I’m not just an editor. I’m a writer. And as both an editor and a writer, I get asked about how to come up with ideas. In fact, every time I write something new and share it with someone (or speak of it) I have people ask what they believe is the obvious question: Where did I come up with that idea?
Where does any writer come up with an idea?
That’s not always easy to answer. There is nearly an infinity of ways to come up with something, and I believe most writers would say it isn’t usually even just one thing. [Nor are we always particularly aware of the process until it presents itself as a completed idea.]
For my Titanic story, I knew I wanted to write something about the ship, but not necessarily what. There is so much non-fiction and fiction out there; how do you write one that stands apart from all the rest? I was initially going to tell the story from the point of view of the ship itself, rather than a passenger–real or imaginary. A half joke by my husband got me really thinking outside the box. How about telling it from the point of view of the iceberg, not as a killer of a ship and 1500 people, but just an innocent pawn in nature, who sees the ship as the aggressor. It was fun trying to write in the simple, stilted way an iceberg might communicate if it could.
For Hanna’s Birthday, I don’t even remember where the idea began. And once I began developing it, it went through a variety of iterations. I was revising even as I wrote it. The basic idea, or question, is what happens when family, loved ones, simply don’t get enough time together? And what if they had a second chance to get it right? Everything came out of that and it ended up a story about a mother and her daughter.
I want to give one more example because I’ve gotten the most questions about my unpublished novel, The Olive Branch. I knew I wanted to do a Cold War story. As an international political historian, I could leverage my education, and let’s face it. I love Cold War stuff. I’ve also envisioned writing mystery romance the way novelists such as Mary Stewart did. Only I added a little more romance than is typical in such books; not much, but some. The main core idea wasn’t even the important part to figure out. Once I knew I wanted the setting to be a country that was a hot spot for potential communism, it could take place at any time during the Cold War, and be one of many countries. In fact, I initially chose Thailand for my setting and wrote a chapter or two before ditching it and choosing Greece instead. Greece came out of what *was* the important part: the theme(s). After going through some ideas of my protagonist’s journey and her relationship with the hero, I decided I wanted to explore the theme of what was then called “women’s lib” and a man who struggled with it for his own private reasons. And that really put the setting in the early ’70s, which also opened up other themes, such as recreational drug usage, hippiedom, and others. From there, I researched which countries were actively being recruited by a Communist nation. And voila! I had a full story.
Writers don’t always like telling where they get ideas. After all, it takes the mystique away. But it is important for a fledgling writer to understand that every writer goes through a similar process. Rarely does someone just wake up one day with a complete idea. As I said, it is a process. And sometimes, we go looking for ideas.
There is active looking. What do actors and writers share in common? [And probably shrinks, too.] They observe the world around them. They are always curious and always imaginative. They create stories around what they observe. Whether it is reality doesn’t matter. It is the process.
There is inactive looking. We watch a movie, or a television show, or we read a story. We are given everything, but something particular in the story jumps out at us and demands a deeper look. We don’t necessarily instantly sit down and begin a story using that as the root of it. We are more likely to file it away and then something happens or another idea springs up, and we make a connection with the original one and something clicks for us and we know we now have the skeleton of the story. It can be a character arc, a situation, a theme, or any number of other things that stand out to us. It could be as simple as always watching an actor always play the villain and wondering what he’d be like as the hero of the piece.
[Here’s a more famous real-life example: Stephen King once wrote about how he came up with Carrie. It was literally different pieces of different information scattered across years. When he was a teen, he read that poltergeist activity might actually be telekinesis, and more common in young girls than any other group. He obviously filed it away, albeit unconsciously. A few years later he was cleaning out a girls’ public restroom and a friend had to explain what the dispenser of tampons was for. Still more years passed and he was writing and something made him remember the restroom conversation and he thought about a girl having her first period at school, and the other girls making fun of her because she doesn’t know what is happening. He then remembered reading about the telekinesis, and it just came together about that quickly, though he said there wasn’t a major Eureka! moment.]
It could spring up without any awareness of its source. Many of my clients are writers in the fantasy/sci-fi genre. They read or have read dozens or hundreds of them and they get an idea without realizing where they got it.
Still others have a wacky dream and are inspired to use that as the basis of a story. In fact, one client of mine who was in a coma for two weeks had a strange dream. When he awakened, he remembered the dream and decided it was important to him and to his loved ones to set the dream on paper and expand on it. I’m not talking here about the laborious work of structuring your story or coming up with different characters, or even the art of writing. I’m talking about just having an idea and running with it.
I once wrote a blog post (“Write What You Know”) about how we all begin writing in grade school, such as essays on What We Did On Our Summer Vacation. Most of us hated it then, even many who later became professional writers. But even as adults, it is remarkably good practice. If you are struggling for an idea, consider beginning there. Write down a vacation from any point in your life. Don’t just write where and when, and what you did. Write about people who were there (background characters). Write about something kooky you saw someone doing, or saying. As you write, more will come to you, and your imagination will kick in, and you will start either filling in the blanks and/or making up stuff that is much better than the reality may have been. And the next thing you know, you have an idea.
Ideas are always there to be had. You just have to know where to look and how to recognize it. That takes practice. It also takes recording what comes to you, so you have a reference for later. Keep a pad, a recorder, or your cell phone nearby, ready to jot down things as they come to you. I have Simple Notepad installed on my phone and I write things down the moment I think of them. I also have a Word doc that I transfer to as early as possible. I have tons of ideas, some more or less workable, waiting for that missing piece that will give me a Eureka! on it.
Where do *you* look for ideas? Where have the seed for some of your stories and creations come from?