The advice I've often heard (and given) is "Write the book that you want to read." The third novel I wrote, A Priest, a Stripper, and a Ghost, was written because I wanted to read a book that had those three things in it.
So, name three things you want in the next book you read (or, better yet, write).
1) Gypsies
2) Motorcycles
3) Hallucinogens
1) mythological creature
2) Blowing up a strip mall
3) Restoring order to small town politics*
*like hiring a legendary bouncer that everyone thought would be bigger but he bangs the blonde in the jeep anyway and says cool things like "pain don't hurt."
That's why I wrote a romance novel that I might bother to revise so it's worth something someday.
1. '88 Cutlass Supreme
2. Santeria witch doctors
3. a life-or-death game of street ball that's way cooler than what was in Escape from L.A.
• lion
• witch
• wardrobe
Wait, no. I keep files on such story elements (occupations, locations, instigators) for Mad-Lib-style ideas.
• a sports-team mascot
• a landfill
• genetic engineering
- artificial intelligence
- grief
- complex protag/antag relationship
Landfill's in my list too, started writing those down after reading Ray Bradbury's Art of Writing.
1. Gay Porn
2. Shame
3. Trichotillomania
I change my answer. ^^THAT^^ is the book I want to read.
For the novel I'm writing for this year's NaNoWriMo:
1. Religious cults
2. Hot lesbians
3. Insightful truths about nature
...we'll see how this works out.
Evil
The Home Shopping Network
Chester Pane
I want to read something so unimaginably good, I can't possibly begin to describe it.
Until then: guns, guns, guns. I want a gun-fest shoot-em-up with really good writing in third-person-past.
1. The biomechanical artwork of H.R. Giger
2. Metal band Coroner.
3. Adult film star Shawna Lenee.
I actually have a lot of this written, but it's a mess right now. Maybe that's a good thing.
- Bathrooms
- Accounting
- Breaking glass
1. Muslims
2. Housing Project
3. A Kid.
A lot of you want to read about porn so maybe you'll love the book I'm going to try for nanowrimo!
I want to read a book about...
the philosopher's stone
gnosticism
nanorobotics
1. Killer rabbits
2. No protagonist
3. Bobby Darin
1. Despair
2. Apathy
3. Hilarity
Reminds me of love, blood, rhetoric from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, by Tom Stoppard.
“We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see.”
I loved Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead so much that in one of my novels, I included characters (bit parts, admittedly) named Cranzt and Guilder. They are horrible bloodthirsty murderers and graverobbers, in the service of an evil, powerful and sadistic female. Now that I think about it, that mostly covers what I want in a book.
I quote that movie all the time, and only 1 friend of mine knows what the fuck I'm talking about. It's a great read, too.
1) A fat, over-the-hill werewolf
2) Insurance
3) A convention where everyone attending dies
That reminds me of the "Souvenirs" storyline from Sandman (where there is a serial killer convention).
