A Writer's Woes

A Story is Born

Where do my book ideas come from?

My first idea for a novel came from a dream. I woke up from that dream and the story, the characters, played over and over in my mind. They had a grip on me and refused to let go. I couldn’t stop thinking about them or their plight. Day in and day out they would haunt me. Finally, I wrote them down just to get them out of my head! All of my story ideas are like that. They play through my mind, weaving in and out of my thoughts, transforming, mutating, coalescing into something workable. And in the end, I have a plot for a novel. Night dreams and day dreams are my most common source of inspiration.

My other source of inspiration is reading books. Often times, I’ll read a story and think, that’s not how I would have done it. So I run the “revised” story through my head. Soon, new characters emerge, new storylines emerge, and based on a story I once read, I have a whole new story of my own. Such is the case with the historical romance I’m currently working on. I read a good short story with a bad ending. I twisted it and turned it and made it my own. Soon it will be a novel with no resemblance to that original short story that prompted my own musings.

posted by chrmisha @ 7:11 PM