Friday, August 30, 2013

Story Ideas

"Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any."
Orson Scott Card


If this is true, I think I miss a lot of them. It's so easy to get lost in the whirl of "to do" lists and daily regiment that my mind isn't free enough to see things creatively. There have been times when I've been in that relaxed and creative mindset that ideas just come like crazy. History, the news, hypothetcals all are great places for ideas. And everyday life and everyday people work too.

In fact, one of my first published short stories in high school was about everyday people I knew. The story was fictionalization, of course. But the characters were so accurate that my friends recognized them and that got me into a little trouble.

The story that's currently getting published is also a story I noticed one regular, regimented day. I have dozens of stories sitting in my drawer that I've mined from days like these. So maybe there is something to what Card said.

Lesson learned: see the stories everyday, and exercise care in choosing which stories to tell.


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