Launch Date Announced 🚀 The brand-new GoComics will be unveiled April 1! (No fooling). See more information here. Subscribers, check your
email for more details.
About half a century ago, I read a column by science fiction writer David Gerrold, which told of a similar situation: a woman at a science fiction convention asked him where SF writers get their crazy ideas. He knew from the question she wasn’t a serious fan, so he told her ideas came from the Great Science Fiction Idea Book (or something like that). He elaborated on this “explanation” by making up details of how the process worked, including giving at least one fanciful example of a famous book and the real writers who attempted to write it before one of them finally succeeded — all in the name of adding authenticity to his tale. He wrote that he wasn’t really trying to con his questioner, he was actually trying to show her how story ideas are developed.
Always knew that my distant memory of reading that column would come in handy one day.
There are those who ask me, “Where do you get your ideas?” Of all the silly questions asked of writers, that one, surely, is the silliest. It presupposes there is a place or a method by which dreams become actualities on paper. No. There is no such place (though I usually respond with the spine-straightener that I get my stories from an idea service in Poughkeepsie, New York… $25 a week and they send me a fresh six-pack of ideas fifty-two times a year) – Harlan Ellison.
tudza Premium Member 5 days ago
Thought you all were members of a subscription joke service.
Comics fan Premium Member 4 days ago
And I thought you pulled them from another place.
ncrist 4 days ago
ouch!
julie.mason1 Premium Member 4 days ago
And here, I had thought that you just fished around for a line to hook us with.
rockyridge1977 4 days ago
………just fish thru the comments………you will get a whopper!!!!
The Brooklyn Accent Premium Member 4 days ago
The late Harlan Ellison, when asked where he got his ideas, would often answer, “From a warehouse in Schenectady.”
paullp Premium Member 4 days ago
About half a century ago, I read a column by science fiction writer David Gerrold, which told of a similar situation: a woman at a science fiction convention asked him where SF writers get their crazy ideas. He knew from the question she wasn’t a serious fan, so he told her ideas came from the Great Science Fiction Idea Book (or something like that). He elaborated on this “explanation” by making up details of how the process worked, including giving at least one fanciful example of a famous book and the real writers who attempted to write it before one of them finally succeeded — all in the name of adding authenticity to his tale. He wrote that he wasn’t really trying to con his questioner, he was actually trying to show her how story ideas are developed.
Always knew that my distant memory of reading that column would come in handy one day.
eddi-TBH 4 days ago
There are those who ask me, “Where do you get your ideas?” Of all the silly questions asked of writers, that one, surely, is the silliest. It presupposes there is a place or a method by which dreams become actualities on paper. No. There is no such place (though I usually respond with the spine-straightener that I get my stories from an idea service in Poughkeepsie, New York… $25 a week and they send me a fresh six-pack of ideas fifty-two times a year) – Harlan Ellison.