One of the most frequent questions asked of a writer is, ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’.
The true answer sounds evasive or boring. The problem is it’s true. Everywhere.
Writers find their ideas everywhere and anywhere.
If you followed me around for a week you’d be amazed at how many times you’d hear me or my wife say, ‘There’s a story in that’. In the car, at the supermarket, in a shop, at a meeting. It could be the result of something overheard, or seen, or read. A news headline. A conversation in the coffee shop. A poster. A near miss accident. A trip on a loose paving stone. A man on crutches. Someone with pigeon poo on their shoulder. Truly, anything, anything, anything can trigger a story idea or a character outline if you open your mind to it.
A few years ago, a feature on the TV news announced The Bodleian Library had paid almost £1million for a few sheets of an original Jane Austen manuscript; it was The Watsons. Any normal viewer might have exclaimed, ‘Ridiculous!’.
I was on holiday in Istanbul a while ago and visited Topkapi Palace where I saw this beautiful diamond with the unlikely name of The Spoonmaker’s Diamond (Kaşıkçı Elması) which weighed eighty-six carats. It was about the size of an egg. Check your earrings – typically ¼ to ½ carat – and imagine it. Any normal tourist might have said, ‘Wow!’.
In both these cases I applied my favourite question – What if . . .?
What if a complete Jane Austen manuscript was found? Imagine seeing Pride and Prejudice in her own handwriting complete with crossings out and corrections. And Emma. And Sense and Sensibility. It’d be worth many, many millions to the right people.
What if an unscrupulous collector wanted that diamond for his secret private museum?
The answers to these questions turned into books. The first; Blood on Charing X Road. The second; Steal a Diamond, which was the first in my Favours series of thrillers.
If not a story, any of the situations mentioned above could trigger ideas for a character, some dialogue, a setting. Try it with these.
This is a genuine headline I saw some years ago . . .
o STUDENTS COOK AND SERVE GRANDPARENTS
o A handwritten sign in a front room window . . .
REFUGEES WELCOME over a red love heart
Try one of the examples from a few paragraphs back. The man on crutches. You might feel sympathetic. But what if one of his crutches was actually a gun, cleverly disguised?
There’s a story in that! Actually, there is: The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth featured such a weapon.
Open your mind and you’ll start seeing stories everywhere.
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