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What Motivates You to Tackle a Subject?

Vincent Berg ๐Ÿšซ

Just curious, what what peaks your interest in a story? Is it reading other stories (that may or may not work), is it events in your life quick make you question 'what if', or are you like me, where new scientific discoveries raise new possibilities you never envisioned before? (Hint: My new project focuses on a new theory about what might happen on a cellular level to produce a 'zombie apocalypse'.)

I'm curious how we all select our stories, and whether we use similar or dissimilar processes.

G Younger ๐Ÿšซ

I try to think of something that interest me and then how I can put a spin on it to make it different enough, but still believable so that it would interest my readers.

While the zombie thing sounds great, I think you need to add cheerleaders. Zombie cheerleaders would be something I would read about.

Replies:   Dominions Son
Dominions Son ๐Ÿšซ

@G Younger

While the zombie thing sounds great, I think you need to add cheerleaders. Zombie cheerleaders would be something I would read about.

Don't you need some kind of zombie sports league before you can have zombie cheerleaders?

Replies:   tppm  G Younger
tppm ๐Ÿšซ

@Dominions Son

Zombie races, like turtle or cockroach races.

G Younger ๐Ÿšซ

@Dominions Son

Don't you need some kind of zombie sports league before you can have zombie cheerleaders?

Oh! Oh! Now we are getting somewhere. We could have vampire baseball players and werewolf coaches. I think it writes itself.

Replies:   Vincent Berg  red61544
Vincent Berg ๐Ÿšซ

@G Younger

Oh! Oh! Now we are getting somewhere. We could have vampire baseball players and werewolf coaches. I think it writes itself.

Just add a couple Catholic Priest umpires to call everyone out (every story needs evil bad guys)!

red61544 ๐Ÿšซ

@G Younger

I don't think vampire baseball players would work except at contract time. Vampire agents, on the other hand, are real blood suckers all the time!

Replies:   richardshagrin
richardshagrin ๐Ÿšซ
Updated:

@red61544

Vampire baseball players would have problems performing in day games. Maybe in a domed stadium they would be ok, but sunshine and vampires don't mix well for the vampires. They might be good at hockey, its almost always indoors, so the ice doesn't melt. A Frankenstein monster might make a good goalie, has the bulk to fill it, and good strength to take hits and keep going.

What other sports are well adapted to fictional characters? Ponygirls for soccer? Because they can't use their arms and are good runners. Centaurs for polo? Minotaur for rodeo bull riding (as the bull)? Dancers from Crete for bull dancing (jumping), if for no other reason than topless costumes. Maybe they should be cheerleaders at other sports. Mermaids for swim teams. It would be fun to watch one do the breast stroke.

Dominions Son ๐Ÿšซ

@Vincent Berg

I'm curious how we all select our stories, and whether we use similar or dissimilar processes.

My stories started as personal sexual fantasies.

Replies:   Bondi Beach  Perv Otaku
Bondi Beach ๐Ÿšซ
Updated:

@Dominions Son

My stories started as personal sexual fantasies.

I'm with you on that. Er, that came out wrong. Not with your fantasies, but with mine. "What if-" [insert favorite thing here] and you're there.

bb

Perv Otaku ๐Ÿšซ

@Dominions Son

My stories started as personal sexual fantasies.

There's a bit of that for me as well.

Other times it's just trying to make sure I hit a good cross section of the types of genres I like. At one point I said "I need a space future story, a Star Trek-esque setting". An idea found its way to the surface, and now it's on my To Do list.

G Younger ๐Ÿšซ

Serious answer:

Stupid Boy came from personal experience. I played football in high school and I started on a State Championship team. I also personally enjoy coming of age stories so that is how the idea began. I also had a female best friend that I modeled one of the main characters after.

A book I am currently writing came from something I heard at a poker table. I won't spoil the book, but that single phrase seemed to click and I suddenly had an idea that I couldn't get out of my head.

Replies:   Vincent Berg
Vincent Berg ๐Ÿšซ

@G Younger

A book I am currently writing came from something I heard at a poker table. I won't spoil the book, but that single phrase seemed to click and I suddenly had an idea that I couldn't get out of my head.

