Where do you get your ideas from?

That is the question I always used to dread when I used to do school visits. I was always at a loss how to answer it. But I thought I might take a few moments now to analyse that a little more. Is there a science to it after all?

Nobody scatters magic fairy dust … or do they?  

Starting out

When you first start out at writing you tend to be full of great ideas. Then gradually they dry up. This is partly because you do genuinely use all the ones you’d first thought of. It’s also because you have a little less faith in some of your ideas because by now you’ve met a few that don’t work.  You also become more self-critical.

Never running out of ideas

I’ve always dreaded the day when I wouldn’t be able to think of what to write next. It’s never happened. As I write my sixth book in my SF YA series I’m already thinking of the seventh and that will be the final.

I’m also now working on the seventh book in my Schellberg cycle.  I’m spending time in cafés and on trains looking at my characters and creating vignettes from their past. Many of these snippets may not make it to the novel but they’re allowing me to get to know my characters well and I’m teasing out a shape for this story.

And after that I have a three book series planned about a character that loosely resembles my maternal grandmother.   

Using prompts

Some people hate them but I actually like writing to them. I seem to be even more successful with this if I’m also timed in my writing or have a strict word count. I write short stories as a relief from my novel writing and I’ll often look for a themed call to submission for that. There are lots of places where you can find prompts – on Twitter (I’ve put a few there myself), on my Writing Teacher site, in my Big Book of Prompts.

Out and about

So many things that I see on my travels suggest stories: who is the young man who didn’t have the bus fare for his dog,  what is the story of the girl with the cello, who is selling that pretty little terraced house and why?

Physical activity tends to encourage idea

It’s rarely as I’m at my desk that the ideas come, though sometimes whilst I’m writing I’ll find my story taking on a life of its own and bringing in twists and turns I hadn’t planned. The eureka moments come though when I’m walking, cooking, ironing, swimming or driving.

News stories

Sometimes you can look for the more human stories behind the news items. Get into the minds and hearts of the players and find out what really happened.

There are always the old favourites

Nobody ever needs to be stuck for ideas. Bring a fairy story, Bible story or story form another religious book, or even something form Shakespeare into the 21^st century, or tell the story of a minor character or of the antagonist.

Yes, there are plenty of ideas. We need never run dry.  It can seem sometime thats it’s magic fairy dust after all.           

   

 

Three Effective Ways to Find New Stories

 

 

Get out and about

Take a walk. Go for a bus ride. Do some window-shopping. You’ll see lots of people and every one of them has a story to tell and dozens you could make up about them. Who is the person you see? Why are they here now? What will they do next? Tell their story.

Give the little guy a chance

Or indeed, even the bad guy. What is the reason Cinderella’s stepsisters are so cruel to her? What does the giant make of Jack invading his home?  Why is the strange old man building a big ship? Choose well-known fairy stories or folk stories, tales from the Bible and other religious books, and stories from Shakespeare.

Bring an old story into the 21^st century 

A man in his early thirties gives up the day job and travels the globe preaching and healing.  Tell this tory form the point of view of someone in the crowd. Why is a young girl who’s been pricked by a needle in a coma? What or who will wake her up? A daughter has grown wild. How does her father tame her?    

Now tell me you’re stuck!

How to avoid or cope with some of the biggest bugbears of being a writer

 

1.      Your friends and family – or even you yourself - don’t take you seriously 

Don’t be afraid to call yourself a writer. If you spend time writing, you are a writer.  It doesn’t matter whether you are published or not or whether you have hundreds of five star reviews or not; what matters is that you write  So, make time to write and make sure that everyone understands that that time is precious.

2.      Rejection

It still always hurts, no matter how often it happens and no matter how many acceptances you have. It’s okay to think “Your loss, mate.” But best not to say that. Often it’s not because there is anything wrong with your writing though it’s always worth another look before you send it out again. It can be a matter of timing. It’s all so very subjective anyway. So, dust yourself off, give the work a little tweak, take an honest look at why it may have been rejected, consider it a “rewrite” and get it out there again. It’s good in fact to have quite a few things out there. A publisher may bite.   

3.      Professional jealousy

Either feeling it or being the victim of it can be uncomfortable. It’s not fair is it, that your writing friend got a three book deal and her writing is no better than yours? And it’s annoying when you get the good news from a publisher and your writing friend ignores you.

Force yourself to be glad for your friend. Your time will come.

Make your jealous friend an important part of your launch. You never know, she may be able to network at your event and get some good leads.  

4.        Running out of ideas

Often when you first start out you have tons of ideas. Then you use them up or decide that they weren’t so good after all.

Remember there are ideas are all around you. Retell an old story by taking a different character’s point of view or bringing it into the 21^st century. Take a walk and look at what folk are doing, Lots of stories there as swell. Or try a writing prompt. There are various books around full of them and you can often find them on social media.

5.      “I’m going to write a novel one day”

Says your non-writing friend.

Oh so many assumptions here: that it’s easy, that anyone can do it and that you will be pleased to read the end product of someone right at the beginning of a writing career.

Could you play devil’s advocate here?  Show a real interest. Ask them how they’ll find the time, have they planned the novel out yet, have they done any research. If they ask if you’ll look at it say that you don’t have time but point them towards someone you know who edits.  If you do that yourself discuss your rates. You might offer mates’ rates but be clear that you must make it worth your while.      

