Reminder: I\u2019ll be at the Westchester Children\u2019s Book Festival on May 5th. Details here on the website.<\/p>\n
On January 31, 2019, Ainsley wrote, I was wondering about story ideas (most asked question ever) and how you develop them into books.<\/em><\/p>\n Two of you responded expansively.<\/p>\n Jenalyn Barton: Observation is key! Carry around a small notebook and write things you notice that interest you. They don\u2019t have to be full-blown ideas yet\u2013that comes later. Here are some examples from my own notebook:<\/em><\/p>\n 4\/13\/13 I wrote: \u201cImpression: \u2018stately mountains adorned with powdered wigs & rich white furs’\u201d<\/em> Later you can take an observation or two and try to combine them into an idea for a story. My current WIP, \u201cGoldwater,\u201d came from combining three observations together. One came from when I took a plane to Chicago and noticed that the light of the sunset reflecting off the rivers looked like someone had drizzled liquid gold over the land. One came from the song \u201cI set fire to the rain,\u201d and the last one came from a character in an anime with the nickname \u201cThunder Beast.\u201d I combined the three together to come up with the concept for my story. The concept was that a mythical Lightning Beast, thought to keep the world\u2019s magic in balance, dies and contaminates all the rivers with its golden blood, causing magical phenomena and natural disasters, though no one knows yet what is causing it. But my story still needed the main character, so I came up with the idea of a young mother who is devastated when her toddler son dies in a magical natural disaster and travels to find the Lightning Beast to demand that it bring her son back. The story then began to take on a life of its own.<\/em><\/p>\n Of course, not all stories start this way. It\u2019s different not only for each writer but also for each individual story a writer is working on. But learning to pay attention to your surroundings is the best way to start. Orson Scott Card said, \u201cEverybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them.\u201d Learn to pay attention, write down observations, and ask questions, and you\u2019re on the right track.<\/em><\/p>\n Melissa Mead: If it helps, here are some things that came together to become \u201cMalak\u2019s Book.\u201d (And that show how long this book was stewing in my head!)<\/em><\/p>\n The first place to publish my stories was a magazine called The First Line, where all the stories in an issue start with the same line. Once the line was \u201cMamma has always had a love for other people\u2019s possessions.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n TFL likes creative interpretations of the line, so I wrote a story where the \u201cpossessions\u201d were the demonic kind, and the narrator was \u201cMamma\u2019s\u201d half-demon son. It was a fun idea, but the story got rejected. It needed something more.<\/em><\/p>\n A while later, I was watching The Crocodile Hunter. Steve Irwin was holding up a big black snake with a bulge in its middle and saying \u201cThis is a happy snake. He\u2019s warm, he\u2019s got a full belly\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Right after that was Iron Chef America. Somebody had made lamb sashimi. I looked at that pink blob of raw meat quivering on a hunk of rock salt and thought \u201cWho\u2019d want to eat that?\u201d<\/em> (Bonus TV moment: If anybody\u2019s a Doctor Who fan and saw the episode The Girl in the Fireplace, at the moment when little Reinette asks \u201cWhat do monsters have nightmares about?\u201d and David Tennant\u2019s Doctor turns from fighting them off and says \u201cMe!\u201d I literally shouted \u201cThat\u2019s Malak!\u201d That fierce chivalry and absolute determination to keep anyone from harming that little girl- That\u2019s my Demonboy. Plus DT looks PERFECT for the character, if he were to wear an alligator costume on the bottom.)<\/em><\/p>\n So, ideas come in all sorts of ways, and both Jenalyn Barton and Melissa Mead find that serendipity is a big factor. If Jenalyn Barton\u2019s flight had been at a different time, if she didn\u2019t know that particular song, if she hadn\u2019t seen the anime, her story idea wouldn\u2019t have taken shape the way it did. And for Melissa Mead, no First-Line prompt, no Crocodile Hunter, no Iron Chef America<\/em>\u2013no book about Malak.<\/p>\n But–and this is important\u2013both of them would have produced something else. Because they were receptive, open for ideas.<\/p>\n I\u2019d call that the number one element in idea development: receptivity. Writers always have an eye out for ideas.<\/p>\n Notice that neither one of them judged her ideas. Jenalyn Barton didn\u2019t say to herself, You can\u2019t find a story in clouds\u2013 they\u2019re just water vapor. Melissa Mead didn\u2019t think, Snakes are cliche.<\/p>\n Nothing kills what might be a fertile idea deader than negativity.<\/p>\n (And nothing else as effectively makes writing a hard, onerous slog.)<\/p>\n So, element two is no judgment.