Question about story source

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This morning, one of my mothers dogs and my brothers dog woke me up with incessant barking. I proceeded to lock myself out of my mothers house while she had yet to wake up. I spent a half hour in the backyard, in shorts and a tank top, keeping the dogs quiet until I could get back inside. I then fell back asleep for another four hours where I had a wonderful dream.

It was a dream where my heart ached and my mind yearned to go back.

I then proceeded to spend the rest of the day till now outlining a story completely based on this dream.

My question to BC is where do you get the kernels for your stories?

I can give you some of mine:

Kregg's Story - Originally supposed to be the first chapter of Quantum Implicitum

Quantum Implicitum - Got it while exercising one day and watching a show with bad subtitles while I listened to music on my phone. I just got into thinking out a story that really had nothing to do with my environment around me.

Micans Nox - Originally supposed to be a Bikini Beach story but now it's completely different, but some of the elements are the same.

Fixa Fatalis - Got the idea from the Gestalt Power in the Heroes Unlimited line of games for Palladium Games. Really liked the idea and wanted to have a superhero based on it.

Deserta Ventum - Based on a role playing game campaign I thought up of.

Methods of the Uninitiated - Originally outlined to be in Darkrealms(turned down), then Whately(seemed to be stuck in hiatus, until the last few months), and finally a Hyperverse(Amethyst said yes) story.

Vallosian Collective - Two of the four are from dreams.

Balloon Brigade - Based on a pyrograph design on a box I did.

Combat engineers - Based on something I heard at work where someone joked that someone ordered enough of something by accident that a whole warehouse was filled with nothing but one item. In this case it's an armory instead of a warehouse and it's nothing but hammers.

Project Blackwind Rifts Campaign - based on the song Knights of Shame by Awolnation.

Comments

The answer is easy:

The answer is easy: everywhere, often at the oddest time. Sometimes the plot and setting for a story is intentional. I wanted to write about the American War for independence, hence ‘The World Turned Upside Down.’ I’ve also been intriqued by the fall of Singapore in 1942, which led to ‘While the Band Played Waltzing Matilda.’

Then there are the odd, out of the blue, inspirations. The current story Persephone and I are working on occued while I was in Canada doing some serious handholding for a girl who went to see the Wizard in Montreal. One night, as I was channel surfing I happened upon a show about a portrait believed to have been painted by Leonardo da Vinci. The hunt to discover the truth behind a portrait dubbed La Bella Principessa was, for me, fascinated. From that program, and the story behind the portrait grew a work we are calling ‘The English Courtesan.’

If there is a moral to this above babbling, it is open your eyes to the world around you, then open your mind to the possibilities. You’ll be surprised by what you see.

HW Coyle
a.k.a. Nancy Cole


~ ~ ~

"You may be what you resolve to be."

T.J. Jackson

Well, I'm not a great author.

Patricia Marie Allen's picture

Not even prolific nor do I write epic tales, but I'll take a shot. My early stories were almost all "would have, could have, if only" from my personal life. Simply put, a kernel of real life planted in my imagination and allowed to grow and finally pruned to a point that I was willing to share it.

As I then expanded my vision, I began to get ideas for stories from other authors, fan fiction if you will. Often picking up a throw-away character from someone else's story and exploring what went on with them. Or in some cases simply taking the premise and running in a different direction.

Then again, a news article, or a TV show, or a throw away comment made by others, sometimes overheard and I'm off and running.

Hugs
Patricia

Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt

Just about anywhere

Some stories just pop into my head, Assassin, and others are triggered by something I see. My story 'the window' was inspired by an apartment window I would see while exiting from a parking garage in San Francisco. Mailing was inspied by headlines in a newspaper. The important thing though is to act on the thoughts as soon as you get them. I'm still trying to finish a novel about a seriel killer I started to write before I was interupted by Assassin. Hopefully I finish it soon, yeah, right, Arecee

Sometimes anywhere

erin's picture

Something overheard, the odd look of a tree against the sky, the sheer blankness of a piece of paper....

Sometimes stories lurk in the back of my mind or in little notes I make until they demand to be written. Sometimes this takes years.

Sometimes I type a sentence out of nowhere that leads to a story. Sometimes I put a title down and write a story to fit.

Sometimes I dream a story and have to write it down as soon as I get up. For comic books, sometimes I am given a character or a plot to work with and have to write a story to fit.

Often enough, someone else's story triggers something and I end up writing a story that may or may not show where the idea came from.

I never have a lack of ideas for stories, my hard drives are full of notes and half-completed stories. I've got one now that wants me to come back to it....

Gotta go.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.