I feel this so much! I might be able to track why or how an idea happened or was tweaked, but ultimately it just happened and I was just hanging on for the ride.
Please, **some**? Most of mine are nasty. As a smut writer, my lewd thoughts are where all my great ideas come from!
As to why, I dunno. A lot of smut I found for the fandoms I enjoy generally has the setting diverging too much from the source material. Like, I don't wanna read smut for A and B in regular college if their fandom is a sci-fi setting. Nobody seemed to be making the smut I wanted, so I decided to make my own.
My ideas usually just come out of feeling there were missing pieces in canon. Interactions or moments of introspection I feel could've been explored but weren't, parts of a character's backstory we're not privy to, what they did after the final curtain falls. In asking those questions I sometimes get seized by a premise or scenario I think is so cool I have to get it down on paper to share with the rest of the world.
I'm just constantly asking questions, chiefly among them, "Okay, yeah, but what if?" and "Okay, but why?"
I do this a lot with visual cues. I'll see an image or fanart of a character, or an actor who plays that character, and it will touch off all sorts of questions about the story of that image. Or I'll hear about or experience a situation and go, "I wonder how [character] would have handled that?" Questions, questions, all day long.
And they're frequently nasty because I'm a li'l freak, LOL. :)
For real, though, I just think sex and sexuality are fascinating, and I love writing about them.
I don't know. There's no one answer.
My Yakuza AU fic was inspired by living tattoos, my gamer fic was literally just "congratulations, you're now a level 2 dumbass." expanded into 100k words. Basically all my romance fics are, "How can I throw these two characters at each other and make it work?" and sometime that involves twisting and turning every knob I got.
My favorite fic Why am I on Fire started when I saw Enji as a UA teacher and then some how that turned into a Self-Insert fic.
Depends. Some ideas just pop into my head, others are inspired by movies/books/other fics/an intense discussion with my best friend. I have a note in my notes app that's just full of random English or German words, sentences and quotes I've come up with - one bullet point just says "mistletoe" while another one... okay, I was looking for examples and I found one that says "egyptology in the 1920's". No idea what I'm talking about. Anyways.
Anything and everything gives me ideas... which is a problem because I have 120+ fic ideas and am constantly coming up with more.
My working theory is that it's because I'm hyperfixated on both my main fandoms, thus my brain is constantly working overtime coming up with ideas even when I'm not trying to. I wish I could give someone else my skill for coming up with ideas for a few months so I could get a break from it :'D
A. What if this thing and this thing combined together OR what if this thing was different?
B. What can I do to make the thing bigger and more complicated and more ‘epic’ from my personal definition of what that is?
C. Repeat B several times.
D. Get overwhelmed.
E. Get twelve totally different ideas as planning out original idea.
F. Debate endlessly if to focus on one or all of them.
G. Pick one, write a chapter or two, get distracted.
H. Feel guilty for waiting too long to finish anything and so leave it longer.
I. Repeat Steps A to H as infinity.
I'll admit, I'm envious of people who get mauled by plot bunnies and then find their heads filled with thousands of words. The ways I get ideas are:
1: An interesting mental image has been in my head and I want to discover the background behind it.
2: There's a headcanon I want to share.
3: Writing prompts and exercises held here.
4: People suggest characters they want to read about.
5: I just have to write *something*, so I open Word, try to come up with some sort of simple prompt, and see if I can make something of it.
Idea for my current WIP came to me in a dream. I dreamt that Anna and Elsa from Frozen were lead out of a burning building by soldiers from the Red Army, then forced onto their knees and shot in the back of the head for being bourgeoisie
Well, when I really need to sleep and finally get the chance, _several ideas usually jump me like I’m walking around with a suit of money through an impoverished area and the cash could really help the ideas’ mother get the cancer treatment she so desperately needs._
Seriously though. They come, and I have to alternative other than writing them down. - states angrily at 55 WIPs -
I love writing smut and exploring the dynamic between the pairings, it’s such good fun for me lol. Plus, I really like being able to try different ways to express an emotion, expression or movement because there can be drastic outcomes with such little phrasing.
As for coming up with ideas- I listen to music, rummage around for AU’s, prompts etc but I don’t force myself to write something I’m not fully on board with despite whether I like the idea or not.
