Inspiration Station

[The Teller]

What? The Teller is starting his own non-story thread for once? Sound the bells! It's the end times! Anyway, I find myself at a loss as to what to write next. I don't seem to have any inspiration (or drive really) to write another story at the moment. My mind keeps drawing a blank. This is quite frustrating, since I want to keep my writing skills sharp and since I'm out of school now, writing papers isn't an option anymore. When this happens to you guys, how do you get over it? How do you find inspiration for a new story? How long of a break do you give yourself between projects? Smooth or chunky peanut butter? Let me know (andmaybedropsomestorysuggestionshereaswellkthanx)!

 

[icomeanon6]

I think the best things to do when you need inspiration for a new story are A) give yourself time (to your question on breaks, I always give myself at least a few months), and B) read some new books and watch some new movies/shows. If you're worried about keeping your skills sharp, I have good news: you don't have to stop writing papers just because you're out of school! You can always assign yourself a topic and just write an essay/article/long blog post/whatever about it. Make it about Pokemon!

To your other question, chunky peanut butter.

(andmaybedropsomestorysuggestionshereaswellkthanx)

Write a Digimon fic!

 

[FlamingRuby]

Read/watch/play something in the genres you enjoy.
Read/watch/play something in a totally different genre
Take a walk
Write down your dreams
Put some music on (I have had entire chapters inspired by songs)

 

[NebulaDreams]

For inspiration, books are often the first thing I turn to as they have a lot of influence in my work, particularly fantasy novels. They show me concepts I never would've thought about before in any other setting and reading something with a great execution gets me pumped up to try and create my own epic. Whether I've succeeded at that or not remains to be seen.

 

[Nerdy McNerdface]

try and ask me to actually write up any of my ideas

Despite the fact that my writing schedule is incredibly infrequent, I do tend to come up with a lot of ideas. My fanfics (minus White Abridged and Back Alleys of Ecruteak [which I need to write more of aahhh]) tend to be things I can imagine happening in the canon of the world I’m writing in. The Brightest People takes place in Pokemon GO and is an AU “what if” story that could potentially happen; my cancelled fics Encounters of an Elite Four Member and Bonds Between Children of Tragedy were an in-universe book and an AU prequel respectively; and my favourite shipping Drabbles I’ve written (Still Thinking, It’s Been a While, Where I was, Where I Am and On a Single Day)have all either been describing canon events or describing events that I can imagine happening in the canon universe.

So, my inspiration for those kinds of stories tends to emerge from a story point I notice while playing - that character reminds me of another character? Have them meet! That character chose to do this? Try to describe their emotions! A character has a backstory with a few gaps? How about I try and fill them in! It’s quite fun doing “what if” kinda stories, so yeah, that’s where my inspiration comes from really.

 

[The Teller]

@icomeanon6: I'm sorry, but there was only one correct answer and you answered incorrectly. The correct answer was "smooth peanut butter." A hit squad has been dispatched and will "speak" with you shortly. Also, I thought about doing a Digimon fic, but after a day excessively planning it out, I lost all enthusiasm towards it. Perhaps I could fit a small one in the abandoned drabble thread. When it comes to writing essays, honestly, the thought of putting all that effort into pouring over research just to make a Pokemon fanfiction that not many people are going to see doesn't exactly thrill me to bits. I think I'm okay with taking a month off from writing, though. Who knows? Detective Pikachu comes out soon and maybe I can write something based on that.

@FlamingRuby: My dreams tend to be weirder than a Dali painting, OR more boring than watching paint dry. There is no in-between. Anyways, I'm kinda hesitant to do that since that's sharing way more of myself with people that I'm really comfortable with. I have some serious Pokemon Go catching up to do, so a walk is in the works!

@NebulaDreams: Epics are always fun to tackle. Argh, I've got like five books I haven't read yet, each of them 400 pages long. Someday...someday...

@Nerdy McNerdface: W-what do you mean, you won't give me any of your ideas? Maybe I could make fanfiction out of your fanfiction! Just ask Firebrand! I'm crazy enough to do it! Actually, I've found myself coming up with ideas before based on reading someone's something and thinking "cool, but what if I tweak just this tiny little thing..." So yeah, I can definitely see where you're coming from. I definitely like fanfics the best when I couldn't tell if they were written from the source material's official writer or not.

Thanks you guys for commenting and sharing your advice! I'll keep them in mind going forward. Hopefully progress will be made (or another quarterly challenge, round robin, contest, summer yuletide, or some other site-wide writing project will come up soon)!

 

[Kutie Pie]

Ditto on the "take a walk" tidbit. Just walking around with your own thoughts and looking around at your surroundings can help spark an idea, especially if you've been sitting on something for a while and you just think back to it at random while staring at something you come across. They're mostly small things, but big things start small, after all.

Another thing is just by being in the shower. Really, just about any time you're by yourself and your mind's clearing up or drifting, things just come to you that you find yourself becoming attached to. If it so much as makes you smile or you've stuck with it for longer than ten minutes, that's a plot-bunny wishing to be born.

 

[The Teller]

Another thing is just by being in the shower. Really, just about any time you're by yourself and your mind's clearing up or drifting, things just come to you that you find yourself becoming attached to. If it so much as makes you smile or you've stuck with it for longer than ten minutes, that's a plot-bunny wishing to be born.

I'm pretty sure most of my stories on this site came from shower thoughts (definitely ALL of the stuff on the drabble thread is)! Clearly, in order to write my magnum opus, I must be in the shower for 24 hours, laminated paper and pen ready.

Hey guys, I'm gonna be attempting to do Camp Nanowrimo next month! I've only set my word goal to 10,000 words because let's be real here. You know what I mean. I doubt it'll be Pokemon-related, but maybe that means looking at the non-Pokemon forum at the end of next month...?

EDIT: Aaaaaaand I'm done with my Camp story! Expect to start seeing it in the Non-Pokemon Stories section within the next couple of days!

 

[Kung Fu Ferret]

The creative minds that tend to inspire the plots in my fan-fics the most include Akira Toriyama, Chiaki Tonaka, Lewis Carroll, C. S. Lewis, Stan Lee, Rudyard Kipling, J. R. R. Tolkien, William Shakespeare, Ray Bradbury, Michael Crichton, Shigeru Miyamoto, Victor Hugo, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Leo Tolstoy, Walt Disney, Satoshi Tajiri, J. K. Rowling, Rick Riordan, George Lucas, Osamu Tezuka, George R. R. Martin, Charles Dickens, Hironobu Sakaguchi, Guillermo Del Toro, and about a couple dozen others.
(obviously not all at once, I just choose which ones would inspire the best lore for whatever I'm trying to write)

Sometimes thoughts come to me in the shower, in my increasing unusual dreams, or even when there's absolutely nothing to do at work and I've had a little too much coffee. It's usually random either way.