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Telling Your Own Stories: For Family and Classroom Storytelling, Public Speaking, and Personal Journaling
by Donald D. Davis
This little book, which I own and love, is a great source for ideas taken right from your own life.
Finding Ideas for Your Novels and Stories
Experienced authors usually have more ideas than they can ever write, but for beginning authors, ideas are often a challenge. Every author needs a great idea before he or she can get published. Of course, the execution of the idea is even more important than the idea--any idea can be a great story in the hands of a great writer. Until we're great writers, however, a really great idea can make a big difference. Folowing are two questions I've been asked about getting ideas for publishable novels and stories:
Where do your ideas come from?
I get ideas from all over and a lot of times, I can’t quite remember where they originated. Right now, I’m working on a novel based on a Bible story. I was trying not to listen to some piece of music my son was listening to in the car, but a particular phrase caught my attention and made me think of that story. I started wondering why I’d never seen a novel based on that story and whether or not I could do it. My mind starting wandering around to what type of person would have been a part of the event—not a main player in it, but someone who was affected by it—and which of those non-scriptural people I could write a story about. After I wrote the first chapter, a friend pointed out I was writing about the wrong person and I moved a minor character to the front. I’m not sure where his story came from. He wandered into the story unexpectedly and took over. Somehow I just knew all about him...ideas are like that for me, sometimes. They materialize out of nowhere.
Is there anything that you do in particular to think of different ideas?
When I’m stuck, I let my mind wander while doing uncreative work. I get a lot of ideas while driving down back roads after dropping my son at school. These days, I like to walk our property and let my mind roam. I do a lot of mental writing while cleaning, too, since I hate cleaning. If I think hard enough, I’ll get the work done without really noticing. I start by asking myself “what would happen if...” or “I wonder why....” Sometimes I try to picture the characters in a different activity and “watch” in my mind to see what they do. Once in a while, I’ve written a journal entry as if I were someone in a story in order to try to get inside his mind. I find it works best to let it wander around the back of my mind rather than trying to force the story. If I’m completely stuck, I move on, making a colored note that there is a blank spot in the story, and come back to it later.
I do outline, but loosely. I don’t outline in order. As I come up with an idea, I jot it down. When I have several items, I put them in the order I think I’ll use them. Whenever I come up with an idea, I insert it where it seems to belong, although I often change the order later. When I write, I write without looking at the outline until I’m stuck. Then I check to see what comes next. That lets my subconscious build the story beyond what I’ve plotted.
If you want to write for a particular magazine, subscribe to it and then read it cover to cover every month. Look at the kinds of things they publish to spark your own ideas. When you submit to a magazine, you have to know exactly what they like and what the style is.