Where Did That Idea Come From? by Diane Bator

 

I've been doing a lot of promotional things for The Conned Lady which came out in March and was asked the same question a few times. "Where did the idea come from for your book?"

To be honest, I'd never really thought about it. The human mind works in mysterious ways and ideas just seem to pop in from nowhere. We could talk about synapses firing which conncect thoughts and images, or how we're influenced by outside sources. I prefer to think of creative ideas as a blend of the two.

In the case of my Wild Blue Mystery series, the entire series began when I moved to a new town in Ontario across the country from where I grew up in Alberta. The entire series was formed from daily walks around town where I imagined scenes in local coffee shops, the indie bookstore, and a yard I walked past all the time. It started with the thought, "What if I was on the run and hiding from someone?"

It was a great way to learn more about the town I'd moved to as well as to keep my mind busy and meet other people. Once I joined a local writing group, I learned to write from prompts and added bits and pieces to my work in progress. They would inspire new scenes or even complete scenes I was working on. 

Writing prompts are great ways to coax ideas onto paper or computer. Here are a few samples of ones we used:

• This time her boss had gone too far.
• Red eyes.
• Stars blazed in the night sky.
• He woke to birdsong.
• ‘Shh! Hear that?’ ‘I didn’t hear anything.’
• He’d always hated speaking in public.
• She woke, shivering, in the dark of the night.
• The garden was overgrown now.
• He’d never noticed a door there before.

Great ideas and inspiration can also be nudged by lines in movies or television shows, overheard conversations, indidents in real life, sights while on a walk, the mundane routine of daily life, photographs, family videos, and so on.

In short, inspiration can come from anywhere. As a writer, you just need to be open to the possibilities!

Diane Bator

http://bookswelove.net/bator-diane/

https://dianebator.ca/

Musings from a lover of words--Tricia McGill

Find this and all my other books on my Books We Love Author page

I wrote these short pieces years ago, so thought I would give them another whirl, as my thoughts haven’t altered a lot where ideas are concerned.

Thoughts Grow Like Mushrooms

A small germ becomes a giant idea. We all have ideas but most people let them slide away, never to be recalled. I am forever seeking new ideas, new paths to walk; new avenues to explore. My mind is never idle. I wonder what others think about when they just sit and stare. Are they, like me, investigating another avenue to take? When I began to write I thought—will I ever be fortunate enough to see a novel I have created in print? Will it be such a tragedy if I don’t?

I am never sure what prompted me to write, but once I began, I couldn’t stop. If I was unable to read or write I feel my life would have no purpose. I’m not sure what drives me. When I was a teenager, I felt an urge to write down my emotions—such as that shy glance from a boy I thought was nice, and how it made me feel at the time. This urge was dormant for years while my career path went off in another direction—but then I reached a stage in my life when I had time to do as I pleased. That is when I began to write in earnest, as if guided by what I like to call my Muse. Of course, there were those pesky rejections to deal with along the way.

People who don’t quite understand writers think we’re strange. How do you have the patience they ask, when told how much work goes into a book. How can I answer them when I don’t know myself? All I know is that I often wonder what my mind would be doing if it wasn’t toying with new story ideas. Perhaps I would have continued with my first love, painting. But the urge to paint was never as strong as the urge to write.

When I read a book or a passage of writing by another author that stirs me to tears, laughter or strong emotion I long to have the same effect on a reader. Perhaps this is why we all keep at it. To have someone say, “I read your book, and loved it. I enjoyed it so much I couldn’t put it down.” That is completely satisfying. I feel I have accomplished a feat that once seemed impossible.

I know people who try something and when they fail say, “I couldn’t be bothered to carry on.” I’ve tried a few things in my time that I haven’t been all that successful at, but I’ve always kept on until I felt I was as good at it as I could ever be. I hope I have become a tolerant person as I’ve grown.

Words

Words. As writers, we love them. Idolise them, in fact. Words are to us writers as the paintbrush is to an artist, the baton to a conductor, movements to a dancer. A paragraph, sentence, or at times one word will catch our attention, hold us in thrall, and make us wish we’d thought of that phrase or word first.

As I work my way through the dictionary, this occupation brings home to me as never before how glad I am that I was taught English from the moment I could speak. How often in the past, I have scoffed at newcomers to my country. How many of us are guilty of suggesting they should learn our language before they arrive. Yeah, like it will only take them a short course of a couple of weeks to learn the million and one connotations and idiosyncrasies of the English language. So many English words change their meaning by the alteration or addition of one letter.

Never will I ridicule someone who endeavours to find their way around the English language.

Visit my web page for excerpts