Month: May 2019

Where Do Writers Get Their Ideas?!

This is one of the most common questions authors receive in interviews and lecture Q and As. Have you ever wondered where “the greats” get their ideas? Or perhaps you are having a creative slump and are desperately searching for your next big story. So how does one come up with ideas?

I can only speak for myself and Stephen King when I say: WHAT IF? Ever since I was a child, almost every story I have written stemmed from asking myself this question. Imagine my absolute delight when I read On Writing by Stephen King for the first time (many years ago) and discovered that he often employs the same technique.

“The most interesting situations can usually be expressed as a What-if question.”

– Stephen King, On Writing

Not only is this an almost guaranteed way to come up with at least one viable concept, but it’s incredibly easy. You start with a singular moment or person or object, then spin it into any number of stories or sub-plots within a single story. And before you start saying, “yeah but that won’t work in MY situation”, this can work for any person and for any genre. Here are some of the ways I come up with my story plots and concepts.

#1 – Writing Prompts

Let’s start with the most obvious. I’m sure you are very aware of the extensive number of websites providing free writing prompts. What I challenge you to do is to look at them in a different light than you have before. Start by asking WHAT IF? Are you a horror writer, so you only search for horror prompts? WHAT IF you look up Romance instead? Man and Woman fall in love, then Woman gets an incurable disease and dies. Pretty well-known plot point, right?

WHAT IF the Man, distraught by the death of his love, slowly sinks into a state of psychosis? WHAT IF he starts seeing things and starts to wonder if he’s going crazy or if the Woman is haunting him? WHAT IF because of that, we start finding out sordid details of his past? And so on and so on.

The concept is gloriously simple – just one WHAT IF followed by another and another until you are suddenly cascading into a brainstorming/writing spree. This is part of what I call the “The Snowball Effect” (my guest blog post on this topic will debut on Well-Storied on May 27, 2019). Your final plot or scene may in no way resemble what you started with, and that’s ok! WHAT IF just serves to get those creative synapses firing.

“The important thing is not to stop questioning.”

– Albert Einstein

Please don’t underestimate writing contests either. These serve as perfectly good prompts for any genre (using the technique above), whether the contest is expired or not. New contests are always popping up, so even if you have no desire to enter the actual contest, it can still be an excellent catalyst.

For quick prompts, you can do a simple search engine check, or hit up your favorite blogs and writing websites. Pinterest is also a great place to try (plus you can save the ideas easily for future use). I have a board dedicated to writing prompts that you can find HERE.

Pictures and images are also excellent prompts – start by trying to tell the story of what is going on in the image and run with it from there. I post contest links, both written and picture prompts, quotes and more in my Facebook group regularly (example below), so come join us!

When you were nine years old, your best friend disappeared while you were all playing hide-and-seek. The police never turned up any leads. Today is your 30th birthday and you just received a card that could only have come from your missing friend.

#2 – On The Road

How much time do you spend in some type of vehicle? Commutes to and from work or school, for business travel, for vacation, etc.? The time can really add up, so make more use of it! (Just remember to pay attention to the road above all else if you are the driver – PSA box is now checked off my list.)

  • What is up with the paint job on that car – is that on purpose?
  • The driver behind you is acting strangely…. (starting with a similar thought helped me to come up with my story The Lady In The Trunk)
  • Bumper stickers can really tell you a lot about a person….
  • Names of businesses and license plates (I saw a license plate that started with Ila, then a van drove by for Patterson’s something or another. My character Ila Patterson was born from this. Though her name later changed for various reasons, I still got a short story out of it that is in my first Amazon collection, along with The Lady In The Trunk.)
  • What nefarious thing could be in that trash bag on the side of the road, or in the waist-high grass overtaking the median? Maybe a dead body….
  • The roads and highways are littered with billboards and electronic signs. What if one day the sign’s message issued a threat instead of a warning?
  • Stuck in traffic? What could happen that would change your life in an instant? Maybe giant creatures appearing or a massive sinkhole opens up or an alien invasion or the sun disappears or…….
  • Songs on the radio sure do tell a great story, but what if the lyrics were changed just a little?

#3 – At Work or School

  • Did your co-worker or classmate say or do something incredibly stupid yet again? Did someone maybe get a little out of control at the office/class party?
  • Boring posters and message boards you regularly ignore could hold a wealth of ideas. That workers comp poster could lead to some interesting stories….
  • Does a teacher lecture or corporate meeting have you practically comatose? Wouldn’t it be great if they just stopped talking? WHAT IF they suddenly collapsed and now everyone in the room is a suspect?
  • Is the water cooler or snack machine secretly out to get you?
  • Maybe that mom sitting by the window gave her child the kid’s meal she ordered, but you put the wrong toy in there. Her kid starts screaming at the top of his lungs and the mom was clearly already at the end of her rope when she walked in. WHAT IF this was her breaking point – how would she react?

