Where Ideas Come From
Yes, I'm riffing off Esri's post from last week...I had way too much to add for a comment!
On Friday I was reading a story to my class about a schoolhouse that traveled from town to town along the railroad back in the old days. The teacher lived on the train and would stay in a town, usually filled with miners or lumberjacks, for six weeks before moving onto the next town.
By the time I’d gotten to the second page of a three page story, the teacher was a woman who wanted adventure and this was the only way she could get it. The women of the towns looked down on her for her vagabond life. The men of the towns looked upon her with interest, especially this widowed lumberjack…
And I don’t even write historicals.
So reading is one way I get ideas.
Watching TV and movies is another. Usually reality shows, something on the Discovery Channel or National Geographic, will spark something for me. A few years ago I saw a special about a cruise to Antarctica and I’ve been dying to do something with that ever since. But my WIP is kind of Gilmore Girls meets Virgin River.
The news helps, too. The 2000 Colorado fires inspired Hot Shot, my April 2008 release from Samhain.
I know one of my buddies didn’t like the way a movie was written, so her book is the way SHE thought that movie should be written. My vampire story is a modern day Moulin Rouge (with a happier ending).
My critique partners get these amazing ideas for connected books. That’s where my ghost hunter book came from (well, that and a dream.) The series fell apart, but I still have my ghost hunter book. Now we’re working on books for The Wild Rose Press’s Wayback Rodeo series. I’ve never written a cowboy book in my life, but this is fun. We’re even thinking of going to the San Antonio Rodeo for further inspiration.
What if is another source for me. My first book, Where There’s Smoke, due out in March from The Wild Rose Press, is a what-if story. Okay, it’s kind of a fun story. I’m a teacher, right, and the firefighter band Backdraft came to play at our school for a Just Say No rally. The guitar player was really cute, all the teachers were crushing, and I realized I knew him. Well, not KNEW him, but my uncle and his dad are best friends. My cousin Jennifer used to tell me stories about him all the time. So my what-if story was, what if Jennifer and Oscar the Incredibly Handsome Firefighter had grown up together as the children of best friends, and finally turned to one another and say, heyyyy…
Conversations can be inspiring. Two years ago, my grade level was eating lunch and one of the teachers was telling about one of her cop husband’s cases, about a ten year old whose mother had used him for a drug mule, he’d never been to school, never been socialized, and then his mother was killed. I had to wonder what kind of man he’d become. I had to hope he’d find his way to be a good man. So I made him the foster child of a Ranger, and he wanted to make this man proud so he grew up and became a Ranger too, fighting a drug war in Central America. That’s the Emily finalist, Breaking Daylight.
My biggest source of inspiration is dreams. Just last week I had this dream about Alex Karev from Grey’s Anatomy. All I remember is this one line, but it is a great line and would be terrific motivation.
Earlier in the month I had another neat dream about a woman being threatened because she was the daughter of someone important. I know, it’s been done, but when I wrote the dream down, it hung together. Someday I’ll have time to write it. It would make a great Silhouette Romantic Suspense.
Sometimes the dreams don’t hold together when I write them down, but I keep snippets. My first book was a dream about divorced cops who were kidnapped and had to be rescued by their kids. I kept the divorced cops part. My 2007 Golden Heart finalist was a dream about archaeologists in South America taken hostage by a gang of rebels. I thought it was a good idea, my dh didn’t think my heroine would survive, so I made it about divorced archaeologists in Central America, and left off the rebels.
What do I do with all these ideas? I clearly don’t have time to write them all. I have notebooks and I have idea folders. My potential SRS about the daughter of someone important already has its own Jack Sparrow notebook. (Just so you know - that's a level of commitment that I plan to write this story!)
The dreams I write down in another spiral.
I even have an email folder for story ideas I’ve gotten reading email.
I have an idea document on my desktop. I just checked – it’s not as full as I thought – only about 5 ideas, and one of them is this paranormal…
Now if I could only write FASTER and revise BETTER!
Where do your ideas come from?
Labels: story ideas, writing
Getting Book Ideas or, The Barbecue Revolt – Esri Rose
I have never been asked where I get my story ideas. I have had people say, “You’re a writer? I had this idea about a bear cub who bonds to a Cabbage Patch doll. You should write about that.”
Yeah, thanks.
The trick isn’t coming up with ideas per se, it’s coming up with ideas that fit within your genre, have enough conflict to carry a whole book, and fall in the ideal spectrum between something fabulously unique but not so unique that it will baffle your publisher’s marketing department.
