Every writer dreads that question, because we know that if someone had to ask it, they don’t get the way a writer’s mind works. Our problem is never ideas – but the writing. We trip over ideas all the time.
To explain. These are more photos taken around Esperance, Western Australia. Lucky Bay to be exact.
I was walking down the steps in the first picture when I looked to my left – and snapped picture 2 as a result. Look closely. What can you see? Anything that suggests an idea for a book? Yes, they are just rocks, but…
Look a bit closer. And if there’s not a rock there that doesn’t give you an idea or two, believe me, you are not a fantasy writer!!
It’s like a stone person hugging a small stone person.
I also see a robed/hooded figure hugging a smaller figure, similarly clothed. I initially thought of a mother shielding her child, perhaps as disaster overcame them, catching them out of time. It reminds me of the casts taken of people caught at Pompei.
Perhaps I can shuck off my overly-literal programmer mindset after all… 🙂
Oh yes! That is really cool. There’s a whole civilisation in those last two photos.
It’s actually a local wombat standing on its hind legs in order to lick the salt deposits off the rock.*g*
I strongly agree, Glenda! I am, well, very much a beginner writer compared to you (love the Mirage Makers btw, totally unique ideas!), but I am always getting ideas – just the other day I saw a flock of beautiful birds fly overhead whilst I was taking a walk through the forest and, just like that, I had three different ideas (one for a character, one for a world and one for a plot twist). The harder part is putting it all together to make a cohesive world and a cohesive plot!
The writers here are the ones who who look beyond the interesting shape to the story…
I see a dwarf/ewok type character with a sack, beachcombing. His hooded cloak indicates that he has a reason to keep his face hidden. The squarish shapes in the bag suggest that what he is obtaining is man made – is he a wrecker, perhaps?
And my mind is off and running.
Thanks, Elliott. We all begin somewhere. Come to think of it, I spent more years beginning than I have published! I think I am the poster child for a writer who refused to give up and got there in the end.
Again, Glenda, I would agree with you. When I am taking a walk, whether it be through the woods or across a beach, I may see something – a rock, as you suggested, or a fallen tree, or anything natural, and I may see a shape or feature in it, and let my imagination wander (like the stone ewok) and wonder why is he/she/it/they like that, what are they doing? . And, just like that, and idea or – if I’m lucky – a whole story will begin to form in the back of my mind…