#4 – Personal Life

  • What movies or TV shows left you dissatisfied? WHAT IF the episode or series or movie had ended differently….
  • News stories, whether you get them from the newspaper, online, or news networks, are a plethora of stories waiting to be twisted to suit your writing needs!
  • People-watching is as popular as ever and serves as a great way to not only get story ideas by asking WHAT IF, but also provides visuals that you can use later when describing your character’s physical attributes.
  • Nature and Science documentaries open doors to crazy creatures and freaky phenomena that are often outlandish enough to be used as is, but combining some of these ideas into a single plot or scene can be even better.
  • Tired of watching happy-go-lucky cartoon programming with your children all day? Do you groan every time they ask you to read them that same boring bedtime story? WHAT IF that ending was not so full of sunshine and rainbows? Or WHAT IF it was retold as an adult story – what would change?
  • If you’re spending your weekend doing mind-numbing chores and errands, what could make these things easier? A fancy invention? Or maybe no one does these things in the future anymore – but why not?
  • Just looking for some character names or good names for plants or animals in your next work? Honestly, I have come up with plenty by looking at word searches. Random letter combinations that appear can make for excellent names
  • Social Media! What about all that time you spend scrolling through Tweets, Pins, Facebook feeds and Instagram posts? How many of these can you take and transform for either character building or plot development?
  • Texting typos have given me some doozies. There are a ton of these fail examples to be found online if you aren’t into texting yourself. Not long ago I tried to text my son that we were “turning into driveway” so he could unlock the door. Instead, it came out as “turning into Dubai”. Cue the potential espionage story my brain skittered off to. I won’t even go into my phone changing “mouse traps” into “morse tarfoya”…..

#5 – Public Domain

In case you are unsure of what this is, the dictionary defines it as: “the state of belonging or being available to the public as a whole, and therefore not subject to copyright.”

There are many websites out there with public domain lists. You can surf through the lists of stories, films and artwork with expired copyrights to get ideas for your own stories. Even if your final work ends up being so far removed from the original that copyright would not be an issue anyway, it’s still a valuable launching point.

This is especially exciting now in 2019. To make a long story short, a 20 year freeze was placed on releasing copyrights in the late 90s. Since then, nothing published after 1922 that was copyrighted would become part of the public domain. But as of Jan. 1, 2019, the hiatus ended and the copyrights of 1923 are now available.

PUBLIC DOMAIN DAY 2019 WELCOMES 1923!

You may think 1923 was too long ago to hold any interest for you, but I urge you to check out the list before dismissing it. There are some interesting releases available from that year including (but not limited to) titles by Agatha Christie, Robert Frost, Ernest Hemingway, H.P. Lovecraft, H.G. Wells, and Arthur Conan Doyle.

Don’t stop there! Look for works that are set to be available to the public domain in the next few years so that as soon as they are released, you already have a story close to or ready for publication. Do be cautious putting extensive work into this though, as another freeze could go into effect and put a halt to your plans.

These are by no means the only ways you can get ideas, but maybe they can give you a place to start or a way to get over a hump. Hopefully you’ve started thinking of your surroundings in a different way, even if you have used some of these tactics before.

Keep your eyes peeled and your mind open, no matter what situation you find yourself in. Let your imagination run free! If it needs a little push to get the motor running, just ask yourself, “WHAT IF?”

Do you have other strategies for brainstorming ideas? Let me know in the comments below!

Top 5 Fears of Writers and How to Vanquish Them

Have you experienced any of these feelings when you think about writing or when you actually sit down to create?

  • Anger
  • Depression
  • Denial
  • Bargaining
  • Acceptance

Well, my friend, this is actually the list of the 5 most common stages of grief or loss. Not everyone experiences all of them, nor do they necessarily come in any specific order. While traveling the road to becoming an author, I found that these are also common emotions when approaching writing as either a hobby or as a career.

Perhaps for you, anger rears its ugly head when you are constantly interrupted during the time you set aside to write. Or when you do finally write something but after reading over it, you are convinced it is the worst piece of garbage to ever curse a page. On the other hand, if you managed to submit a piece that you are proud of just to be turned down over and over again, it can be rage-inducing.

Depression can take hold when you feel incapable of writing at a level that would be considered publishable, or are receiving rejection letters more often than a Kardashian graces the cover of Yahoo news. Some aspiring writers mistakenly believe that they are either too young or too old to have any kind of presence in the writing community.

Let’s be honest here. If you tell everyone that the reason you haven’t completed your story yet is because you don’t have enough time or money (and have even managed to convince yourself of that) you are probably in denial.