If you’re really on the ball, it should also feature some quirky product, animal, place or cause that will get you featured in an online newsletter with ten thousand rabid fans.
The best way I’ve found to get raw material is through conversations with friends and family. Once you hear a new anecdote, news item or last night’s wacko dream, you start to riff on what ifs. The result is usually something that’s at least a little unique, because these conversations involve speculation and pushing the envelope.
Ideally, friends bring the following idea-generators to your attention: current events (which you don’t have time to read because you are writing), horrible events (which you avoid listening to because you are a sensitive artist), or workplace events (because they have real lives and you don’t). Extra-special friends will also share weird events that they heard about because they belong to specialized clubs or organizations. Those friends are gold. Not only do they know about fascinating subcultures, but they often have access to the aforementioned rabid-fan lists.
Let’s look at a conversation I had with my husband recently. We had just seen a portable fire-pit at Target, and I wondered if it was legal in our city, since it had a screen over the top. Most open-fire devices are outlawed here, including BBQ grills for renters. You can only own a grill if you’re a homeowner.
“That would start a revolution in this country,” I said. “We let politicians get away with a lot, but if they took away our grills, people would take to the streets.”
Joe agreed. “Angry men in aprons, brandishing oversized forks and skewers."
“That’d be a good political-parody book,” I mused. “The Barbecue Revolt.”
That’s a decent book idea. It’s unusual, has plenty of scope for conflict, and you could pitch it to barbecue-lover newletters—maybe even get a product-placement deal. Unfortunately, I don’t write political or social satire. Carl Hiaasen, if you’re reading this, take that idea with my blessing—just don’t forget to put my name and website in your acknowledgements. Thanks, man. We’ll have lunch.
What I currently write is elf-based romantic suspense. Let’s see how we can change this idea from political satire to something I could potentially write and sell.
Breaking the idea into its components, what do we have? First, there’s barbecue, a pastime with a history of humor and also gender division. Then there’s out-of-control fire, a natural disaster that lends itself to people with painful pasts, as well as legal problems and mysterious deaths. There’s the notion of outlawing something, which affects local politics and struggling businesses that will be hurt by the legislation. There’s revolution over an unpalatable law, and the safety of the group versus the rights of the individual.
The trick is to play with the idea. Don’t feel like you have to map to the original concept or use all the pieces.
Idea for a Paranormal Romantic-Suspense
Leeta is the only elf in four centuries to have fire-kindling powers. Unfortunately, she can’t control them. When she starts a wildfire that destroys two human houses, the fleeing owners see Leeta’s unharmed figure walking through the flames. Incidents like this put elves at risk of exposure, so Mikelor, the elves’ best tracker, is put in charge of capturing Leeta. His job? To bring her back for the ritual that will erase her gift and leave her a husk of herself. But when Mikelor meets Leeta, he begins to question his orders. Is the possibly increased safety of the group worth the sacrifice of this one elven female? When Mikelor himself is taken captive by humans, Leeta and her uncertain gift are all that can save him. Will Leeta risk herself to help the nemesis she has come to love?
Possible promotional tie-ins: You could have Leeta befriend a pet or wild animal that escaped the blaze. Put a fire pet-rescue decal in every press kit, or send a press kit/book to animal-rescue orgs like the IFAW. Hell, give ‘em some money.
You can see that it bears almost no resemblance to the original concept, but who cares? It’s an idea! Okay, I covered my genre. Let’s see how you do with your version of this idea (or give an example from scratch). And don’t worry if your tie-ins are the same or similar. Rabid-fan groups are always eager for reading material that resonates with them. There’s room for all of us.
(Word of warning: The above idea, while solid, is not so unique that I hesitated to share it. Don’t go public with a truly outstanding concept. Not that people will purposely poach it, but a published writer might think your idea is one of her own two years down the line, not remembering that she read something similar in cyberspace. Your great concept could hit the shelves in her book before you even get an agent. Ask about my embarrassing songwriting moment and I’ll share in the comments.)
Esri Rose’s first elfy book,
Bound to Love Her,
is available for pre-order
through Amazon.com.
Labels: Bound to Love Her, Esri Rose, story ideas
This Week on the Wet Noodle Posse Blog
Monday, January 14th: Norah Wilson "Testing Your Story Idea"
Tuesday, January 15th: Janet Mullaney "Opening Lines"
Wednesday, January 16th: Esri Rose "Generating Story Ideas"
Thursday, January 17th: Maureen Hardegree "How to Go from Idea to Story When an Editor Provides Parameters"
Friday, January 18th: Q&A (Noodlers answer your questions about writing)
Labels: story ideas, writing
