Great Adaptations: Screenwriting and Global Storytelling

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Creative Issues

Where Do Ideas Come From?

Sometimes ideas come from our real life experiences or other forms of creativity. For example, Robert James Waller’s best-selling novel, The Bridges of Madison County, which later became a film (USA, 1995) and a Broadway musical (2014), may have begun with photographs of covered bridges that he shot while on leave from teaching business, coupled with a song he had written about a woman named Francesca, who would become the novel’s protagonist.²

At other times, ideas pop into our heads while dreaming or meditating. Maybe that’s because in those states we are relaxed and open enough to let our stories rise to the surface; we can train ourselves to be more receptive to these. Describing the Tibetan practice ...