What experiences have given you story ideas?

[stormiel]

Someone else posted a great thread on what works inspire your fiction (if you haven't checked it out you should ). That thread gave me multiple ADD rabbit trails of other questions I wanted to ask other writers lol. So here it goes:

What kinds of things have given you ideas for things or scenes in your stories or for a complete story?

Anything counts! A place you've traveled, something you smelled, something you've seen (architecture can be really cool for Sci Fi or Fantasy), even your favorite coffee creamer (you might be surprised at what a creamer flavor can make you think of for your story world menu lol)

Here are two of mine:

I came up with an idea for a tree from a french vanilla mini coffee creamer and Ponderosa Pine trees and Walnut trees. So this tree would be called a Vanwood tree (vanilla, van, tree, wood). Not the most creative tree name, but it'll do. It would smell like vanilla like Ponderosa Pine trees do when they reach a certain age. Although in the description in my story I'll stay away from saying vanilla. I've been looking up how vanilla is described by places that sell specialty foods to help me describe it. I'm not copying them but I'm looking for descriptive words. The trees would look a lot like walnut trees but I'll change the colors a little and the fruit would be vanwood nuts the hulls would be dark and crunchy and in the center they would be smooth, sweet and creamy with a taste like the vanilla coffee creamers (once I figure out how I want to describe them).

The next one was just a good learning experience. I wouldn't know how to describe sand dunes without having gone there. Although I'd like to go back in hot weather to see what its like then too.

Last December I got the chance to go to White Sands (NM) in December. I walked countless sand dunes, and watched hill after hill come and go. The gypsum dunes were solid white and the sky was deep blue that day. The wind was warm and the sand was cold. When the wind was blowing hard enough the top layer of sand would rise up in wisps and slither to new locations. In some places all I could see was white hills rolling in front of, beside and behind me. In other places there were tumble weeds and yucca plants. Most of the hills had trails of footprints but the ones that didn't have any footprints, those were special. The air was dry and it didn't really smell like anything other than a faint dirt smell, not like the smell of dirt when it rains or dirt in a garden, but like dust baked in the sun. If you live in the desert that may make sense. If not, then think of a shelf in the house that doesn't get a lot of attention but gets a lot of heat, or a heater vent, it pretty much smells like either of those but not so strong. And the space museum in Alamogordo was amazing.

Can't wait to hear about what everyone else comes up with

[Kessie]

I had a dream once where I had this flat piece of metal. But I could push my hand through it, and my hand would emerge on the other side of the metal sheet as a gun. By the time I'd pushed my arm through to the shoulder, the metal plate had completely shrank and encased my arm in this awesome sci-fi plasma cannon. I totally used that in a story.

I was reading the Gene Wolf discussion over on Spec Faith. I loved the idea of the book about the people traveling to a new sun. I want to write a similar story--except frame it as an apocalypse story, where the inhabitants of the frozen world think that warmth is evil.

I read a blurb somewhere about how just as about 10% of the population are colorblind, so about 10% of the population can see ultraviolet. But if you can, how can you tell? I've been chewing on that one for a long time.

[Christian Soldier]

I tend to find the ideas are just kinda there after a long drive and a good night's sleep, but I can also admit to having taken a lot of inspiration from some of the, now infamous, Shull family dinner table discussions.

[raleneb]

Kessie, I love the plasma cannon idea. That's so cool!

Stormiel, the white sand dunes sound amazing.

A lot of my inspiration comes from dreams, but also pictures and paintings. I got an idea for a plot twist from a picture of an old wood bridge on the side of a mountain.

[Kessie]

Ralene: Sometimes a picture can really give you ideas. Diana Wynne Jones said that the idea for Fire and Hemlock came from this picture on the wall called Fire and Hemlock. It was a photo of burning hay bales in a field at sunset, with hemlock flowers in the foreground, and sometimes it looked like there were people in it and sometimes not.

I'm currently chewing on a story idea based on two words: "Dragonblood Vampire". Maybe it'll be a good one to tackle for the August Nano. :-)

[Bethany J.]

I get a lot of interesting ideas from dreams. Once I had a dream that my husband was a superhero who could fly, and we were kidnapped on our wedding night by a government agency looking into mysterious superpowers. In a struggle with them, my latent power of invisibility suddenly manifested itself - I vanished, and was able to escape, and then sneaked back in to rescue him later! I am totally going to write that story.

I get ideas from food, too...it's fun to come up with ideas for flavors that don't actually exist. The world of my trilogy has a fruit called a "kaieth" that tastes sort of like a ripe strawberry but grows on trees, is long and shaped more like a big jalepeno, and has a crunchy skin. I love inventing foods!

I get ideas from random images of sci-fi and fantasy things, historical fashions, and history itself. I get ideas from sermons or sermon illustrations. I get lots of ideas from Bible passages.

I get ideas from other novels...small elements that blossom to whole plot ideas for books of my own. For example, right now I'm reading Jill Williamson's "Blood of Kings" books. There is a kind of creature called a "cham" which is a big bear that breathes fire. It's really awesome by itself, but the basic idea of being stalked by a fire-breathing bear, added to the "Darkness" her characters were traveling in, reminded me of a story I once wrote about a world where everyone slept at daytime and went out during the night. Suddenly that old story transformed in my mind to a story with science disguised as magic, where wicked scientists (trying to gain power, obviously) had weakened the ozone layer and made it dangerous to go out in daylight, and robotic monsters (disguised as real monsters with gigantic coats) stalked people who got too close to their stronghold. Completely random, but I'm sort of intrigued by it...

[fluke]

I had an idea the other day while reading about the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts. I was inspired to write about Simeon (his name in tradition) as a new convert to Judaism who made his journey to Jerusalem to offer a sacrifice. But when he gets there, they take his offering but won't let him past the wall of division because he is a "no stones." He is surprised and disappointed, almost angered but one Rabban Gamaliel the Elder calms him down and tells the guards to stop with the slurs.

Outside the city, Simon and his entourage give Steven a ride. Simon's question of "what prevents me from being baptized?" has another layer of meaning. He is asking if his status of "no stones" will turn Jesus away as it did the priests.

[MattB]

Some of my ideas come from dreams that I have had. I tend to have some doozies about demons and the end of the world.

I also get ideas from being in the military and going to other countries.