It's those 'ideas you can't get out of your head' that's the key, however they originate. If it's not a compelling idea, you won't be interested enough to ever finish the story. And what motivates authors to write, hopefully translates to reader interest (though that's hardly a universal truth).

Ernest Bywater ๐Ÿšซ

@Vincent Berg

There's so many things that trigger a story: seeing something, a past experience, a stray thought, reading a story, thinking up a situation and then work out what to do with it and how to have ti come about.

I recently edited a story for someone and I couldn't understand why they were missing so many logical and sensible things to do. Their only answer was: "That's how it's done in the genre." So I'm now writing a story in a genre I don't like just to have at least one story in it where people act in an intelligent and logical manner. Don't know how long it'll take for me to get through it.

Replies:   Dominions Son
Dominions Son ๐Ÿšซ

@Ernest Bywater

I recently edited a story for someone and I couldn't understand why they were missing so many logical and sensible things to do. Their only answer was: "That's how it's done in the genre."

What genre?

Replies:   Ernest Bywater
Ernest Bywater ๐Ÿšซ

@Dominions Son

What genre?

Zombie Apocalypse - I'll probably get severely caned when I get it finished and posted, just because I violate so many of the stupid aspects of what I see in the stories in the genre.

Replies:   Vincent Berg
Vincent Berg ๐Ÿšซ

@Ernest Bywater

Zombie Apocalypse - I'll probably get severely caned when I get it finished and posted, just because I violate so many of the stupid aspects of what I see in the stories in the genre.

As I mentioned elsewhere, I'm writing my own variation on the Zombie Apocalypse, based on possible quasi-scientific explanations for it.

I also wrote crossed genres, breaking the rules, when I wrote a mystery. I visited a library to see what most mysteries were like, and discovered it has some of the shortest novels in literature. Instead I wrote a 150,000 word story, since whittled down to only 130,000! Guess I'll see if anyone wants a police story/mystery that long.

Replies:   Ernest Bywater
Ernest Bywater ๐Ÿšซ

@Vincent Berg

my own variation on the Zombie Apocalypse, based on possible quasi-scientific explanations for it.

In mine I'm putting forward the argument it's a bio-weapon virus developed by the Chinese and released again certain asian countries but also gets away from them at home. It spreads from there.

El_Sol ๐Ÿšซ

They just come to me -- see two girls down the street taking and *boom* know the whole story.

Sometimes, I do read something that makes me say 'but I wouldn't do it that way ... I'd do it this way.'

Replies:   Bondi Beach
Bondi Beach ๐Ÿšซ

@El_Sol

They just come to me -- see two girls down the street taking and *boom* know the whole story.

I found a key part of Goddess that way, even if it was a cascade of notes rather than talk.

bb

KimLittle ๐Ÿšซ

"Off The Deep End" was inspired by the desire to have a go at writing sweet coming-of-age type thing, like I've enjoyed reading ('Dance Of A Lifetime' being the clearest inspiration to my mind, although OTDE is rubbish compared to that). Throw in my own experiences on swim team for the background and *boom*.

Writing another two stories on the side as well at the moment. One involves theatre students (lots of my own experience) and another involves a uni student going to Japan for a 6-month internship (setup/situation based on the experience of a friend but the actual story informed by my experiences living there for almost 10 years).

I have lots of ideas constantly but lack the time to devote to full time writing. I do fantasize about getting enough content on Amazon to quit my job/go part time and just write stuff for a living. I have three other WIP under another pen name (spec fiction) that I intend to Amazon too.

In about two months I'll have two weeks off from work and I'll have no plans, so I'll be putting in 4-5hrs a day in my recliner, laptop perched on a cushion on my lap, getting as much down as I can.

Replies:   Capt. Zapp
Capt. Zapp ๐Ÿšซ

@KimLittle

...laptop perched on a cushion on my lap...

Be careful doing that. The cushion can block the cooling vents and cause your laptop to overheat. A lap-table (cushion with a hard, flat surface on one side) is better suited for that purpose.

