I have a ritual where I go with my laptop to a Starbucks, order a White Moka, large and just enjoy the sounds around me. That kicks my process into screenwriting. But until now, I discovered that going outside town and camping helps me generate new ideas. I hated each moment of it but my wife was happy. And I got new future ideas! So my question is, what is your process for new idea acquisitions?
Screenwriting : What's your new idea process? by Julio Torres
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Usually I read something in the news that pisses me off. Good ol' reliable news!
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I have a few tools.
1) I look at traditional genres and then do the opposite of the main elements. So if we look at magic fantasy movies. And we say magical folk are weak and hunted. What does that give us? In what world that happen?
2) Start with a moral question. What would need to happen for a woman to send her daughter away and never see her again?
3) What happened in history that would be interesting to see from another person’s POV.
From that I use all my other tools to generate plot. world and character.
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I've had a couple ideas come by way of dreams. Strangely real dreams that were complete from start to finish. Those were fun!
Other than that, events in my life inspire me. Sometimes just watching a really bad movie helps kick start ideas too ;)
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I don't have a specific process to be honest. Depends mostly, I guess, on my mood. Sometimes ideas come to me in unexpected ways. Sometimes I just open Scrivener and a new project and start writing first things that cross my mind (I'm writing mostly fiction so could be different a bit). Usually I have images in my mind and simply follow them. I am struggling with the outline, that usually comes at the end, after exploring ideas and having a story in a global view. Probably I'm still searching for the right process.
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I just think of images that would cool to film and make-up a story around that
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I'm recommenting because I misunderstood your post, Julio Torres. Sometimes I get ideas from photos. Sometimes I open the laptop and just type out loglines until I come up with an exciting, marketable idea. I also think "what if?" (what if "The Truman Show" focused on a group of people instead of just one man?).
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Detouring with my friend off hiking into dangerously vertical strip - birth of "Trinity"
Witnessing a casualty outcome car accident - birth of "Elevation 404"
Another car accident + more dead guys - birth of "Dead Guy"
Highschool bullying + interest of afterlife - birth of "Limb"
etc...etc..etc...it's just happening...some of it filmable with little dramatization...
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Thank you so much for your answers! :D So many ways to create new ideas, I loved it :)
magic mushrooms would be the best. a microdose and a white board and some background music for whatever theme youre writing about.
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Julio, great question!
Some of the scripts I've written got their impetus from personal experiences. For example, "Intervention!" stemmed from thinking about all the racist slights I've faced in my life. On the other side of the coin, my experiences as a competitor in an old-time piano playing contest (I was at it from 1993 to 2015) formed the basis for "Really Old School."
I enjoy building screenplays around different forms of music (I like almost all kinds of music)...and that's why "Andrea," "Jingle Belles," "Golden Oldies," and "Rivertown Rock!" deal with rock music. "Really Old School" and "Thumpers" are all about ragtime; "Bleeding Gums" deals with jazz; "Gayle Strawberry and Her Soda Pop Music Makers" and "Yes, Indeed!" are tributes to the big band sound; "Fine Tooth Comb" focuses on Dixieland; and "The Nutcrackers" centers on blues.
And I love writing spoofs...and that's the reason for the gangster spoof "Got Any More Bullets, Sister?" "Cynthia Harmon" is my "Cinderella" knockoff; "Tin Mine" was written to send up 1930s Hollywood musicals, while seeing "Blazing Saddles" got me to cook up my own comedy-Western, "Kitten on the Keys."
Lately, I've been interested in pulling a gender switch on 1989's "The Fabulous Baker Boys," and I'm about to develop plot points for my own version...and I'm about to write an "Animal House" sendup that switches genders, too.
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Honestly, I think most of my inspiration comes from my hobbies—particularly gaming. There are so many varied experiences in that hobby alone that it just gets my brain thinking about world-building, characters, and situations in which to put them. Both of my finished scripts were actually inspired in part by the Victorian action-horror classic Bloodborne.