Where Do I Get My Ideas From?
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This is a question I’m often asked when I give book talks. And I ask it of other writers too! Who can blame us - when we love a book, we are intrigued to know what was it that inspired the writer to create that particular story?
Here is a list of the ideas that inspired some of my books:
♥ My own family history (White Gardenia)
♥ A love of Paris and its artists (Wild Lavender)
♥ A documentary about Australian silent film-makers (Silver Wattle)
♥ Hearing the story of an elderly person who had lived through the war in Europe (Tuscan Rose)
♥ A trip to Barcelona and a personal interest in Flamenco (Golden Earrings)
♥ A news article about a female soviet fighter pilot (Sapphire Skies)
♥ A love of New Orleans, burlesque and ghost stories (Southern Ruby)
♥ An encounter with someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (The Invitation)
That imagination usually starts rolling with a simple question: ‘What if?
All writers will tell you that ideas are everywhere: in history books and biographies; in lines of poetry; pieces of music; or even in the ingredients list on food items. Ideas come to us from overheard conversations or sometimes in our dreams.
But those sources are available to every curious person. There isn’t a secret treasure chest of ideas available only to writers. The difference with someone who can create a story out of an idea and someone who simply collects facts comes down to one innate quality that writers have: a childlike imagination.
And that imagination usually starts rolling with a simple question: ‘What if?’
After a traumatic experience, I spent time on the South Coast of NSW to get my bearings back. I’d always loved the atmosphere of the region with its verdant mountains, rugged coastline and tiny historic towns. But it was the question ‘What if?’ that transformed that holiday from a mere journey of rejuvenation into the spark for the idea that was to become my latest novel, The Mystery Woman.
What if a woman fleeing Sydney tries to begin a new life in a small town but discovers that the people in it are far more dangerous than any she has left behind?
The possibilities for stories that could evolve from any of those ideas are endless
That ‘What if?’ question is what can turn even the most prosaic experience into the seeds of a story. For instance, many of us have been in the situation of having received a package or letter intended for someone else, and without thinking we have accidentally opened it. But What if you had an elderly next-door neighbour, Mavis, who bakes cakes for your children’s birthdays and house-sits your pets when you go on holidays? And ‘What if one day you received a package intended for her, and accidentally opened it to discover:
♥ A letter from a lover written over forty years ago
♥ A small amount of suspicious white powder
♥ A sex toy
♥ Surveillance photographs of your family
The possibilities for stories that could evolve from any of those ideas are endless when you have a writer’s imagination and you continually ask yourself: ‘What if?’
It’s not so much the original inspiration that creates a great story. An exotic location or epic historical event doesn’t necessarily make any more an engaging tale than one about an ordinary mother of three who goes to return her book to the library and witnesses a kidnapping. It’s what you do with the idea that counts!
Whether you are a reader or a budding writer, I encourage you to have some fun with this today. Just for an hour keep asking yourself ‘What if?’ to everything you do in that hour, and see how many different story ideas you can come up with. Some may just be silly, but some might just be brilliant. For example:
♥ What if the girl at Starbucks poisoned my coffee but someone else accidentally drank it?
♥ What if everyone in my office suddenly became invisible?
♥ What if my hairdresser actually works for ASIO?
And so on!
Don’t take this too seriously. Have fun! (And don’t mistake any of these flights of fantasy for reality!)
The question of where writers get their inspiration from is so fascinating, that I asked five of my favourite Australian authors to tell me where they get their ideas from for their stories. Here are their answers.
FIONA LOWE
I write contemporary fiction and I get my ideas from all around me!
A Home Like Ours grew out of a bunch of ideas sparked by the national news, my local paper, my past experiences working as a community health nurse, podcasts and listening to, aka eaves-dropping on, what people are talking about in cafes, on the train and at supermarket check-outs.
I built on these ideas with research, which gave me more ideas! Among many things, I visited two community gardens. One had a horticultural support worker involved in a program for refugee women that used the growing of vegetables to promote wellness and diminish loneliness. I also visited Melbourne and ate my way around the African food festival and I attended a play written by women who’d experienced homelessness. All of these ideas and experiences culminated in A Home Like Ours.