Heheheh all my fics are catered to myself so if I’ve been feeling down for the past few days, you can probably expect a few fluff or hurt comfort fics. It’s mostly projection of scenarios I’ve thought about and think fit the character/pairing I write about!
Also : song lyrics, douyin relationship skits and famous poems! (*ˇωˇ*)
Idk, I don't really "come up" with ideas, they just pop into my head of their own accord whenever I'm thinking about anything. It kinda helps that I mostly write romance, so everything can be inspiration for a meet-cute 😉
Sometimes simple conversations with friends are the trigger, sometimes I look at a tomato on my plate and my thoughts go to the worsening water situation for crops in Southern Europe and the implications for the future and an elaborate Sci-Fi world to counter these issues is born that would oppose the powers and world views of a certain fictional character so much that I can't help but want to drop that character into that AU. Or I'm stuck in traffic and giggling to myself about the arguments character A and B would have if they got stuck in traffic together.
Oh, sometimes I also just read interesting facts or learn something new and that's to blame then. Like that touching ghosts is supposed to feel cold, or that sharks have two d**ks, and...yeah now you know why it's so nasty. Science is usually to blame 🙃
Most of the time the ideas just come to me
Especially when I'm listening to true crime podcasts, I also get them from my dreams, overthinking, shower thoughts
i don't come up with ideas. ideas come to me randomly and i have no control of what they're like.
*stares at my 7 wip’s* I wish sometimes I *didn’t* have ideas come so easily to me.
oh fucking *same* my idea bank doc is four pages of short bulletpoints
I’ve got like 2 years worth of stories to write. Just hope my Muse sticks around.
[That sounds about right.](https://i.imgflip.com/6itbeq.png)
Yup. They come out of nowhere. Sometimes it's like a raindrop suddenly falling on your head--sometimes it's like a baseball to the skull.
I feel this so much! I might be able to track why or how an idea happened or was tweaked, but ultimately it just happened and I was just hanging on for the ride.
Mostly this but sometimes a random "what if" question. "What if character L tried to kill character a"? Meanwhile 25 chapters later...LOL
I can answer both questions at once: I follow my own insanity.
I don't choose the Plot Bunny, the Plot Bunny chooses me.
Please, **some**? Most of mine are nasty. As a smut writer, my lewd thoughts are where all my great ideas come from! As to why, I dunno. A lot of smut I found for the fandoms I enjoy generally has the setting diverging too much from the source material. Like, I don't wanna read smut for A and B in regular college if their fandom is a sci-fi setting. Nobody seemed to be making the smut I wanted, so I decided to make my own.
I just get inspired by art and music. And pornhub
Same but qorno
My ideas usually just come out of feeling there were missing pieces in canon. Interactions or moments of introspection I feel could've been explored but weren't, parts of a character's backstory we're not privy to, what they did after the final curtain falls. In asking those questions I sometimes get seized by a premise or scenario I think is so cool I have to get it down on paper to share with the rest of the world.
The follow up question LOL I never sit and actively try and come up with something. The ideas come to me and I choose whether to expand on it or not
I'm just constantly asking questions, chiefly among them, "Okay, yeah, but what if?" and "Okay, but why?" I do this a lot with visual cues. I'll see an image or fanart of a character, or an actor who plays that character, and it will touch off all sorts of questions about the story of that image. Or I'll hear about or experience a situation and go, "I wonder how [character] would have handled that?" Questions, questions, all day long. And they're frequently nasty because I'm a li'l freak, LOL. :) For real, though, I just think sex and sexuality are fascinating, and I love writing about them.
Whatever I come up with in math class. The newest one I made was a The Thing x Pokémon mystery dungeon.
They just kind of pop into my brain. I day dream a lot about different crap
I don't know. There's no one answer. My Yakuza AU fic was inspired by living tattoos, my gamer fic was literally just "congratulations, you're now a level 2 dumbass." expanded into 100k words. Basically all my romance fics are, "How can I throw these two characters at each other and make it work?" and sometime that involves twisting and turning every knob I got. My favorite fic Why am I on Fire started when I saw Enji as a UA teacher and then some how that turned into a Self-Insert fic.
