Inspiration?

[channelzi]

This is really more of a question than a fic...so chuck the thread over somewhere else if it's out of place, Til. Please.

I had been throwing a rough idea around for a Zoids story for a few weeks. I had the basic framework and some general background things/events to help shape the overall picture...but nothing had been coming together in terms of characters or more specific details.

Anyway, I was mulling it a bit and threw in a CD I hadn't listened to in a while. The lead song kicked in...a song I'm very familiar with, and have heard quite a bit...and then...BAM! There were my main characters, there was my detail...and all the specifics started flowing. Gushing. From one fraggin' song I had heard umpteen times before.

So while I'm still trying to reign in the flood of ideas that this song apparently unlocked for me, I also began wondering...where do other Zoider fanficcers find inspiration? Music? Movies? Books? Anime? Manga? Life experiences? Do you plan broadly over time or do you wait for the lightining bolt to hit? What kicks your creativity into overdrive and moves you to start fleshing out the Zoidiness in your brain?

[Tilly]

Plotbunnies that ambush without mercy. It just...comes, from my mind getting rather in to the characters and wanting to fill in the gaps, the what-ifs. I've dreamt as characters wanting stories told before, though not for fanfiction. I write by getting into heads, thinking as characters or otherwise annoying them.

Music can be a hell of a motivator, though...I get songs glomming onto ideas, characters, what have you. Sometimes in ferociously inappropriate ways. (Thanks a lot, Doctor Who finale!)

[Zoidmagnite]

I think the desire to be an author is the desire to question the world around you. It is the infamous 'what if' that drives my inspiration to write.

The hardest thing to learn as a writer is the difference between writing for you and writing for them.

That is the riddle of writing.

--And everything that Tilly said. Well, I don't know about plot bunnies, but I can relate.

If you are truly a writer then you will be driven to write.

Now where's my Dibison....

[Lionel]

For me, my first inspiration came from the backs of the boxes of the OER Zoids. I managed to create a story with them. After, for the rest, it came like that.

For other stories (non-Zoids), it depends. The inspiration can come from a lot of things. In the begining, I was doing crossover between several animes. After, I did original stories.

Oftenly, I have a specific idea, a scene that I want to do, and I need to find a story to put around. My main inspiration for characters are all my pupils. I have plenty of choice.


Lionel

[rantinan]

my inspiration is usual some nice loud music (metal or industrial, band like fear factory,. ramstien or immortal are good choices) plus some particularly sadistic thing i want to do to my characters.
As for characters, that depends. I admit that i shamesly put a "perpetual looser" into everthing i write on the gourns of its easier to make jokes that way

[Lionel]

Something very useful for inspiration : a dream. I made a lot of stories, and very big and elaborate ones that began with a single dream.


Lionel