What’s something not related to writing, that inspires the most story ideas?

[Kathleen]

@gracie-j

Yes, not only do I get to sometimes dream about my stories when I think about them as I fall asleep, but I also fall asleep faster too. Thinking about real life can often keep me up at night. XD

Yeah, niether of my parents are readers as well. In fact, they don’t even care much for movies either. (Like, how?), They probably watch like one, maybe two a year. XD What exactly do your parents “censor” may I ask?

[Elizabeth]

@kathleenramm

Is it odd that I…don’t get a ton of new story ideas? Like, I definitely get ideas for one of my two current WIPs, but I can’t really remember the last time I had an idea that wasn’t applicable to either one or the other. My dear duology just takes up a lot of headspace, y’know?

When I get an idea for my WIP, though, lately my ideas have come either when:

1. I’m doing the dishes. (Not having a dishwasher gives one quite a bit of time to think, you see.)

2. I’m sitting in class. (Mainly music theory, which is why I keep a story-specific notebook in my backpack at all times)

3. I’m talking to my husband about an idea I had during items #1 or #2. (This is honestly where most of my ideas come from.)

Also, I know we’re talking about non-writing-related sources of inspiration, but playing video games/watching video games get played has honestly fueled my creativity so much. It’s nice to immerse one’s self in a storytelling medium that I’m not incredibly familiar with–like, when I read a book, I tend to find myself silently critiquing the syntax, voice, etc. But video games? I know extremely little about coding, so I can focus more on absorbing the story. 

“Seven seconds till the end. Time enough for you. Perhaps. But what will you do with it?”

[Kathleen]

@lewilliams

Although I only play video games once maybe twice a week I fully agree that they can be really great at sparking creativity. I was actually thinking of writing a story based on one of my favorite video games. The great thing about video game stories is that they’re usually never fully fleshed out or explored so there is a lot of unused potentials that you could take advantage of and expanded on in a novel.

Oh, and speaking of classes, that’s also something that inspires story ideas for me! But in a slightly different way. I really like just sitting back in classes and observing the students and how they interact. And from time to time there’s a person or two that makes me think “I should write a story with a character like that!” XD

Does your husband like to write stories too, or does he just like discussing them?

[Author]

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