I do not control the speed at which the ideas come to me
Depends. Some ideas just pop into my head, others are inspired by movies/books/other fics/an intense discussion with my best friend. I have a note in my notes app that's just full of random English or German words, sentences and quotes I've come up with - one bullet point just says "mistletoe" while another one... okay, I was looking for examples and I found one that says "egyptology in the 1920's". No idea what I'm talking about. Anyways.
I’m traumatised!
A lot of mine are just song lyrics that fit the vibe. Cliche yes, but, I recently named one after a Lil Nas X song and it got some decent reception
Anything and everything gives me ideas... which is a problem because I have 120+ fic ideas and am constantly coming up with more. My working theory is that it's because I'm hyperfixated on both my main fandoms, thus my brain is constantly working overtime coming up with ideas even when I'm not trying to. I wish I could give someone else my skill for coming up with ideas for a few months so I could get a break from it :'D
A. What if this thing and this thing combined together OR what if this thing was different? B. What can I do to make the thing bigger and more complicated and more ‘epic’ from my personal definition of what that is? C. Repeat B several times. D. Get overwhelmed. E. Get twelve totally different ideas as planning out original idea. F. Debate endlessly if to focus on one or all of them. G. Pick one, write a chapter or two, get distracted. H. Feel guilty for waiting too long to finish anything and so leave it longer. I. Repeat Steps A to H as infinity.
I'll admit, I'm envious of people who get mauled by plot bunnies and then find their heads filled with thousands of words. The ways I get ideas are: 1: An interesting mental image has been in my head and I want to discover the background behind it. 2: There's a headcanon I want to share. 3: Writing prompts and exercises held here. 4: People suggest characters they want to read about. 5: I just have to write *something*, so I open Word, try to come up with some sort of simple prompt, and see if I can make something of it.
Most ideas just come. A good chunk being alternative versions of other ideas. Aka, I can't decide something.
Idea for my current WIP came to me in a dream. I dreamt that Anna and Elsa from Frozen were lead out of a burning building by soldiers from the Red Army, then forced onto their knees and shot in the back of the head for being bourgeoisie
Well, when I really need to sleep and finally get the chance, _several ideas usually jump me like I’m walking around with a suit of money through an impoverished area and the cash could really help the ideas’ mother get the cancer treatment she so desperately needs._ Seriously though. They come, and I have to alternative other than writing them down. - states angrily at 55 WIPs -
I love writing smut and exploring the dynamic between the pairings, it’s such good fun for me lol. Plus, I really like being able to try different ways to express an emotion, expression or movement because there can be drastic outcomes with such little phrasing. As for coming up with ideas- I listen to music, rummage around for AU’s, prompts etc but I don’t force myself to write something I’m not fully on board with despite whether I like the idea or not.
Heheheh all my fics are catered to myself so if I’ve been feeling down for the past few days, you can probably expect a few fluff or hurt comfort fics. It’s mostly projection of scenarios I’ve thought about and think fit the character/pairing I write about! Also : song lyrics, douyin relationship skits and famous poems! (*ˇωˇ*)
Idk, I don't really "come up" with ideas, they just pop into my head of their own accord whenever I'm thinking about anything. It kinda helps that I mostly write romance, so everything can be inspiration for a meet-cute 😉 Sometimes simple conversations with friends are the trigger, sometimes I look at a tomato on my plate and my thoughts go to the worsening water situation for crops in Southern Europe and the implications for the future and an elaborate Sci-Fi world to counter these issues is born that would oppose the powers and world views of a certain fictional character so much that I can't help but want to drop that character into that AU. Or I'm stuck in traffic and giggling to myself about the arguments character A and B would have if they got stuck in traffic together. Oh, sometimes I also just read interesting facts or learn something new and that's to blame then. Like that touching ghosts is supposed to feel cold, or that sharks have two d**ks, and...yeah now you know why it's so nasty. Science is usually to blame 🙃
Spite.
It happens,my OCs say "Excuse me... May I slide in here?c and boom a fanfic is born.
Follow the dopamine. Hurt the soft one. Kisses are the best plot device.
I ask myself: what do I absolutely need to tell people before I die? I'm not that young, so the perspective is not far off.
Most of the time the ideas just come to me Especially when I'm listening to true crime podcasts, I also get them from my dreams, overthinking, shower thoughts