For the next who knows how many months, I’ll be sharing
writing tips I’ve garnered in my 50 years of being a published author. The Aries Libra Connection is the first book
I published electronically. It’s been retitled, revised, updated and now is
published by Books We Love LTD. So now onto one of the things I’ve learned
about writing.
Looking at writing your story from the Idea forward. What happens
once that idea forms a seed in your thoughts? The idea can be anything that
triggers you to want to write a story. You could read something and decide to
from your own take on what you've read. How many stories are the fairy tales
we've grown up with? Take Cinderella, Snow White, and a lot of other stories
you've read or had read to you. How many tales share the themes of these
stories?
The idea could be something you see. A couple embracing. A man and
a woman quarreling. A child making mischief or being sad. What you see could be
something like a milling mob, a merry-go-round, a speeding car. What you see
can trigger the idea.
What you smell. Think of how you react to cookies baking or the
aroma of spicy food. You could find the scent of a place can trigger an
idea. For me this can happen when I enter a hospital. The scents bring memories
of my past as a nurse and often triggers an idea for a new story.
The idea could spring from something you've touched. A soft fur
coat, the rough fabric of jeans. A rock, a bench, a brick. Any of these things
could bring an idea to the fore.
Taste can also trigger ideas. We've all tasted something we think
of as ambrosia or something that makes you ill. So let the ideas form.
Sometimes something you hear can trigger a story. The wail of a
train at night. The sound of footsteps on the street behind you at night. The
cries, screams of someone or even their laughter can form a seed for a story.
I’ve had stories that hve come from reading something. Past Betrayals, Past
Loves came from two readings. The first is Anna Karenina and the story with the
unhappy ending. The other grain came from something I read in a book about
Ancient Egypt. In a section on the time of chaos when there was no pharaoh came
these words. A battle commander wished to be pharaoh. Mermeshu was his name.
But we all have these events in out life and ideas may form but
once the idea is there, what comes next. In the next few weeks, I'll be
looking at the elements needed to make the idea into a story. Who, What, When,
Where, Why and How. Some people think only of the five Ws but for me, there's
the How. After all, it does have a w in the word.
The idea takes root. For me, I take the idea and think about it
while falling asleep. Sort of like a bedtime story, Usually after days of this
story telling the book begins to take form.
I'll be sharing what I've learned and am still learning in the
fifty years I've been a published writer.
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