Where Do Ideas Come From?

“That would be a great title for a book!” This is one of my favorite observations. For as long as I can remember, I have been saying this in response to one type of stimulus or another. It doesn’t mean that I want to write that book, but rather that I can see a germ of an idea in what someone has said or in something that I saw or read.

Where do writers get their ideas from? I was recently at a conference of romance writers. Several well-known writers made presentations as part of the conference. All of them addressed this question. Julia Quinn, the creator of the brilliant Bridgerton series, said that it takes her time to craft her ideas for stories. She mentioned, however, that Stephanie Laurens, the uber prolific Australian writer of the Cynster series, among others, always seems to be brimming with ideas.

I’ve been writing ever since I could hold a pencil. As I write this, I am looking up at two piles of notebooks filled over the years with story ideas, poems and stray thoughts that I thought might make good stories. Underneath my desk are two enormous binders with material for my Ravenscrofft stories. Every time I talk to my writing mentor, the eminent poet and artist, James W. Gaynor, (Jim) I come away with three more ideas for stories I absolutely MUST write immediately. I sometimes despair that even if I write for a hundred years, there will not be enough time in the world for me to write all the stories that are whirling around in my brain. After all, I can only write one or two at a time!

The best place for idea generation for me, bar none, is in my morning shower. I find that if I’m trying to work on a new story idea or untangle a particularly difficult plot point, I generally can do this in the shower. I am not really a morning person. However, I think that this is a benefit. I somehow get myself out of bed and into the shower. I stand under the hot water and my mind is more or less a blank. I rarely have much going on in my brain in the morning. As the water falls around me, I focus on the issue that needs to be thought through. There’s very little else competing for my focus. Almost always, the solution or the idea that I’m looking for arises out of some buried part of my consciousness. By the time I’m toweling off, I know what I have to write about and I can’t wait to get started.

When I was writing the Evil Earl in the first two Ravenscrofft novels, I spent a great deal of time in the shower. He was so evil! I knew he needed to die. But I didn’t want to kill him off! I kept trying to think of ways to redeem him. What’s a girl to do? As I often do, I asked Jim for his input. (Not when I was in the shower!) His response was classic. “The Earl will live on in flashbacks.” And so he does.