The Germ of an Idea

People sometimes ask me where I get my ideas.

The simple answer is: from many places. The core idea for a movie or novel is an elusive thing. It can come from anywhere, and often it so happens that the most powerful and arresting stories come from the most humble beginnings.

Let's look at a few examples from "the masters":

The Lord of the Rings trilogy has, at the date of this writing, grossed a total of more than $2.9 billion dollars. The films were, of course, based on the best selling books by J. R. R. Tolkien, whose children's novel "The Hobbit" started it all, creating the characters of Gandalf, Bilbo and Gollum, and the world that The Lord of the Rings would take place in. We have an account of the genesis for the entire saga in Tolkien's own words, in a letter written June 7th, 1955:

"All I remember about the start of The Hobbit is sitting correcting School Certificate papers in the everlasting weariness of that annual task forced on impecunious academics with children. On a blank leaf I scrawled, "In a hole in the ground there live a hobbit." I did not and do not know why. I did nothing about it for a long time, and for some years I got no further than the production of Thror's Map. It became The Hobbit in the early 1930s , and was eventually published on 21st September, 1937." (Rateliff, The History of The Hobbit, Part I, p. xii)

Above: $2.9 billion dollars later: "In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit"

Now let's look at one of the most successful filmmakers of all time, James Cameron. In March 1982, he was "twenty-seven, broke, and depressed" in Rome, desperately trying to fix the final cut of Piranha II. Cameron had no money for food, so he subsisted on dinner rolls stolen off of trays in the hotel where he was staying. Malnutrition caused him to fall ill and develop a fever of 102 degrees. His biography recounts:

"That's when Cameron had his nightmare epiphany. He dreamed of a chrome torso emerging, phoenixlike, from an explosion and dragging itself across the floor with kitchen knives. Cameron awoke and immediately started sketching the deathly figure on hotel stationary as ideas for a story line surrounding the image flooded his mind." (Keegan, The Futurist, p. 34)

Above: The fever dream that started it all...

Cameron's dream, of course, was the genesis of the Terminator franchise, which has collectively grossed more than $1.4 billion in revenue, and spawned a large number of novelizations, comics, TV series, toys, and rides.

Some of the great classics had their genesis in waking dreams, or "mental pictures" that suddenly flashed into the head of the writer. C.S. Lewis, author of the Narnia series, explained:

“In the author's mind there bubbles up every now and then the material for a story. For me it invariably begins with mental pictures. You then have to marry this with a suitable ‘form', verse or prose, short story, novel, play or whatever. When these two things click you have the author's impulse complete…[With Narnia] everything began with images; a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion.”

More recently, George R. R. Martin, author of the ongoing blockbuster book series (and soon to be released HBO series) A Song of Ice and Fire relates,

"I started back in 1991 during a lull while I was still working in Hollywood and I was working on another book, a science fiction book I had always wanted to write. So I was working on that book when suddenly the first chapter of A Games of Thrones, not the prologue but the first chapter, came to me. The scene of the dire wolves in the summer snow. I didn't know where it came from or where it needed to go, but from there the book seemed to write itself. From there I knew what the second step was and the third and so one. Eventually, I stopped to draw some maps and work out some background material."

Great things come from small beginnings. Asked where he got the idea for his classic novel, The Name of the Rose, author Umberto Eco simply replied, "I felt like poisoning a monk." The same thing goes for movies. An associate of Alfred Hitchcock once noted that the central vision for North by Northwest was two men fighting on Lincoln's nose atop Mount Rushmore.

The point is, it doesn't matter how small or innocuous-seeming an idea is. If it inspires you, and gets your creative energies flowing, then go with it, no matter what anyone tells you. It's the passion, energy, work, and application that will make it great. As Thomas Edison said, "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration."

These small bursts of inspiration may indeed seem ridiculous to someone who doesn't share your vision. James Cameron's agent thought The Terminator was a terrible idea that was bound to fail. Unperturbed, Cameron fired the agent and forged ahead with his idea.

It should also be noted that you don't have to wait for a fever dream or a lightning bolt of inspiration to hit. George Lucas is an example of someone who takes ideas from various pre-existing sources, and brilliantly weaves and combines them to form a new story. Star Wars, probably the most successful franchise of all time, drew from sources as disparate as:

Flash Gordon serials
E. E. Doc Smith's Lensman books
Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy
Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz
John Ford's The Searchers
Akira Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress
Fritz Lang's Metropolis
Joseph Campbell's Hero With a Thousand Faces

Above: Hidden Fortress, an inspiration for Star Wars

And many, many more. Lucas even drew ideas from personal experience. The concept for the character of Chewbacca arose one day when Lucas was glancing at his girlfriend's dog, which liked to sit in the front seat of their station wagon. Suddenly Lucas was struck with the image of a furry alien sitting in the cockpit of a beat-up spacecraft.

So the answer is simple. If an idea strikes you as new, interesting, exciting, arresting, or original, and it inspires your creative energies, then go with it. And if the sparks aren't coming from within, then look to those things without that inspire you--history, literature, plays, films, etc. Weave and combine elements from your favorite books or movies. The whole notion of "high concept" is based on this.

Just remember, it doesn't have to seem amazing to everyone else in the beginning. Often times it won't. As David Lynch explains:

"It would be great if the entire film came all at once. But it comes, for me, in fragments. That first fragment is like the Rosetta Stone. It's the piece of the puzzle that indicates the rest. It's a hopeful puzzle piece...You fall in love with the first idea, that tiny little piece. And once you've got it, the rest will come in time." (Lynch, Catching the Big Fish, p. 23)