CRW3930 - Ideas?

Writing doesn't really spin itself from nothing. Regardless of what writers say, ideas form as a result of bits and pieces of the real world colliding in the writer's head, consciously or not, and mixing into that magical stuff that the writer put on the page. This web of words may lead to something completely impossible in the real world, but it starts there.

So where do ideas come from?

Everywhere. Yeah. Really.

Today I read a news item about Mt. Asama in Japan spitting out an ash cloud that dusted Tokyo. Since I'm writing a story set in Tokyo involving yokai and other supernaturalness, it wasn't a huge leap to say, "Well, what if a peeved yokai caused that and my characters need to go pacify it." So I scribbled that down for later consideration.

Another news item talked about the Japanese notion that blood type is a predictor of personality. I knew this, but the news to me was that this wasn't traditional. (Which makes sense if you think about the chronology.) It was popularized in the 1970s. So I decided that my central characters will discount blood type. (Another note scribbled.)

Then I read about the guy at Shimo-kitazawa who performs manga, like a storyteller in the old days. My characters are into the old stories and traditions and... well, you see where that's going. (They're middle-school students who like manga, so this hits several points for them.)

So I say subscribe to a few news feeds about Japan if you want to write about Japan and can't actually live there. If you want to write hard science fiction, go for Scientific American and Discovery Channel, but throw in Wired and a gadget blog like Engadget. You never know what crazy idea will come out of them. (For example, Wired has a long article about the man who is sequencing and analyzing his daughter's DNA in an attempt to identify the genetic anomaly behind her medical problems. So many interesting ideas running around in that one.) For science fiction less focused on science, well, Wired is good for that too. They have several sections that discuss social considerations of technology from privacy to health risks to sex.

Research is another source of ideas. I've been reading books about yokai that take a more scholarly bent, looking at them as a cultural phenomenon. Obviously, I get ideas for creatures and behaviors there.

But then I ran across a haiku by Basho that described octopuses in a trap in "ecstasy" (according to the translator). Which made me wonder what might happen if my characters had to track down a (potentially tentacular) yokai who attacked couples visiting love hotels. (Of course, they'd have to go undercover. And they're both guys, not gay. Comedy, and possibly cross-dressing, ensues.)

Of course, I guess research points to another thing that helps with ideas -- knowing the subject reasonably well. I've read enough manga that I know I'm writing something that combines a slice-of-life manga (e.g. Here is Greenwood) with a fighting manga (e.g., Yuu-Yuu Hakusho or Ral-o-Grad) and a supernatural manga (e.g., Tactics or Yumekui Kenbun). I may bring in a rivalry (e.g., Naruto or Hikaru no Go -- yes, they are the same thing, just different weapons). That gives me a set of specific activities that are expected. For example, a school trip, summer break activities, one of the characters is in kendo and will be competing in a tournament (possible source of rival who happens to have yokai connections, right?), attending school, and, at the same time, dealing with yokai, kicking butt on a few, resolving issues for others that are causing problems.

Yes, it's a hodge-podge.

That gives me more places to look for ideas.

CRW3930 - Why Write?

Someone in class posted something on the discussion board about the difficulty of writing, which stimulated this (which I decided not to post there, because it only indirectly addressed the main point).

Writing is hard.

Parts of it get easier over time.

Your skills develop so you automatically avoid some problems (but not all of them). You develop a toolkit that works for you so you can use the tools instead of building them every time. You learn to deal with blank page syndrome, not knowing exactly where the story is going, not knowing whether the part you're writing is the beginning, the middle or the end. You learn to accept that you'll need too kill several pages of text so you can incorporate the information throughout the story instead of info-dumping on the reader. Abandoning a story because it just isn't going anywhere doesn't feel like abandoning your child in the woods for the wild animals to eat.

But the real hard part -- creating characters, finding their voices, coaxing them out onto the page, knowing when you should write the story and when you should let the characters write the story -- never gets easier.

Writing has its rewarding moments though.

One day I saw a bumper sticker and the usually somewhat reclusive characters started a conversation in my head (that became a story). I changed a word or two in a sentence and it sang. After chewing my fingernails to the second knuckle because I didn't know where a certain story was going, it suddenly resolved itself the way I had hoped it would. Others read a story that I wrote and said that they laughed or cried at the same places I did. Someone critiqued a story and I saw a new scene, a new direction, a new character. Someone identified a problem and I saw they were right, but didn't think I was stupid for missing it.

That's me. Your mileage may vary.