Where Do Writers Get Their Ideas?
Let’s address the question every writer has heard approximately 73 billion times:
“Where do you get your ideas?”
Ah, yes. The question whispered in libraries, asked at cocktail parties, and screamed into the void by aspiring novelists downing their 12th cup of coffee. When I posed this question to an AI assistant, they replied with the first two, after which my wheels started turning and I came up with the rest. And I admit, numbers 4 and 5 are probably my most commonly used. Though I do like The Idea Fairy. Wish she’d pay me a visit.
1. The Idea Fairy (Local 527, Writers’ Union)
Contrary to popular belief, ideas are not generated internally. They are delivered at 3 a.m. by a tiny winged goblin-fairy hybrid who smells faintly of burnt toast and regret. She arrives unannounced, usually just after you’ve drifted off to sleep or stepped into a hot shower. She whispers something like, “What if dogs could do taxes?” and then vanishes into the steam, leaving you to wonder if you’re a genius or just deeply unwell.
2. Petty Revenge
Oh, this is a big one. That one guy from high school? He’s now the villain in your sci-fi trilogy, thinly veiled as “Morgax the Betrayer.” Your college roommate who always ate your leftovers? Let’s just say there’s a suspiciously familiar character who meets an unfortunate end via sentient raccoons. Writers never forget. They just fictionalize.
3. Panic. Sweet, Glorious Panic.
Nothing fuels creativity like a deadline shaped like a flaming boulder rolling toward your fragile sense of competence. The brain, under pressure, suddenly unlocks ideas like:
- “What if a haunted toaster was actually the key to world peace?”
- “Could this essay on corporate mergers be a metaphor for my fear of commitment?”
- “Is it plagiarism if I quote myself from a dream?”
Honestly, no idea is too wild when you’ve set completely unrealistic goals for yourself.
4. Eavesdropping and Urban Loitering
This has always been one of my favorite places to get ideas. You may think we’re just people-watching at airport while waiting on that delayed flight to finally start boarding. Or at the café, sipping overpriced lattes with a faraway look. But we’re actually harvesting. Every half-heard breakup, weird phone call, or toddler yelling about banana conspiracies gets filed away for later. It’s not creepy if it’s for art, right?
5. Stolen From Dreams, Misremembered Badly, Or Unable To Read What It Was I Wrote Down
Dreams are a treasure trove of surreal nonsense. Every writer has woken up at 2 a.m., scribbled “lizard lawyer fights moon crime” into a notebook, and been convinced they’ve created the next Dune. Spoiler: by morning, it’s mostly illegible and also… makes no sense. But that won’t stop us from trying to reverse-engineer it into a novel anyway.
So hopefully this gives you a glimpse of where writers get their ideas. Everywhere. Nowhere. Deep within their tortured souls. And also probably from the back of cereal boxes. The truth is, ideas are like cats—elusive, independent, and occasionally knocking over the good china just because they can.
So the next time you meet a writer, don’t ask, “Where do you get your ideas?”
Ask instead, “How many alpacas are too many for a romantic comedy?”
They’ll thank you. Probably. Unless they steal that and write it before you do.
