[kalliope]

hello, I'm Kalliope

I'm not new on this site but it is my fist time on forum ( I 'm a little bit shy and my english isn't so good )

I've read a lot of very well written fanfictions on this site and sometimes I wonder where do you find so good ideas for your story?

[BittenBuggy]

Hi Kalliope! Wonderful to see you on the boards.

Ideas for fanfiction? Mine come mostly from life-expierience. A good example is my fic "Husbandly Sacrifices" where truly, I have a horried flower-obsession that drives my hubby up the wall. Many of the things in my fic have been said in real-life arguments. To me, reality is funnier than anything someone can come up with.

Also, the challenges are an excellent booster... And we've got some lovely, talented ladies that run them.

Other than that, I don't really find inspiriation anywhere else

Wait, thats not true... Sometimes I read someone elses fic and think, oh! what a wonderful idea! And I mull over it for a month, thinking about how I could make it better, or combine it with something else I read. When it comes out, it is nothing like what I started with, it just gives me a little jump-start.

Hope that helps!!

[Hathor]

Sometimes, I just have maybe one or two lines in my head. And I sit down, I write them, and I see what happens. I haven't written like that for a while though - no time!

Challenges are great too!

Sometimes, a line or an action can make me write a story to fit. I do this a lot when I write Stargate: SG-1 fanfiction, and it's a method that works well with most episodic televison, actually.

I love writing something from the oposite angle. For example: how did the 'abandoned' people in Dunharrow feel when Eowyn left? That fascinates me.

And sometimes I wakeup with an idea, or sometimes I even have fanfiction dreams. Once, I woke up and felt really irritated because I'd dreamed up a really bad, OOC Harry Potter fanfic. Gah, I'm so geeky it's scary...

Good to see you here! Anyone else? I'm curious to see how other people write their stuff...

[Panneth]

My current Leggy-fic just started out of simple curiosity. There's not much written about him and so I decided to give it ago and see what I came up with. Actually the place the main story line came to me was when I was on the loo, but I tend to do most of my really good thinking before bed at night. I have to write it all down though because otherwise I go to sleep and forget it in the morning. It's so frustrating knowing I had a good idea and my sleepy brain lost it!

Welcome to the forum kalliope!

[Moralanqua]

Welcome!!

90% of everything i write comes from dreams.

[sindohte]

It sounds like my source for finding ideas is pretty similar to Hathor and Mora. When I am in the fanfic writing groove, I wake up in the morning with a scene planned out in my head and the dialogue all figured out. It is then just a matter of transferring it to the computer. But my writing is usually built around "hearing" one of my characters saying a line of dialogue and then just seeing where things progress from there.

[Panneth]

Ok I'm the weird one then...

I have another question, though possibly we've done it before. Do you think you have been influenced by other writers (except Tolkien) in the fanfic you write?

I've found I've borrowed quite a bit from the Jane Austen sort of era, so I find my characters expressing themselves in certain ways that I've probably read in P&P or Emma or one of the many others. However I think my societly structure is a bit more liberal than those days - I trust my male elves to behave themselves!

I've also got into habit of writing in really chatty ways in my non-formal stuff. So I guess that'll be down to the hideous amount of bad chick-lit I've worked my way through

[Haleth]

deleted

[sindohte]

[Viv]

[SilverMoonLady]

Welcome to the forum!

Most of my own ideas come from one phrase or image/action that gets stuck in my head, and then the scene starts to grow up around it. I end up with a lot of pages of stuff that doesn't fit into what I've already got started, but sometimes it spins off a whole new plotline...
Fanfic influenced me a lot, and inspired me to go ahead with ideas I'd dismissed before.
There are too many books in my head right now to pick just one author, although the guy who wrote "Sailing To Sarantium" is sticking with me style-wise right now.

[Ellbee]

Gah! I used to get ideas. I got them in my car a lot, if I remember correctly. If anyone sees my ideas, tell them to come on home, please.

-Ell

[JennnLee]

Oh, Ell, you have plenty of ideas. They're just all smutty.

As for me, I tend to be a "what if?" writer. As in, I either see a glaring plothole that needs to be explained (i.e. the stories I wrote in the Mummy fandom) or I find myself interested in a character and wonder "what if such and such happened...?" Like when Ell and I were talking about writing a quick little smutty story because we wanted to shag Legolas, we were batting ideas back and forth for the OFC, and I (I think it was me) wondered about reincarnation, and what if the OFC was a reincarnation of someone from Legolas' past... That idea grew, and our quick little "shag Legolas" story became "Eternally," where it took them three (four?) chapters to kiss, and six to get into bed.

And as far as my ideas themselves, I think of my brain as a rock tumbler. You know, those things where you put the rough stones and the grit and they come out all shiny? I start out with really lame ideas and stoopid Mary Sues, and let them tumble a while. Slowly, the idea becomes refined, the Sue becomes less Sueish, and after I've gone over it a few more times it's ready to go down on paper.

And I get ideas when driving, when in the shower, and when I'm in the middle of preparing a very important motion to file with the court and I have one of my bosses jumping up and down beside my desk and I have no time to write it down. Then when I have the time the idea is gone. Typical.

[Kalythianna]

I think I get some of my ideas from reading (either, fanfiction or novels). But I mostly get plot bunnies from doing research, for example: I love the Rohirrim and have done major (for me) research on them. Just reading about a person, battle or event can get the ideas flowing. Thats how I came up with ideas for the story I'm writing now.

Reading the appendices of LOTR is also a great way to get ideas.

There are so many stories that Tolkien hasn't told to there fullest. I'm really iching to write a story about Mithrellas and Imrazôr... Tolkien tells us hardly anything about them. Why did Mithrellas (an elf) marry Imrazôr (a mortal)? What would life be like for her after she left Dol Amroth? Did she travel to Valinor or did she return to her people in Lothlorien?

[Thuriniel]

Sometimes dreams (like Mora), sometimes asking myself "what if?" (like JennnLee), sometimes just my wild imagination. I know my fic was born out of the desire to see more female contribution in the Fellowship and of seeing Legolas as companion to a female ... not just Gimli (the appendix with Legolas and Gimli leaving West together was devastating for me! -- call me a silly fangirl, but it was!).

As far as authors that might have influenced me ... Anne Rice, that's the one I can think of right now. A lot of reviewers have asked me if I'm a fan of "Mists of Avalon." Apparently my fic has much in common with that book. But I haven't read it! All I know about "Mists of Avalon" is that I saw the movie and the only thing I remember about the movie was Guinevere getting in bed with Arthur and Lancelot. That was ... interesting .