To one of the six horrible questions writers get asked.
One of the six horrible questions writers get asked is “Where do you get your ideas?”
My answer, lately, tends to be “I don’t have any ideas,” but I suspect the proper answer for most of us is “god only knows.”
But here’s a thing that could generate ideas. I haven’t used it. I don’t know if the ideas are good ones. But I figure anything that generates some ideas could lead to more ideas, so it’s probably worth a look.
In fact, it’s not just one idea generator, it’s a couple dozen. (Or several. I didn’t actually count.)
You should check it out.
I suppose there may be some of you out there all worried that using an idea generator leads to a lack of originality.
Maybe.
But remember when we were discussing the One Plot?
You can’t have an original idea.
But you can execute an idea with originality.
What is Pygmalion and My Fair Lady but a recycling of an idea? That one’s easy, right? But here’s one you may not have considered. Isn’t The Karate Kid a Pygmalion story? Dirty Dancing? You probably didn’t think “Just you wait, ‘enry ‘iggins, just you wait” had anything in common with “Nobody puts Baby in a corner,” but it does. Is drilling “the rain in Spain” really so far afield from “wax on, wax off?”
The movie Dave is The Prisoner of Zenda.
There are no new ideas. We all have to do the best we can with the old ones.
So, if you can find a tool that suggests some possibilities to you, I say use it. Idea generators are launching pads. Diving boards. The struck match just before it lights the fuse.
Dynamite not included.
