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| Inspired by a crushed coke can |
Inspiration strikes when we least expect it, and
usually at the most inopportune moment. It rarely happens when we sit down at our PCs to do some writing. But when it does strike, make sure you
note down those ideas and flashes of brilliance, because they have a nasty
habit of disappearing.
The idea for my reluctant reader book, Nightmare was inspired by a crushed pop can reflected back through my car windscreen one night. It looked like a grotesque face, and when I said to my passenger:
"Can you see a horrible face in my windscreen?"
He answered, "It's just the reflection of my coke can. Want me to move it?"
"No," I said. "It's given me a great idea for a story!"
Inspiration can be as silly as that!
If you store ideas away, when you are sitting down, raring to get writing, you'll have something ready and waiting for you to make a start on.
As you'll know, before you can write anything, you need at least the
spark of an idea. Fortunately, ideas and sources of inspiration are all around
us:
- Places we visit
- Our workplace
- Holidays
- Buildings
- Events throughout history
- Photographs
- TV and newspapers
- Dreams and nightmares
- People we see or meet
- Themes and emotions
- Objects
- The scent of something
- A song
- An overheard remark
- Art and antiques
The list goes on. The tiniest little incident, sound,
smell or thought can spark an idea for a story. The trick is to catch hold of
that spark and hold onto it until you can develop it into something more
substantial. Often, an idea needs to
germinate in your mind before you know what you want to do with it. This
mulling over process can take weeks, months, even years. I'm not however, suggesting you spend years thinking about something before starting to write!
From my own experience, the tiniest little things have
led to books, short stories and articles:
My brother buying an abandoned canal boat inspired Fishing for Clues. Driving past
open-curtained windows at night inspired me to write Pushing his Luck. A music concert led to Stealing the Show. A holiday in the Isle of Wight prompted Disaster Bay. A passer-by inspired short
story, The Magic of Christmas. A
newspaper headline inspired The Uninvited.
A church gave me the idea for Celeste.
A crumpled tin can, a
pendant; a visit to a museum; a derelict house; a newspaper delivery boy; a cobweb strewn window –
they have all resulted in stories, books and articles, and the list goes on.
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| A newspaper headline inspired this YA book |
Store your ideas
away safely
Ideas
can flit in and out of your head all day long, so be sure to have some method
of storing them safely so they can’t escape! Maybe a notebook, or a box, or a
folder on your PC, what about a noticeboard? Or you could store images online on Pinterest. How do you hold onto your ideas?
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| Don't let your ideas escape! |
Developing that spark
It only takes a spark of an idea to inspire you to write.
But a spark is not a story, so how do you expand a spark into a fully-fledged
story or book?
Stories hinge around characters. So, start to think what
sort of characters would fit into this vague scenario you're gradually creating. Think about the
setting – where is this to take place? Remember that stories need conflict, so
your main character needs to be struggling with something. Without conflict you
don’t have a story. Give that main character an aim or a goal, and make sure
there are lots of pressures to stop them from achieving it.
There will be more tips on creating characters, conflict and
plotting in future weeks, so keep popping over to my blog. And I'd love to hear what weird and wonderful things have inspired you to write.
