J.G. Ballard on the Notes Before the Outline

"[Before the synopsis,] I talk over ideas to myself on the machine,... type out little ideas, let my mind wander. [N]otes [cover] everything from the main themes to the details of the setting, the principal characters, etcetera, all of which I’ve daily speculated upon in the months before I begin."

-- J.G. Ballard in the Paris Review interview 

Ray Bradbury on Story Ideas

"[I]n the old days I knew I had to dredge my subconscious, and the nouns did this.... [Make] lists of nouns and [ask], What does each noun mean? .... Then, when you get the list down, you begin to word-associate around it. You ask, Why did I put this word down? What does it mean to me? Why did I put this noun down and not some other word? Do this and you’re on your way to being a good writer.... Make a list of ten things you hate and tear them down in a short story or poem. Make a list of ten things you love and celebrate them. 

"[E]xamine [the] nouns.... [B]ring some characters on to talk about that noun and that place, and all of a sudden I had a story going. I used to do the same thing with photographs that I’d rip out of glossy magazines. I’d take the photographs and I’d write little prose poems about them."

-- Ray Bradbury from a Paris Review interview 

Orson Scott Card on ideas

"[N]othing is sillier than a story that provokes only one response from society."

--Orson Scott Card, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy  

 Note:  I've never read a better book on generating ideas and turning them into stories.  This needs an ebook edition.

Orson Scott Card on ideas

"[In] stories that are any good at all, ... [e]very event has more than one cause and more than one result."

--Orson Scott Card, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy  

 Note:  I've never read a better book on generating ideas and turning them into stories.  This needs an ebook edition.

Orson Scott Card on ideas

"[T]he idea net consists of three questions: 'Why?' 'How?' and 'What result?' "

--Orson Scott Card, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy  

 Note:  I've never read a better book on generating ideas and turning them into stories.  This needs an ebook edition.

Orson Scott Card on ideas

"[O]utlines and sketches, maps and histories, jotted scenes and scraps of dialogue [are] the writer's equivalent of what a composer does when he plinks out a new theme on the piano, just to hear it.  He doesn't immediately score and orchestrate the theme.  First, he has to play it over and over, varying it, changing rhythms, pitches, key, imagining different harmonies and countermelodies.  By the time the composer... arrange[s] and orchestrate[s] the piece, the theme will have been transformed many times over."

--Orson Scott Card, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy 

Note:  I've never read a better book on generating ideas and turning them into stories.  This needs an ebook edition.

Orson Scott Card on ideas

"[T]hink of everything as a potential story."

--Orson Scott Card, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy 

Note:  I've never read a better book on generating ideas and turning them into stories.  This needs an ebook edition.

Orson Scott Card on ideas

"[H]elp an idea ripen... [by] writing a draft."

--Orson Scott Card, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy 

Note:  I've never read a better book on generating ideas and turning them into stories.  This needs an ebook edition.

Orson Scott Card on ideas

"[H]elp an idea ripen... [by] writing a draft."

--Orson Scott Card, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy 

Note:  I've never read a better book on generating ideas and turning them into stories.  This needs an ebook edition.

Orson Scott Card on ideas

"[H]elp an idea ripen... [by] writing a draft."

--Orson Scott Card, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy 

Note:  I've never read a better book on generating ideas and turning them into stories.  This needs an ebook edition.

Orson Scott Card on ideas

"[G]ood stories don't come from trying to write a story the moment I think of the first idea... [rather] from combining two completely unrelated ideas that have been following their own tracks through my imagination."

--Orson Scott Card, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy 

Note:  I've never read a better book on generating ideas and turning them into stories.  This needs an ebook edition.

Orson Scott Card on ideas

"[I]mpromptu additions would not have been possible had I not laid down many strata of creation before I started that draft."

--Orson Scott Card, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy 

Note:  I've never read a better book on generating ideas and turning them into stories.  This needs an ebook edition.

Orson Scott Card on ideas

"There have to be strict limits on magic... [A] price has to be paid for every... magical power."

--Orson Scott Card, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy 

Note:  I've never read a better book on generating ideas and turning them into stories.  This needs an ebook edition.

Orson Scott Card on ideas

"[SF] and fantasy ideas are ridiculously easy to come up with.  [Ask] questions."

--Orson Scott Card, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy 

Note:  I've never read a better book on generating ideas and turning them into stories.  This needs an ebook edition.

Orson Scott Card on ideas

"[I]magine what could be worse.  Not more life-threatening--simply worse to see.  Worse to live through."

--Orson Scott Card, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy 

Note:  I've never read a better book on generating ideas and turning them into stories.  This needs an ebook edition.

Orson Scott Card on ideas

"[T]hink of a reason why the [unplanned] mistake isn't a mistake at all."

--Orson Scott Card, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy 

Note:  I've never read a better book on generating ideas and turning them into stories.  This needs an ebook edition.

Orson Scott Card on ideas

"[M]aking by maps of imaginary lands is a kind of story telling."

--Orson Scott Card, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy 

Note:  I've never read a better book on generating ideas and turning them into stories.  This needs an ebook edition.

Guy Davenport on the pleasure of and ideas for writing

DAVENPORT: As long as you have ideas you can keep going. That's why writing fiction is so much fun, because you're moving people about, and making settings for them to move in, so there's always something there to keep working on..

--Guy Davenport, The Art of Fiction No. 174, Paris Review

The Science behind G. David Nordley's new novel

A Place Where Science and Science Fiction Can Be of One Mind (Neal Stephenson & Arizona State)

Pamela Sargent interviewed by Heroines of Fantasy

The Trouble with Intentions in Writing:  "don’t assume that the literal meaning of a sentence is the least important one. It’s the only important one. Without the accuracy of being literal, there’s nothing to build on."

30 Indispensable Writing Tips From Famous Authors

Charlie Jane Anders' "10 Tips for Generating Killer Science Fiction Story Ideas"

"How to Write" By COLSON WHITEHEAD