Replies:   KimLittle
KimLittle ๐Ÿšซ

@Capt. Zapp

Ironically I do it to avoid cooking myself. I use a MacBook (white one) so the cooling happens through the hinge which isn't covered well...

QM ๐Ÿšซ

The erotica I write in short stories comes from some twisted fantasies about personal situations. The longer stuff mostly because it's taken on a life of its own.
The exception to that being 'Sins of the fathers' which came from an idea given to me by my proof reader.
The non-erotic stuff usually because it interests me and I try to make a world work with what is more often enough a weird set of circumstances.

Replies:   Vincent Berg
Vincent Berg ๐Ÿšซ

@QM

The exception to that being 'Sins of the fathers' which came from an idea given to me by my proof reader.

I'm curious how that worked. Did the proof reader say "Here's a great story idea", or did a discussion spark an idea for a new story?

Replies:   QM
QM ๐Ÿšซ

@Vincent Berg

Came out of a discussion from a few ideas he had regarding the boarding schools of his youth in the 50's and the antics of the pupils in getting around same sex dormitories and into the dormitories of the opposite sex. That's where the hidden passage idea came from, the rest got adapted into a tale I'd been planning about a family returning to the house of a rich industrialist. It got set in the 50's due to the puberty of Abi and certain SOL restrictions. The Belsen part came from my actual grandfather who was part of the unit who were allowed through German lines and was adapted from his diary.

Replies:   Vincent Berg
Vincent Berg ๐Ÿšซ

@QM

Came out of a discussion from a few ideas he had regarding the boarding schools of his youth in the 50's and the antics of the pupils in getting around same sex dormitories and into the dormitories of the opposite sex. That's where the hidden passage idea came from, the rest got adapted into a tale I'd been planning about a family returning to the house of a rich industrialist. It got set in the 50's due to the puberty of Abi and certain SOL restrictions. The Belsen part came from my actual grandfather who was part of the unit who were allowed through German lines and was adapted from his diary.

Thanks. I'm always intrigued by where story ideas pop up from. They seem like the most mysterious of creatures.

richardshagrin ๐Ÿšซ

If its a British Subject you are tackling, likely the motivation is playing rugby.

tholepin ๐Ÿšซ

In erotica, I enjoy writing for the devotees of obscure fetishes. Already bathed in guilt, that population has little knowledge of the libertine world eager to share their leches.

Audience is small but avid; also surprisingly well educated and imaginative.

Replies:   Vincent Berg
Vincent Berg ๐Ÿšซ

@tholepin

Audience is small but avid; also surprisingly well educated and imaginative.

No one's ever suggested that fetishes are restricted to the uneducated or uninformed.

There aren't many authors who earn a living at their craft--even among most of the widely praised best-sellers. Instead we write because we have to, and our main payment is an appreciative audience. Unfortunately, historically the only way to hear from a book's audience was to tour the country promoting the book. Now that we can connect online, the response is more immediate, but still, few readers will communicate via a printed book. In that case, SOL and other online sites are an author's best friend and source of information about their work.

P.S. I put my email and contact information in each of my ebook and print books, but have yet to receive a single response to either.

Lugh ๐Ÿšซ

Pretty much all of mine start out from personal experience, and then go into what-if-something-were different. I'll share here that there's also a reason that I write, certainly to explore fantasies, but also to explore deeper psychology.

I grew up in a somewhat Jewish culture, in which the yentas more or less had the position that one did not touch a "nize gurrl" without the equivalent of notarized consent, and with a dubious view of sex after marriage. As a young adult, I realized that I had been avoiding what were quite strong propositions from women who hadn't had the same conditioning. With experience, I also found that if I knew that a woman was sexually active with others, she became, in a nice way, more approachable. My second ex-wife is a recovering Catholic, who had a different set of guilty inhibitions.

So, the "Le Marquis" series springs from a real strip club, fairly high-rolling in the back, which was on 14th Street in DC in the seventies. I explored a lot of acts there.

"I left my heart, and her vibrator, in San Francisco" starts out fairly accurately with my 2nd wedding & honeymoon.

"My hoosband needs the luff" is absolutely true. My big boss was actually the just-retired three-star general who formerly commanded a major intelligence agency.

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