Where do you get your ideas from?
It’s the question that haunts writers. The problem is, they have a book they want to write. They’ve got their idea. That’s the only one they have.
And then you see writers who are CHURNING out books.
Where do they get ideas?
Here’s the answer – same way you got the idea for the first book you’re struggling with.
But there’s a trick to it.
You have to TRAIN yourself to RECOGNIZE when you just had a book idea.
Once you train yourself in how to recognize it, you find now you have far more ideas than time to write!
How do you train yourself?
That object you saw. Does it peak your interest?
A TV special on a historical subject. Did it interest you?
We often get our ideas from something that interests us, a situation.
New Zealand is interesting. So write a story about it. Perhaps a plane crash, and people have to make their way to civilization?
One thing that really interests me is an episode of an archaeology program where a historian wanted to investigate South American temples. He asked his guide about others, and the guide told him there was some to the south west.
Let’s go.
The guide explained you had to go north, make a wide circle and then go there. Why?
um… dinosaurs. No, I’m not kidding. That’s literally what the guide says.
That was on the History Channel eleven years ago, and nobody’s written a book on it!
Let’s revive Loch Ness! That would be fun.
A pocket knife can spur a story.
Thrift stores or antique stores should be inspiring hundreds of stories.
Take a historical figure and write a crazy adventure story – like what if Arthur Conan Doyle was the real Sherlock Holmes, and all the stories were true?
What if NASA was making everything up and Victor Hugo or H. G .Wells was right?
What if the War of the Worlds radio broadcast wasn’t faked?
The idea on finding ideas is to find an object, person or situation that intrigues you and train yourself to connect the ODDEST things. What if?
What if a circus clown from 80 years ago comes back as a vengeful ghost, and only the kids in the town discover it?
There are too many ideas out there. Too many.
Train yourself to harvest the billions of ideas you’re tripping over every day!
