Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Where do I get my ideas from?

This is a question oft asked of fiction writers. We love them because we can express the depth of our souls, the dark places we journey to to find that gem of an idea that at once spins a great yarn and expresses our loathing of some aspect of reality (or society, art, politcs: pick one).

Well, actually, this is all crap. We use a chart. This has been a craft secret for many centuries until some jerk over at Wondermark spilled the beans and went all Penn and Teller on our artform.

Full disclosure: here is how we come up with all our ideas. Yeah, that goes for all of us, even the ones who don't like to call themselves "Sci-fi" (I'm looking at you, Margaret Atwood and Kurt Vonnegut).




Well, since that ship has sailed, I guess I should start writing literary fiction instead. There has to be a chart about that here somewhere...