by June Shaw
What do you do if you're an author, and ideas won't come?
For about the two thousandth time, I am about to find out.
Normally when I don't know what words to type on the page it's because I'm at a place in the plot of a novel where something important and unexpected needs to happen. When that occurs, I often sit back, look at what I'd written thus far, and consider what twist might pull the reader along so that he or she won't close the book.
That's not what's happening now. Right now I'm setting my fingers on my laptop keys and creating one word after another, but I need to admit -- I'm not sure where I'm going with this.
I'll blame it on others. Twice within the past week I needed to create blogs for other people (of course I could have done them sooner, but -- I digress.) Possibly I could start thinking of something clever to write in our group blog here like so many of the other authors do. I could set lots of attractive pictures in my posts (if I could figure out how to do that.)
I write a quarterly column for our area's Chamber of Commerce. The same thing happens there. Ideas come at the last minute. I'm not sure who I'll write about until the editor shoots me a reminder that my column is due in a few days.
I don't put off writing on a work-in-progress almost every day. My routine is set: rise whenever I wake up, read my Daily Word and say quick prayers, grab my coffee and get to the computer. Of course my fiction might increase faster if the Internet wasn't connected.
So what do you keep writing about? And how do you do it on time? I'd love to know how others keep up with all of the things they're trying to write.
http//www.juneshaw.com
Showing posts with label story ideas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label story ideas. Show all posts
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Writing Books around Seasons
By June Shaw
Have you written any mysteries around a holiday or season?
Have you picked up any books to read because they were centered around a holiday theme or a season?
Lots of books seem to come out each year centered around Christmas. Quite a few take place around Thanksgiving.
I've seen a number of books centered around Fourth of July. But what about Flag Day? Can you come up with an idea about that?
Mother's Day? Any story has to be filled with conflict. What conflicts could arise during that supposedly happy weekend?
Winter has attracted many mysteries with its imagines of things dying. So has snow which covers bodies. But what about spring? New birth? And a death or two?
Graduation--commencement--the beginning. I used that happy time to center my first mystery, Relative Danger.
Taking a cruise--yes--what pleasure--unless people you know start dying. And then there's your class reunion--what fun--unless one of your good friends is a killer--and you need to find out. I had so much fun with that concept with my newest mystery, Deadly Reunion.
While you're coming up with a place for your story to take place, maybe you'll want to give more thought to the occasion or season in which you set your story. Doing so can sometimes give it extra dimension.
Have you written any mysteries around a holiday or season?
Have you picked up any books to read because they were centered around a holiday theme or a season?
Lots of books seem to come out each year centered around Christmas. Quite a few take place around Thanksgiving.
I've seen a number of books centered around Fourth of July. But what about Flag Day? Can you come up with an idea about that?
Mother's Day? Any story has to be filled with conflict. What conflicts could arise during that supposedly happy weekend?
Winter has attracted many mysteries with its imagines of things dying. So has snow which covers bodies. But what about spring? New birth? And a death or two?
Graduation--commencement--the beginning. I used that happy time to center my first mystery, Relative Danger.
Taking a cruise--yes--what pleasure--unless people you know start dying. And then there's your class reunion--what fun--unless one of your good friends is a killer--and you need to find out. I had so much fun with that concept with my newest mystery, Deadly Reunion.
While you're coming up with a place for your story to take place, maybe you'll want to give more thought to the occasion or season in which you set your story. Doing so can sometimes give it extra dimension.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
WHERE DO IDEAS FOR BOOKS COME FROM?
by June Shaw
Many readers want to know where novelists get their ideas.
Recently I enjoyed getting a new one. I was in the post office with only the two women working at the counter when the door opened and shut behind me.
"I need to mail a shoe," a guy said.
I turned around, big smile on my face. The nice-looking young man held a woman's attractive strappy black heel.
"Okay," I said, "I'm a novelist. You have got to tell me about this shoe."
He grinned and complied, and the women and I enjoyed his story. It seems he'd flown across the country to stand in a good friend's wedding. Afterward, when he was with others from the bridal party at the airport, one of the bridesmaids' suitcases was too heavy. A couple of the guys opened their bags and let her toss some of her things in. They'd returned her things. But he found one of her shoes had remained with him--so now he wanted a box to ship it in.
"Love that story," I said and gave him one of my business cards. "Thanks for giving me the idea for one of my next books. I normally write mysteries, but that one might have to be a romance."
He held up the shoe. "Kind of like Cinderella, huh?" he said, and I agreed.
Okay, so now none of you steal this story. It happened to me, and I'm going to use it in a novel.