JOSEPHINE MOON
Sometimes the initial spark for a book comes in a really direct way. Back in 2008, I was wandering through a T2 store, picking up little pots of tea, enjoying the aromas of different blends, when it suddenly occurred to me that it was someone's job to design tea blends! This struck me as being one of the best jobs in the world and so I decided to write a story about that person, which became my first published book, The Tea Chest.
With my sixth novel, The Gift of Life, I was watching a medical drama and a woman needed a heart transplant. Straight away, I remembered an interview I'd watched on The Phil Donahue Show decades earlier, in which a woman described the intense connection she had with the donor of her heart and I knew I wanted to write about that.
For most of my books, though, the ideas come slowly, in layers, in blurry images that swirl around each other and eventually begin to take shape. I always start building stories from the outside in - my food theme and my locations need to be solid like a stage set before I can place my characters into the action.
I usually have several stories jostling for attention and I often have to cull at least a couple but I don't usually know which is the strongest story arc until the first draft is written, at which point I need to do some serious stripping and rewiring, much like renovating a house. I like multi-layered stories so there is always a lot going on at once in my books
VANESSA McCAUSLAND
I start with place and setting and work from there. For The Valley of Lost Stories, I discovered a ghost town in the Capertee Valley just over the Blue Mountains. The remains of a shale oil mine and a township that once housed 3,000 people in the 1940s were slowly sinking into the ground, being reclaimed by the bush. It had such a mysterious, haunting atmosphere as well as the natural beauty of this incredible escarpment. And when I visited the beautiful renovated Art Deco hotel in the valley, I knew I had to set my story there.
For The Lost Summers of Driftwood, the setting is a river on the NSW South Coast. I knew I wanted to write a book about first love and long summers and nostalgia after spending my own childhood growing up holidaying in the area. The river almost became another character in the book. I think I also enjoy escaping to somewhere beautiful in my mind when I write!
RACHAEL JOHNS
The idea for my next release How to Mend a Broken Heart came from a few places:
A previous novel of mine, The Art of Keeping Secrets. Readers kept asking me for a sequel and whereas most of my books I feel are done by the time I type the end, I had to concede that one of the three main characters in this book had potential for a little more. That's Flick and where her two friends had endings of hope, hers was a little up in the air. Like my readers, I kept thinking about her and wondering what she was up to.
I went to New Orleans for the first time in 2014 and fell in love with the French Quarter and the surrounds. I loved the quirky boutiques, bars, buildings, art, music and of course the ghosts. I knew immediately that I wanted to write a book there, but wasn't sure what. Then suddenly years later, it clicked that the beautiful creepiness of New Orleans would be perfect for a taxidermist, which is what Flick was. I almost immediately booked a flight back for a research trip to prepare myself to write Flick's story. Maybe I was just looking for an excuse to return or maybe I was just waiting for the right story?
Charles Dickens' Great Expectations is one of the only books I actually finished for high school English and it was the character of Miss Havisham that captivated me. Jilted at the altar, she then spent her life in her wedding dress. For many years I've wanted to write my own version of Miss Havisham and the moment I decided to set a story in New Orleans, I knew she needed to be a part of it. And it was perfect for Flick, who is trying to move on from a broken heart, while Miss Havisham never managed to.
ALEXANDRA JOEL
You might well see me as a thief, stealing from friends and acquaintances. Even perfect strangers are not safe, for my stories often come from observation and anecdotes. However, they can also spring from something as seemingly inconsequential as a line in a newspaper or a conversation I’ve overheard at the supermarket checkout.
The fact that my family is filled with vivid, sometimes eccentric characters is also a great resource. For instance, my dad came from a dirt poor family. He joined the staff of The Daily Telegraph at just fourteen but went on to hobnob with popes, presidents and at least two royal princesses. One day, I found myself wondering: what if he’d been born a girl? What vast challenges would that girl have faced and who might she have become? Those questions were the spark for my new book, The Royal Correspondent.
I love reading history; when I come across a fascinating person, an event or even just a great frock it can set my mind whirling with creative possibilities. Personally, I don’t think of myself as a literary kleptomaniac. I prefer the notion of a butterfly catcher. Sometimes a wonderful idea will just float into my net. At other times, I pounce!
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