Fiction Inspiration from Nonfiction Sources

It's interesting to see where story ideas come from. I can't tell you what spurred the inspiration for the book I'm writing. It just suddenly hit me, and there you go.

While writing this book over the last year and a half, I have figured out ideas for three completely different books as well as a huge mess of half-ideas and notions.

The first book I figured out as being something to write down the road (when this book is done, assuming it wins over the other two book ideas plus however many others spring up during the writing process) came to me when I was watching "That 70's Show". Just a conversation they were having about whether Samantha from "Bewitched" was better than the genie from a different show whose name is eluding me. And suddenly, there was a book idea. Yes, there is a genie in it, but it is far from the nature of their discussion on that show. And now, I have almost the entire book outlined. All from watching "That 70's Show."

I am a fantasy/science fiction writer. Mainly fantasy, but one of those book ideas is a science fiction novel. Or will be some day. And while I do get book ideas out of the blue and from television shows, I get an incredible amount of the random book notions from non-fiction.

I love watching Nova documentaries. I do enjoy documentaries in general, but Nova makes just exceptional ones. There are certainly topics I have zero interest in. My DVR records Novas off PBS, and there will be a few in a row that just get deleted because I simply do not find the topics compelling. But there are so many that I absolutely adore.

And I will watch it and suddenly, I will get a wave of genius. I have to use some piece of information in a book in some way, some day. So I quickly write it down, and accept that some day I will have to actually buy the documentary so I can rewatch it over and over when I weave that little glimmer of inspiration into a book.

I recently subscribed to the "National Geographic" magazine. I have received three of them so far, and haven't had the time to finish even one, but I have torn out (carefully) two or three articles that I feel can inspire future books. I really enjoy having the physical articles to file away for future use. It seems a lot easier than having to look up a documentary, and when I do weave it into a story, I can tape it up on my office wall and be able to glance at it as I write.

I love looking at the real world and seeing the fictional stories come to life. It's amazing that I spent so many years of my life blind to those stories, and now they are everywhere!