I came up with the idea for my newest mystery, the newly released DEADLY REUNION, at my last class reunion. Wondering who my former classmates really were and whether I'd ever completely known good friends at all, I decided I'd write a novel about one. And then setting it on an Alaskan cruise--well, somebody had to do research. And as far as my main character's mishap, I once heard Bette Middler say she strutted across a stage in really high heels and fell and broke her ankle, so...
Now tell us all -- where do you get your ideas?
Many readers want to know where novelists get their ideas.
Recently I enjoyed getting a new one. I was in the post office with only the two women working at the counter when the door opened and shut behind me.
"I need to mail a shoe," a guy said.
I turned around, big smile on my face. The nice-looking young man held a woman's attractive strappy black heel.
"Okay," I said, "I'm a novelist. You have got to tell me about this shoe."
He grinned and complied, and the women and I enjoyed his story. It seems he'd flown across the country to stand in a good friend's wedding. Afterward, when he was with others from the bridal party at the airport, one of the bridesmaids' suitcases was too heavy. A couple of the guys opened their bags and let her toss some of her things in. They'd returned her things. But he found one of her shoes had remained with him--so now he wanted a box to ship it in.
"Love that story," I said and gave him one of my business cards. "Thanks for giving me the idea for one of my next books. I normally write mysteries, but that one might have to be a romance."
He held up the shoe. "Kind of like Cinderella, huh?" he said, and I agreed.
Okay, so now none of you steal this story. It happened to me, and I'm going to use it in a novel.
I came up with the idea for my newest mystery, the newly released DEADLY REUNION, at my last class reunion. Wondering who my former classmates really were and whether I'd ever completely known good friends at all, I decided I'd write a novel about one. And then setting it on an Alaskan cruise--well, somebody had to do research. And as far as my main character's mishap, I once heard Bette Middler say she strutted across a stage in really high heels and fell and broke her ankle, so...
Now tell us all -- where do you get your ideas?
Thursday, January 28, 2010
The Idea Well
By Beth Terrell
"Where do you get your ideas?"
It's a question that, sooner or later, every writer is bound to hear. In fact, just this week, Nathan Bransford (http://www.nathanbransford.com) asked his readership what had inspired our/their current works in progress, a question similar in spirit, if not in scope. And why not? I'm always intrigued by the workings of other writers' minds, by the spark that flashes when that perfect story idea flits past, and by the fact that an idea that sparks for me may be nothing but a bit of drifting ash to someone else.
Where do you get your ideas? I've heard writers give clever, facile answers:
"I get them from a factory in Poughkeepsie. I send then twenty dollars a month and they send me back ten ideas in a plain manila envelope."
"There's an idea well in my cousin's back yard. Whenever I need a story idea, I go out and pull up a pail full. I always find something I can use."
Others are more forthcoming:
"Newspaper clippings."
"Magazine articles."
"Sixty Minutes."
I think they all mean the same thing. Ideas are everywhere, fireflies on a summer night, stars in a winter sky, an infinite number of beautiful, scattered lights. One current work in progress was inspired by some inexplicable fears and behaviors my grandmother exhibited when she was suffering from dementia. As I attempted to understand what she was going through, I had the idea to write about an woman caring for her grandmother, whose "unreasonable" fears have their roots in long-buried memories. The caregiver never learns those secrets, but the reader does.
Another work in progress, the third in a series, was sparked by a conversation a friend and I had about a couple who created a garden in which thousands of small white wooden crosses represent lives lost to abortion.
Recently, I rediscovered a website I'd come across a few times before:
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/index.html. This site is an online library of modern and historical crimes. There are also articles on criminal psychology, toxicology, and other topics useful to writers of crime fiction. Stuck for a plot? Skimming these stories about real-life criminals can spark dozens of ideas. What if Sweeney Todd had been born in Chicago in the 1930s? What if someone like Albert Fish took a resourceful child who knew how to fight back? How about a black widow story? What if there was a group of time travelers who kidnapped serial killers in their infancy and raised them in loving, nurturing environments, and what if an evil group of time travelers decided to kidnap some potential killers of their own--and for less benevolent purposes? (Yes, sometimes the idea fireflies lead us far afield.)
Ideas are everywhere. Whether you envision them as fireflies in a field or drops of water in a well, the source is not a factory in Poughkeepsie or in anybody's cousin's back yard. You are the source, and I am, and everything we read, see, or experience helps scatter the stars and fill the well. That is the beauty of writing.
"Where do you get your ideas?"
It's a question that, sooner or later, every writer is bound to hear. In fact, just this week, Nathan Bransford (http://www.nathanbransford.com) asked his readership what had inspired our/their current works in progress, a question similar in spirit, if not in scope. And why not? I'm always intrigued by the workings of other writers' minds, by the spark that flashes when that perfect story idea flits past, and by the fact that an idea that sparks for me may be nothing but a bit of drifting ash to someone else.