Do you beg and plead with your muse to bless you with just one viable idea? Because if they do, you promise to never ask them for anything ever again! Or you may even bargain with yourself, swearing that as soon as you build on that perfect original idea you had that’s never been done before, you’ll drop everything else and write that book.

Maybe you have gone through some of these steps already and have finally concluded that you just aren’t good enough and you might as well just throw in the towel instead of repeatedly trying and failing for eternity.

Guess what? You are not alone. I repeat, you are not alone.

One more time for the people in the back, YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

Having any (or all) of these feelings is normal. And the best part about the whole mess is that you CAN overcome these challenges. But in order to succeed, you first need to identify what the real issue is that holds you back. Only then can you tackle them effectively. So, let’s talk about the most common fears that aspiring writers face and what you can do about it.

“Courage doesn’t mean you don’t get afraid. Courage means you don’t let fear stop you.”    – Bethany Hamilton

Fear of Failure and/or Rejection

First thing first – stop comparing yourself to other writers, especially the Stephen Kings and J.K. Rowlings of the world. Everyone starts somewhere. If you are concerned that your grammar skills are lacking – there’s an app for that! Joking aside, there are apps and websites a-plenty, as well as some editors that can help (in general, editors prefer as clean a copy as possible – the more work they need to put in, the more they will need to charge). Just because your particular education may not have ended in a degree from an Ivy League school, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t tell your story.

Everyone has something worthwhile to say. Do not make the mistake of assuming what others MIGHT think about your work. There are billions of people out there – if you can tell me what they are all thinking at any given time, we need to get in touch because I have a proposition for you.

Along these same lines, is something called Imposter Syndrome. If you have never heard of it, Wikipedia explains it this way:

Impostor syndrome is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts his or her accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a “fraud”.

This is a very real fear plaguing many writers, regardless of experience or how many books they have under their belts. Please know that this should not keep you from your dreams! Work hard and celebrate your accomplishments, whether it be as glorious as publishing a book or simply hitting your word count goal for the day. If you enjoy writing, just do it and don’t worry about the naysayers out there. I also recommend you check out this great article about dealing with Imposter Syndrome by Kristen Kieffer.

Have you ever thought, “I start things but I never finish”? This is not a race. Never compare your journey to others, though admittedly, this can be a difficult thing to resist. I see so many programs out there designed to help a writer get their book written in just a few months, which is great! But while that may work for some people when accountability is their main concern, there is no law stating your book has to be completed in any specific time frame (unless you signed a contract).

Deadlines can be extremely helpful and are often vital, regardless of being mandated by others or self-imposed. Write at a pace that works for you and your current situation. It may take longer, but it will get done. As your life situation changes, keep updating your goals. Things will not always be as they are right this minute.

Additionally, there’s a first time for everything! Make this the first time you followed through with a major goal. Why do you “never finish anything”? Often it is due to this fear or failure (please see subheading for this section, hint hint). Though less common, fear of success is also a legitimate problem. Find the “why” behind your history of incomplete projects, then attack that specific problem to change the pattern!

Inexperienced or Too Experienced

Let me get this straight – You’ve never written a book before, so no one will take you seriously or care about what you have to say? In 1590, Shakespeare had never written a play before. In 1761, Mozart had never composed music before. In the 1930’s, Andy Warhol had never painted before. Are you catching my drift here?

Everyone starts somewhere and at one point, every single person has done everything for the first time. Just because you haven’t done a particular thing before, does not mean you shouldn’t give it at least one solid try. Besides, how in the world do you plan on gaining experience if you never do anything about it?

Maybe I misunderstood – it’s not that you are too young, right? It’s because you are “too old” to start any kind of writing career. Wrong again. Your life experiences are invaluable regardless of the genre you choose to delve into. I’m not saying that 40 is old (heaven knows I’m crawling right up on that particular milestone), but it seems frighteningly common for people to think it too old an age to start down the writing path.

If you were unaware, James A. Michener wrote 40 books AFTER the age of 40, thank you very much. Laura Ingalls Wilder published her first book, Little House in the Big Woods, at the age of 64. Millard Kaufman (a co-creator of the endearingly befuddled Mr. Magoo) did not publish his first novel until he was 90 years old. Besides, 50 is the new 40, or so I hear.

Not Enough Time

Yes, I’m sure you’ve heard this a hundred times, but I’m telling you again in hopes that it sticks this time. If you have a way to record your thoughts and as little as 30 seconds to spare, you can create. You don’t have to sit down in front of a fancy laptop for 4 hours a day so you can churn out a masterpiece.