<\/p>\n The fodder for our ideas is various. Jenalyn Barker mentions landscape, a song, anime. Melissa Mead talks about a prompt, like The First Line<\/em> provides, and TV shows.<\/p>\n In case it\u2019s escaped anyone\u2019s attention, an excellent source of prompts is THIS BLOG\u2013as well as my books, Writing Magic<\/em> and Writer to Writer<\/em>. And I\u2019ll repeat, because uncertainty about this crops up fairly often: You are free to use my prompts, the ones you find here or in my books. They\u2019re meant to be used. You won\u2019t be infringing on my copyright.<\/p>\n I tend to go to fairy tales, myths, and history for ideas. The inspiration for my novel Ever<\/em> came from the story of Jephtha and his daughter in the Bible. I turn these sources over and over in my mind and squeeze them and poke and prod\u2013sometimes for years\u2013until something I can use takes shape.<\/p>\n Even then, the whole story never comes to me fully formed, like Athena from Zeus’s head. I get glimmers, on the basis of which I brainstorm, write notes, make lists. Eventually, I discover a character or two and a sense of the end of my story.<\/p>\n More notes and lists and a beginning comes. I start writing.<\/p>\n Naturally, I need many more ideas to get through a first draft, so I write notes and lists again. If a story is giving me trouble, my notes may be longer than the story itself. No matter what point I\u2019ve reached, I still have to be receptive and nonjudgmental.<\/p>\n Notice how we describe getting ideas: we get them; they come to us; we have a eureka moment\u2013as if the air is full of invisible ideas, the size of midges, and they fly in if we leave even a chink open\u2013if we\u2019re receptive.<\/p>\n This is how it feels. Ideas arrive. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a deliberate process. If we\u2019re receptive, our subconscious sends ideas. That\u2019s why it feels so delightful. One moment we have nothing, and the next, something. We seem to have done nothing.<\/p>\n There are things, though, that we can do to prime the pump. An activity that doesn\u2019t call for words or much thought, like walking or peeling potatoes, can free our minds. It\u2019s a two-step process. We think obsessively about our project or just our desire for an idea. We may feel hopeless because nothing is coming. Then we let it go to take a walk or a shower, and\u2013bingo\u2013an idea shows up. A midge has flown in.<\/p>\n These idea midges are only for us. My midge won\u2019t do much for you. In its DNA is our complete biography. An idea appeals to us because it\u2019s made for us. It works because we went to the circus when we were seven, because we like salmon-and-peanut-butter sandwiches on whole wheat bread, because humid air doesn\u2019t bother us. And so on. We\u2019re the only one who will know what to do with the idea when it shows up.<\/p>\n Here are three prompts:<\/p>\n \u2219 Melissa Mead has written about a half-demon. Try writing about a half-fairy-half-gnome. Brainstorm about what such a creature would be like, what it might want more than anything else, what would be challenging for him or her. Write a scene or the whole story.<\/p>\n \u2219 Write or type \u201cOnce upon a time\u201d at the top of a sheet of paper or screen. Write ten things that might follow. Take a walk. Write ten more.<\/p>\n \u2219 Think about the most complicated person you know. Put your feelings about this person to the side and think of circumstances that would be difficult for her. Imagine a time period that she could fit into. Write a scene for her in those circumstances and time period.<\/p>\n Have fun, and save what you write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reminder: I\u2019ll be at the Westchester Children\u2019s Book Festival on May 5th. Details here on the website. On January 31, 2019, Ainsley wrote, I was wondering about story ideas (most asked question ever) and how you develop them into books. Two of you responded expansively. Jenalyn Barton: Observation is key! 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\n5\/26\/13 I wrote: \u201cYesterday while I was waiting to pick [husband] up from work, I noticed that the power lines overhead had an audible buzz, almost like big bees or something similar.\u201d<\/em>
\n6\/4\/13 I wrote: \u201cCharacter Trait: [Great Aunt] is convinced that planes are dropping pollutants\/chemicals on us, & you can tell by the line of smoke a plane makes in the sky.\u201d<\/em>
\n12\/28\/13 I wrote: \u201cLies spew out of their mouths like vomit.\u201d<\/em>
\n7\/4\/14 I wrote: \u201cObservation: You can sometimes see footprints in the grass when someone has been there recently\u201d<\/em>
\n9\/21\/14 I wrote: \u201cImage: Clouds wrapped around mountains like luxurious furs.\u201d<\/em>
\nEtc.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n:pause:<\/em>
\n\u201cI\u2019ll bet that snake would like it.\u201d<\/em>
\nThings started clicking together, and that generic half-demon became Malak, half serpent-demon, who just wants to gorge himself with raw meat, then find someplace cozy to sleep it off, only the demon-hunters are out there\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n