Themed Writing

 

Image by fancycrave1 from Pixabay

How we get ideas is a bit of a mystery. We dread being asked that question when we give talks.  Because the ideas just come, don’t they? In my case they come when I’m cooking, driving, swimming, walking or doing the ironing. They don’t usually come when I’m sitting at my computer. An odd overheard conversation, a chance encounter or something I see will spark off an idea for a story.

A lot of writers have been unable to work during lockdown. Is it perhaps because they’re tucked away from life and have nothing to write about? Or is it just the anxiety?

Can you force the creativity?

 Ironically, in looking for prompts for my prompt book, I’ve used other prompts to give me ideas. So, for example, the prompt I’ve just read said: “Write a scene or story that includes a character eating cereal. What does a character's favourite cereal say about their personality? Do they carefully pick the marshmallows out of their Lucky Charms, or do they eat Aldi bagged cereal by the handful straight out of the container? Or, perhaps your character prefers healthy oatmeal with no added sugar.” https://www.writersdigest.com/be-inspired/characters-in-a-crunch I’ve turned this into “Write a story about a character shopping in a supermarket.  Every item they pick creates a thought. Weave those thoughts together to make a story.”

I’ve now written two books of prompts like this. Each contains a prompt for every day of the year. Other writers have contributed. I’m working on a third and then I’m going to put all three together so that you have a choice each day. I use these myself to inspire short stories, pieces of flash fiction, memoir or articles that I complete between major edits of my main projects. It’s good to get away from editing and back to something more creative. 

I’ve recently had some success in competitions; I’ve had three pieces listed and they’ll all appear in anthologies. In all three cases I was writing to a particular theme.

On my Fair Submissions web site I have a section called “Themed” where you can find calls for submission and competitions that have a particular theme. Look in the labels and find “Themed.” 

So, yes, I think you can force creativity a little and you don’t have to wait for inspiration to kick in. 

 

 

Pinning down the Muse

When you first start writing you have lots of ideas. Then, they start to dry up; you use them up or you decide what had seemed good isn’t quite as engaging as you’d thought. Fortunately, as I mentioned the other week, I have the next four or five books planned in my head. Still, I’m not so teeming with ideas as I was when I decided TO BE A WRITER.  

Or am I really not?

Part of my routine is to take a break between edits of my novel by entering a competition or sending something to a small press outfit that accepts submissions at the moment. Often these are pieces of flash fiction or other short fiction. And I find as I drive, iron, wash-up, shop or walk I get thousands of ideas that are like dandelion seeds in the wind: they disappear again before I have time to write them down. As I talk to my first year university class about what they might include in their autobiography assignments I think of snatches of life-writing I might compose – and then forget again before I have time to make a note.

I sometimes have to push my students into finding a muse. Recently we played consequences in class. They did the following:

Created two characters, giving them name, physical and intellectual attributes and an emotional life

Created a setting

Introduced a problem

After each instruction – nine in all – they passed the paper on to the tenth classmate who took that home and wrote a story according to the information they had there. They produced some of their best writing.

Currently, as well as my major works, I’ve just entered a piece of Flash Fiction for a competition. I managed to recall one of those quirky ideas I’d had when I couldn’t get to my note book. It turned out rather well in the end, I think. I’m having less success with a longer piece I had been intending to enter for the Mslexia short story competition – deadline now gone. But it will come right, eventually and maybe that wasn’t really the right place to send it anyway.  

I have enough confidence now that even when I feel devoid of ideas if I sit at my computer I’ll be able to write. I prefer to do that earlier in the day for if I don’t, other tasks sap my creative energy. I’ve frequently noticed on the days I struggle the most, on the days when the muse seems to be in hiding, I actually write better. Just like my students.

What do they say? 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration? I can confirm that.                      

The inconvenience of deadlines and ideas

I absolutely loved my sabbatical. My employer, the University of Salford, recognised that my work was of value and allowed me a whole five months off teaching, meetings and most of my emails so that I could get on with some research and some writing. And because I am employed as a creative writing lecturer, quite a lot of that time was spent on my novel.

However, there was also a creepy thought at the back of my mind. This is all fine and good, but what next? I was part way through editing another book. So, finish the sabbatical novel (not far off, now actually) and that other book – then what?

I shouldn’t have worried. I now have this To Do list:

Finish the sabbatical novel (in time to enter it for a competition next week?)

Complete the accompanying web site

Complete the associated Power Point presentations

Complete the associated academic articles  

Finish editing that other novel

Get the sabbatical novel and the other novel out there

Research and write the biography of one of the (real) minor characters in the novel

Edit and self-publish two books that have gone out of print

Follow up that idea for a teen novel situated in ancient times on Tenerife

Write a modern day novel about the girl who … ah that’s a secret!

Edit Spooking (by 11 March for Crooked Cat)

Accept Crooked Cat’s edits so that the book can be out by16 March (cripes!)

Get some self-promotion going associated with Spooking.

Possibly all of this came about as I came out of my deep absorption in Potatoes in Spring and got back to normal life. On my To Do list was get Spooking out there. I also have to get Veiled Dreams out there. But that will now have to wait.

It’s great. I’m now bubbling with ideas again. And I have some deadlines that are there because I have had some success.  

The problem is, all of this comes as I’m busy again with teaching – bigger classes this semester – meetings and exchange students. But that is the way it is generally. Deadlines and ideas rarely come at convenient times.