People are always asking where authors get their ideas for their stories. I’m going to share a few of my methods.
I plagiarize my dreams. I’m sure I’m not the only one who dreams in story-form, but I’ve done myself several favors by writing down my dream right when I wake up. The unconscious mind is a fabulous screenwriter with the ability to provide powerful images and backstory that frankly leaves me wondering where it gets its material from.
I ask myself questions. Two of my favorites are: ‘What would happen if…?’ and, ‘What’s behind that door?’
I do writing exercises in which I challenge myself to create a problem for a random character and put her in a time crunch. In fact, this is how I came up with the storyline for Tinder Sky. With no idea how my heroine was going to solve her problem, I simply followed her to the end of the story. To make things interesting, I created a secondary character with a goal that directly conflicted with the primary character.
I look at images of people until I find the person I want to write a story about.
Lastly, I let my imagination wander. A lot.
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