonnegut’s classic. A retelling of a popular novel is an author’s idea of that original work.

Here is my process. I move about my day and gather information, knowingly or unknowingly, but I’m gathering it. There is a stack of intellect and a stack of emotion involved. I cherry pick parts that make sense together. We’ll call these identified things, theme. Those themes might come from current popular works or world events but a mash up of both, for me, one is clearer in my presentation than the other.

Inside this process, I discover myself through the world around me. Because I present my work, the world around me discovers me as well. But the world is as caustic as it is beautiful, so accountability must be had.

The world sees itself through me. When I speak up about my work, I say I did this based on my experience and observation. I own what I’ve done with my hands, with my tools, with my skills. I don’t need to be loud about it. I need to be effective. I need to impact because life impacts.

Our job as authors is to be judged.

We are privileged to be seen on a platform that we created. When words come back at us because of what we said we can either remain in the discussion or vacate. We impact folks positively or negatively, but in most cases, it’s best to own both. Or we cannot own the work and accept neither.

The point is that you put your name in the book. You put your picture in the book. You accept accolades for it when available. When people buy it, you get paid. So, when someone asks where your ideas come from, go ahead, and get the ball rolling. Tell them it came from you.