HOW DO YOU GET NEW IDEAS?

DID YOU EVER WONDER WHERE PEOPLE 

GET NEW IDEAS?

In 1959, the fabled sci-fi author, Isaac Asimov (I, ROBOT, FANTASTIC VOYAGE) was asked to work for the government.

He had to decline since any access to secret info would limit his freedom of expression in his writing.

But he wrote an essay on where new ideas came from to help those in the Think Tank he was saying NO to.

It has just now been released:
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/531911/isaac-asimov-mulls-how-do-people-get-new-ideas/


It is a hard topic since even those generators of new ideas rarely know where they came from.

He looked at Darwin and Alfred Wallace (did you know he simultaneously thought of Evolution along with old Charles?)

Both traveled to far places, observing strange species of plants and animals and the manner in which they varied from place to place.

Both were keenly interested in finding an explanation for this,

and both failed until each happened to read Malthus’s “Essay on Population.”

So what is needed is not only people with a good background in a particular field,

but also people capable of making a connection between item 1 and item 2 which might not ordinarily seem connected.

 Thomas H. Huxley is supposed to have exclaimed after reading On the Origin of Species:

“How stupid of me not to have thought of this.”

But why didn't he think of it?
 

 It is only afterward that a new idea seems reasonable. To begin with, it usually seems unreasonable.

 A person willing to fly in the face of reason, authority, and common sense must be a person of considerable self-assurance.

Since he occurs only rarely, he must seem eccentric (in at least that respect) to the rest of us.

A person eccentric in one respect is often eccentric in others.

And creation always occurs in isolation since when alone one dares to imagine the impossible.

(Oscar Wilde expressed that viewpoint -- which I had him do again in my DEATH IN THE HOUSE OF LIFE.)

 The creative person is, in any case, continually working at it.

His mind is shuffling his information at all times, even when he is not conscious of it.

The famous example of Kekule working out the structure of benzene in his sleep is well-known.  

(At least it was to a genius like Isaac Asimov!)

For a work to be truly creative, it has to depart from the status quo at some point. 

That departure makes many people uncomfortable.

 Bias is present in most people during periods of uncertainty -- 

which explains why society has a history of rejecting its greatest innovations --

And why at this very unstable time in the world, NOW would be a very bad time to be innovative!

OH, YOU THOUGHT I WOULD TELL WHERE TO GET STORY IDEAS!

1) TURN THE ORDINARY INTO THE EXTRAORDINARY:

You know those cute little girls selling their lemonade?  

What if their father spiked that lemonade with a designer bug ... one to which he alone had the cure?


2.) NO PEOPLE ARE LITTLE - JUST THE MINDS OBSERVING THEM:

Ever think of all the mini-slices of life your local mail deliverer sees?  Day by day, week by week, month by month.

What if he were a closet blackmailer?  

A timid soul longing to be a vigilante?  

A bit of healing in a cold world, leaving money, dolls, or clothes where they were badly needed.


3.) MIND {and MINE} YOUR SURROUNDINGS:

Stuck at a dull lecture or civic function?  

Try to imagine the wildest curve that could be thrown to this pompous occasion and write a short story of it.

Observe keenly all the interactions around you no matter if you are eating out, or at the mall, or in the doctor's office.


4.) SEE THE BRUISED HEART BENEATH THE ODDBALL:

While waiting at a distant city's gas station and Quick Shop, I saw a homeless man, wearing a long brown blanket as if it were a cape. 

He walked across the busy interstate, moving his arms as if he were swimming.  I breathed a prayer he would make it safely across.

What had his childhood been like?  Had his mother held him, cooing at the lovely baby given her?  What had fragmented his mind?

Was he happier than most of us who thought we were sane?

Where do you get your ideas from"