Where do you get your ideas? I've heard writers give clever, facile answers:
"I get them from a factory in Poughkeepsie. I send then twenty dollars a month and they send me back ten ideas in a plain manila envelope."
"There's an idea well in my cousin's back yard. Whenever I need a story idea, I go out and pull up a pail full. I always find something I can use."
Others are more forthcoming:
"Newspaper clippings."
"Magazine articles."
"Sixty Minutes."
I think they all mean the same thing. Ideas are everywhere, fireflies on a summer night, stars in a winter sky, an infinite number of beautiful, scattered lights. One current work in progress was inspired by some inexplicable fears and behaviors my grandmother exhibited when she was suffering from dementia. As I attempted to understand what she was going through, I had the idea to write about an woman caring for her grandmother, whose "unreasonable" fears have their roots in long-buried memories. The caregiver never learns those secrets, but the reader does.
Another work in progress, the third in a series, was sparked by a conversation a friend and I had about a couple who created a garden in which thousands of small white wooden crosses represent lives lost to abortion.
Recently, I rediscovered a website I'd come across a few times before:
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/index.html. This site is an online library of modern and historical crimes. There are also articles on criminal psychology, toxicology, and other topics useful to writers of crime fiction. Stuck for a plot? Skimming these stories about real-life criminals can spark dozens of ideas. What if Sweeney Todd had been born in Chicago in the 1930s? What if someone like Albert Fish took a resourceful child who knew how to fight back? How about a black widow story? What if there was a group of time travelers who kidnapped serial killers in their infancy and raised them in loving, nurturing environments, and what if an evil group of time travelers decided to kidnap some potential killers of their own--and for less benevolent purposes? (Yes, sometimes the idea fireflies lead us far afield.)
Ideas are everywhere. Whether you envision them as fireflies in a field or drops of water in a well, the source is not a factory in Poughkeepsie or in anybody's cousin's back yard. You are the source, and I am, and everything we read, see, or experience helps scatter the stars and fill the well. That is the beauty of writing.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Chang and Eng In a Jar
By Beth Terrell
A few years ago, four colleagues and I went on a business trip to New Jersey. This was an exceptionally good business trip, because not only were we all friends, we also had similar interests and travel styles. We spent our days doing enjoyable work with good people and our evenings discovering such treasures as The Chocolate Cottage and The Parrot Place and giggling at the unusual business names (Gimpy's Funeral Home), the high number of strip clubs in the vicinity of our hotel, and the apparent inability of New Jersey-ites (New Jerseyans?) to make a left-hand turn. Only one of us had ever heard of, much less seen, a "jug-handle," and the one time we had to make five right-hand turns in order to turn left left us giddy. We loved it, from the 50's-style diners to the treasure trove of magazines on "Weird New Jersey." (We picked up a whole set, on the theory that they were chock-full of story ideas. Hey, maybe I should have written them off on my taxes!) Every night, we went to a different restaurant, each with delicious food and appalling service. Good thing we liked each other; none of our meals was less than an hour and a half long, most of that spent waiting on the server.
All in all, it was a delightful trip. But the high point of it didn't take place in New Jersey. It was on the last day, when we had almost a full day to call our own, and Cindi suggested we spend it in Philadelphia at the Mutter Museum of Medical Oddities. (To say Cindi loves museums would be an understatement; she once refused to enter the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History on the premise that she would never leave it and would have to live the rest of her life on food from the museum cafe.)
The rest of us were equally game, especially after hearing the rumor that the museum had Chang and Eng, history's most famous conjoined twins, in a jar. I have always been intrigued by conjoined twins, and while I realized there was probably something disrespectful about the public exhibition of their preserved body/bodies, if the museum really did have Chang and Eng in a jar, by George, I wanted to see it.
All I can say, is, if you've never been to the Mutter Museum, and if you are interested in the human condition (and what writer isn't?), then you should make it a point to put it on your list of must-sees. We got there early in the afternoon, and they practically had to push us out the door at closing time. This tiny museum was packed with stories, more than 20,000 artifacts, each one a glimpse into the web of life, death, and--if to be remembered is to live forever--immortality.
It is impossible to go through this exhibit without being forever changed by it. We are fearfully and wonderfully made; yet, there are so many ways the human body can go awry. Like the man whose 9-foot colon is one exhibit, looking, as one viewer phrased it, "like a sandworm from Dune." Looking at pictures of his distended belly, one can only imagine how it must have felt to go through life carrying this monstrous impaction.
