I think eventually as a blogger the same subject is bound to come up-well, at least for me but play along so I don’t feel dumb! Today I’m going to talk about inspiration for our stories. Specifically where we get our ideas from. See, I get the dumbfounded looks from writers when I ask where they got their ideas. Yes, they do sort of drop into out heads but for me sometimes there’s a tiny seed of something, somewhere feeding me. I always felt out of the loop because of this. But one day I walked into my local Borders to find this amazingly beautiful woman signing books. I hadn’t known it was an author day-in fact I’m fairly sure my Borders doesn’t often do this- if ever!
She was so sweet and welcoming that I had to go talk to her. Her name is T. Marie Benchley author of Once Wicked Always Dead and one of my first questions for her was,”How did you get the idea for this book?” Internally my stomach lurched and I felt like a dolt. This is the king(or queen) of bad questions for authors. I’ve read so many blogs about it and couldn’t believe my faux pas. I scrambled to say, “Oh, um, I know that’s a hard question so…” And she graciously stopped me and said, “No, I know exactly how I got the idea.” Phew! There won’t be a review of the book today but one is coming.
We talked about writing and I felt so pleased to have met her. As an aside: Interestingly enough she’s related to the author that wrote Jaws.
So now I’m just hoping the question won’t be greeted with banal looks. When a person asks that question they’re taking an interest in us. It’s flattering and Benchley’s good conversation and winning personality sold many books that day-I saw so many people checking out with it.
How do you feel when people ask where you get your ideas from? Do they literally drop from the sky and land in your head? Or do they stem from something? I’m truly curious.
6 comments:
Having written 30 plus romance novels over the years, I'm asked that question many times, and don't mind at all. People really do wonder, and in my case they often wondered if my husband was the inspiration for my heroes ;)
Ideas from stories can come from the smallest little things. I once had a friend who wore an old Mickey Mouse watch that had been broken for years. She liked it, she said, and her husband had given it to her and she was going to wear it no matter what (the husband was alive and well). This one incident was the beginning of a whole book.
Other times it's something I read in a magazine, or hear on TV. It can be anything that sparks off a series of "what ifs."
I think often we may not "know" where our ideas come from, but we're being overloaded with images and ideas all day long whether we are aware of it or not, so even if it feels our idea for the story just dropped out of your head, somehow it got in there from somewhere first. The imagination of an author just knows how to tap into that store of information, somehow, and mix and match it into a new whole.
Thank you so much for your response!!! I no longer feel out of the loop so YAY!*g* It's true, we are so inundated with information in this world that making a book that's completely uninspired would be pretty dang hard, if not impossible. I know pretty much where every single one of my ideas sprang from.
Other than one as-yet-unwritten story planned for down the road, I've no idea where the ideas come from. LOL! For me, the characters show up, introduce themselves, often bringing their counterpart with them, and tell me enough to get me going.
It is always possible there was a spark that lit the idea, but I've forgotten it by the time the story takes shape.
I did get one idea last year from reading an article online. It's way down on the list, but at least in that case, I'll always remember the source.
I must admit that I agree, I find ideas for stories everywhere I go! It's why I keep a little recorder in my purse! Thanks for sharing, it is always good to hear anothers thoughts about this.
Well behind every thought or an idea there is some inspiration or history. As far as I am concerned sometimes the ideas just seem to arise from nowhere and sometimes they are out of some occurrence.
Very confusing.
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Ter, I think that's cool. My problem is I can't get my head clear enough for amazing fresh stuff to pop in. My current WIP is loosely based around the Brontes and an old Betty Davis movie I love.
Monica, very well put. And it is confusing! All of it!lol.
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