The Great Idea Fairy

Yes, that’s exactly where story ideas come from.

Wow! You mean they're real!?!

Sometime, in the middle of the night, the Great Idea Fairy squeezes her voluptuous self through my partially opened bedroom window (I need fresh air when I sleep), and whacks me over the head with her hefty magic storybook.

 I wish.

Paul's chance to be a hero. Did he blow it?

For me, it can be difficult to find the source of my next tale, and it often isn’t where I expect it to be. If I’m lucky, the story I’ve just written suggests the next. That happened with Levels of Deception. I was deep into editing Death By A Dark Horse and the characters were flexing their muscles, begging to go off on more adventures. Paul wanted to go to Montana and dig up dinosaur bones and Thea, fresh from victory, was wanting to be a hero again. Okay, to be honest, Paul wanted a shot at hero, too.

Did I want to make them happy? Darned right I did. They were fun and adventurous. And what better way to make them happy than give them both what they wanted – which had to put them in direct conflict with each other.

That made me happy. Nothing like two people struggling to “make it work” and ready to sacrifice it all for that goal. Throw in a murder and danger from an unknown source, to up the stakes, and … Wow! My hands are already sweating!

A real-life baddie inspired this story.

Shooting to Kill, the most recent in the series, had it’s source in an article I read about a real person. The article gave me the creeps, and I wondered how someone who was more than a bubble and a half off plumb could con so many smart people and not be found out until something violent happened. What would it take to coexist with someone like this? I knew the ends would they go to in order to accomplish their goal, but what would happen if someone stepped into their path?

Obviously, here was a job for Thea and Paul.  

Lacking a personal Great Idea Fairy, I fall back on gaming out the old “what if” theme. How do I choose which of the many ideas to use? There are plus points if my protagonists can be in conflict with each other as well as other characters. I like to stir things up. Other than that, well, if I can imagine some humor and unusual twists I’ve likely got myself a story to tell.

Because every writer has his or her own twist on story creation, I’ve enlisted a number of my writer-friends to reveal the spark that drives their creativity. Over the coming weeks a variety of authors whose styles and processes differ from mine will stop by. It'll be fun to get a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes workings of some very talented folks. I'm looking forward to it!

Sigh. Please, don't tell me you believe her drivel about who comes up with the stories. And I'm NOT voluptuous.

Something from Nothing

When I got my monthly email about needing an article for a newsletter I contribute to, I’d just sent off my fifth Thea Campbell mystery to the final editor. I was feeling more than a bit tapped-out and was wondering if I would be able to summon any words. I cast about for inspiration and was, pretty much, finding nothing. Then it occurred to me that perhaps inspiration and how we corral it would be a good topic. After all, each of us deal with it – or the lack of it.

What a great idea! I could write about Nothing (notice the capital).

We’ve all been there, right? -- The “I got nothing” for the next book/story. I’ll bet 99% of us have even designed the T-shirt. I’ll also bet we each have a pattern we follow in order to grab inspiration by the throat and tie her to the chair.

I usually start a story with a body. Sometimes I don’t know who it is or how they died, but I know something, and I start to build the plot around that. The organic, story-growing process for me always moves next into why that person has been killed, and then  who would do such a thing.

I know a number or writers who joyfully dive into their story without a single notion of “who done it.” I’ve tried that approach, and it doesn’t work for me. I find I actually enjoy getting to know my villain. Sometimes there are several antagonists and I frankly relish poking around in their warped little minds (a bit of confession here: I freaked myself out researching the villain for this latest mystery) (seriously).

Sometimes it isn’t a character, but an event. Maybe it’s singular, like the I-5 bridge collapse in Mt. Vernon, Washington (we can hope it’s a singular event, although from what I’ve been reading about the state of our state’s bridges, we should worry). Maybe it’s an ongoing social phenomenon like insider trading, or identity theft. Maybe it’s something as old as the ages like sibling rivalry.

Okay, now that I’ve confessed to the Big Void and my usual plan for conquering it, what about you? Do you like to spend quality time with the bad-guys? Are they your inspiration? What kinds of things scream “story material” at you? What stokes the “what if” spark into the kind of fire that makes you write the story?