There were wax models of flayed bodies, jars of miscarried infants at various stages of development and with a variety of medical conditions, a collection of objects (buttons, wedding rings, safety pins) taken from the windpipes of choking people, side-by-side plaster casts of a person with giantism and a person with dwarfism, a collection of medical instruments used throughout history, a collection of tumors and syphlitic organs, the brain of a murderer, and medical photographs taken to show the symptoms of a variety of medical conditions, including a wealth of information on conjoined twins.
Many of these exhibits are disturbing and haunting. The one that left the most lasting impression for me was a wall of skulls. Each was labeled with what was known about the person it had once belonged to. Most of them seemed so small. Some of the labels had only dates. Others had smidgens of personal information, like the thirteen-year-old boy who had killed himself over "a discovered theft" or the soldier found on a Roman battlefield. It struck me as terribly sad that this was all that was left of them. Then I realized that most people never even get this much. Here on this wall, there is some bond forged between me and a man who lived 2,000 years ago.
No, they didn't have Chang and Eng in a jar. They had a plaster cast of the twins and the preserved wedge of flesh, complete with attached livers, that had joined them. But after being immersed in so many stories, how could we have been disappointed?
A few years ago, four colleagues and I went on a business trip to New Jersey. This was an exceptionally good business trip, because not only were we all friends, we also had similar interests and travel styles. We spent our days doing enjoyable work with good people and our evenings discovering such treasures as The Chocolate Cottage and The Parrot Place and giggling at the unusual business names (Gimpy's Funeral Home), the high number of strip clubs in the vicinity of our hotel, and the apparent inability of New Jersey-ites (New Jerseyans?) to make a left-hand turn. Only one of us had ever heard of, much less seen, a "jug-handle," and the one time we had to make five right-hand turns in order to turn left left us giddy. We loved it, from the 50's-style diners to the treasure trove of magazines on "Weird New Jersey." (We picked up a whole set, on the theory that they were chock-full of story ideas. Hey, maybe I should have written them off on my taxes!) Every night, we went to a different restaurant, each with delicious food and appalling service. Good thing we liked each other; none of our meals was less than an hour and a half long, most of that spent waiting on the server.
All in all, it was a delightful trip. But the high point of it didn't take place in New Jersey. It was on the last day, when we had almost a full day to call our own, and Cindi suggested we spend it in Philadelphia at the Mutter Museum of Medical Oddities. (To say Cindi loves museums would be an understatement; she once refused to enter the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History on the premise that she would never leave it and would have to live the rest of her life on food from the museum cafe.)
The rest of us were equally game, especially after hearing the rumor that the museum had Chang and Eng, history's most famous conjoined twins, in a jar. I have always been intrigued by conjoined twins, and while I realized there was probably something disrespectful about the public exhibition of their preserved body/bodies, if the museum really did have Chang and Eng in a jar, by George, I wanted to see it.
All I can say, is, if you've never been to the Mutter Museum, and if you are interested in the human condition (and what writer isn't?), then you should make it a point to put it on your list of must-sees. We got there early in the afternoon, and they practically had to push us out the door at closing time. This tiny museum was packed with stories, more than 20,000 artifacts, each one a glimpse into the web of life, death, and--if to be remembered is to live forever--immortality.
It is impossible to go through this exhibit without being forever changed by it. We are fearfully and wonderfully made; yet, there are so many ways the human body can go awry. Like the man whose 9-foot colon is one exhibit, looking, as one viewer phrased it, "like a sandworm from Dune." Looking at pictures of his distended belly, one can only imagine how it must have felt to go through life carrying this monstrous impaction.
There were wax models of flayed bodies, jars of miscarried infants at various stages of development and with a variety of medical conditions, a collection of objects (buttons, wedding rings, safety pins) taken from the windpipes of choking people, side-by-side plaster casts of a person with giantism and a person with dwarfism, a collection of medical instruments used throughout history, a collection of tumors and syphlitic organs, the brain of a murderer, and medical photographs taken to show the symptoms of a variety of medical conditions, including a wealth of information on conjoined twins.
Many of these exhibits are disturbing and haunting. The one that left the most lasting impression for me was a wall of skulls. Each was labeled with what was known about the person it had once belonged to. Most of them seemed so small. Some of the labels had only dates. Others had smidgens of personal information, like the thirteen-year-old boy who had killed himself over "a discovered theft" or the soldier found on a Roman battlefield. It struck me as terribly sad that this was all that was left of them. Then I realized that most people never even get this much. Here on this wall, there is some bond forged between me and a man who lived 2,000 years ago.
No, they didn't have Chang and Eng in a jar. They had a plaster cast of the twins and the preserved wedge of flesh, complete with attached livers, that had joined them. But after being immersed in so many stories, how could we have been disappointed?
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