Frequent advice I’ve heard (if you can call it that) is that if you want to be a writer, you just have to “make time”. I agree and disagree, respectively.

Not everyone can just “make time”. Lives are more hectic today than ever before and society is riddled with obligations. School, work (possibly multiple jobs), children’s extracurricular activities, errands, and so on can take up a great deal of time. If you are at a point in your life where you GENUINELY cannot spare just a few minutes daily, then that perfectly is ok. Don’t beat yourself up about it!

However, can you actually make the time, but have convinced yourself that you can’t? Don’t give up just because you can’t carve out an hour or more at a time. You do, though, need to be honest with yourself. Can you actually write for 20 minutes instead of watching one more episode of that series you are binge-watching? Can you get up 5 or 10 minutes sooner to write down a few thoughts before the day begins?

People commonly feel as though they don’t have enough time, but if they take a few minutes to sit down and really think about what they are currently doing with their time, they often discover that there are more free minutes hiding away than they previously believed.

I was in this same category not too long ago, so I decided to take a serious look at where I was spending my time. It turns out that I regularly managed to find time to watch YouTube videos (“I need some downtime”) and play games on my phone (“it’s just a couple of levels”), among many other time-killers I discovered lurking in my timeline. What I had actually been doing was procrastinating because of fear, but I was masking it by telling myself I was “just too busy”. Perhaps you can relate?

Try to think about other times when you can squeeze in some writing (or record yourself on your phone or other device if you do not have the ability to physically write or type anything at the moment) like the ones I have listed below. If you do not have time to sit down and write daily, you can still do some brainstorming! Not only does brainstorming save you time when you are finally able to take time out to write, but it keeps those creative juices flowing.

  • During those long commutes to and from work/school
  • Breaks at work or in between classes
  • While you are sitting on hold for that dreaded conference call or with the utility company
  • While you take a shower or bath
  • When you are doing dishes, folding the laundry, mowing the lawn, etc.
  • Waiting in the long drop-off line at your child’s school/daycare/activity

Originality

Your basic concept isn’t original. I’m sorry, but it had to be said. There is a very slim chance that your story is completely original, so you can just put that fear to bed right now, kiss it goodnight and lock the door on your way out.

“I think new writers are too worried that it has all been said before. Sure it has, but not by you.” – Asha Dornfest

What makes your writing shine is YOU: Your unique perspective on life and your special voice. Take that idea and spin it every which way from Sunday to tell your story in the way that only you can. THAT is what makes a good story. At its core, your concept generally will and SHOULD fall into some type of category. All major novels and movies can be broken down into basic elements – elements that define a genre.

So don’t toss your bad-boy-falls-for-good-girl story (Grease; a great many romance novels), the epic adventure of a special chosen one (Harry Potter; Lord of the Rings) or lone survivor idea (Castaway; I Am Legend) out the window. Change the setting, the time period, the characters – whatever you can to make it your own.

Publishing a Book is Too Expensive

You’d be surprised! Technically, you can do it for free, providing you have computer access and the internet. But if you are in need of professional editing or cover design, yes, it will cost a little more. Try putting aside a few dollars each month (it helps to have a budget clearly laid out), or instead of buying something else you had been wanting (like that bag of cookies), put that money in a jar or in a savings account.

There genuinely are plenty of people who truly live paycheck to paycheck (myself included) and have already reduced their expenses to the barest of bones. I’m not saying professionals should give all of their services away for free (we all need to make money), but the ones that really push you to buy their programs because it’s a low, low price of $497 with a value of over $5,000 frustrate me. Not everyone has an extra ten or twenty dollars a month, even though that amount may seem insignificant to others.

BUT, with a little extra time and effort, you can still live your dream!

There are so many free resources online that help you every step of the way, from how to get started writing, to publishing and marketing your book. You can self-publish for free as well (an example is on Amazon through Kindle Direct Publishing). Look around online and in your town for reading/writing groups and also seek out references for free or cheap assistance with editing or design. Even better, see if any of your friends or family members possess any of these skills.

I have been through a lot of webinars/courses,etc. and an am avid researcher, but I know that is not everyone’s cup of tea. Just be willing to reach out to people for advice and assistance. I am on Twitter (@MyWriteAffair) and have a Facebook Group that I invite you to be a part of(FB groups are a great way to be involved in the community and get answers to your writing questions). I’m even on Pinterest and Instagram!

My desire is to help you through your writing journey and possibly save you from some of the roadblocks that can get in your way, or at least help you to get over the ones that are unavoidable. Feel free to comment below, or reach out to me via my social media if you have any thoughts or questions.

You can vanquish any and all of these most common fears aspiring writers suffer from. You just need the burning desire and the will to try. Be a writing warrior!

Do you have any topic suggestions for future posts?