Where Does it All Come From?

A good friend who offered to proofread/edit and be a beta reader for me asked me once, how I do it. Where does it all come from? I've been considering it for several weeks now, and I'm not really sure I'm any close to answering the question than I was then.

I've always wanted to be a writer. My father was a writer of human interest stories at a local newspaper. I've read something of just about every genre and especially love Fantasy and Science Fiction. Some of my favorite stories have been ones where the main character or one of the major supporting characters has been a writer, and the story depicts, often negatively, the writer's life. Some authors notable for this are Stephen King or Robert A Heinlein. I always loved those depictions and was undaunted by their warnings. The desire to write though, doesn't answer where the ideas come from.

The basic answer is, that I've been playing D&D and reading Fantasy since I was a teenager. I've always developed my own world for D&D and I've always wanted to be a writer. The world I'm writing in now, I've been developing for eight or nine years, and has become very detailed over time.

For a while, I thought that was the answer. Then I got to the end of writing a chapter and said to myself, "Wow, I didn't see that coming." At that point, I realized that careful and detailed planning was not the source for my ideas at all. I'd had an idea of what was going to happen when I started writing the chapter, but as I wrote, things played out differently, and in my mind anyway, much better than I'd planned.

With some introspection, I realized the ideas that were coming out were feeding new ones. Each subsequent idea would then lead to yet more new ones. Looking back, I could see this process unfold since the first game I played in my new world nearly a decade ago. It all started with the idea that fantasy settings could be set in a tropical climate and a couple of other simple concepts that lead to where it is today. Over the years, the simple ideas spawned other ideas, giving the world more and more details.

I know now that the whole idea of writing a novel based in the setting came from the sudden realization that my world had enough depth and detail that it could easily support a series of novels. There are different cultures with different ideals, cities with unique infrastructures, historical events that affect the current story-line, even opinions of the cultures have of the other cultures.

However, none of this addresses where it all comes from. Honestly, I don't know. It probably comes from a subconscious gestalt of fantasy in general, or some such psychological phenomenon. While I'm writing though, or driving in my car, or standing in the shower, ideas just seem to pop into my head unbidden. A lot of the time, it almost feels like I am just a bystander, writing events down as I watch them unfold in front of me. More and more often, as I get farther through my first novel, I find that I am seeing the image of the story and don't see the computer or the words on the screen. Much the same as when I read a good novel.

As yet, I'm really not much closer to answering the question, "Where does it all come from?" My personal favorite wish I like to imagine is that my mind is somehow entangled with living characters in some alternate universe and their adventures are being imprinted on my subconscious, and the only way to keep things from building up to dangerous levels is to write them down.

I like this theory, it's as good as any for now, and kind of perfect for a writer of speculative fiction. I apologize if anyone is disappointed, getting to the end of the article without getting any profound insight into the mind of a writer. Lets face it, the mind of a writer is an unusual, confusing and jumbled place, and probably defies any insight into its workings.

I will leave you with this one tip, for anyone who thinks they may have been bitten by the writer's bug, but don't know where to start. It all begins with one idea. One premise, that can lead to others. Come up with that one premise. Then ask yourself how people would react to it coming from different sides. How would that premise affect the people and things around it. How would their opinions then alter their reactions to each other and to other events that may happen. How would society adapt to all of it. You'll find after a while that your original premise has somehow spawned its own complete world.

Thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings and I hope you enjoy my parallel universe when you get to read it. It's been a long time in the works, and I can't wait to share it with everyone.