Alex Beecroft joins us today to talk about something that authors have to find every day – new ideas for their stories.
I’m no good with blog posts. I couldn’t do what Erastes does, and write something interesting every week on a different topic, because when I sit down to write
something, I never can decide what.
So I thought for this post I would tackle the question of inspiration. Where do writers get their ideas from? Why do some ideas never make it to book form, while others get endlessly recycled with hundreds of writers treading and retreading the same old ground in slightly different ways?
This morning, I got this delightful piece of spam in my inbox:
“Am sorry for the late response, my computer broke down so I lost almost all my business contacts including your contact email and phone numbers until I was able to trace your alternate email. As I promised your family about your late father’s share of the fund. Please see directives below.
I am on my way to Bangkok for 1 month and 2weeks trip. I was able to seal the deal with Mr. Andrew Song but the amount he confirmed to me with his Bank of America account was not complete so I guess he messed up my deal and trust in him. Therefore on my return from Bangkok, I intend to start my own private business and you can be my partner if you desire. I just bought a new estate in Hawaii and will be moving there from Bangkok while my family will join me later. I have a new dealer now and they can export the following items:
Customized and polished Diamonds
Amethyst Stones
Precious Cut Stones
Calibrated semi precious stones
Double cut Diamonds & Single cut Diamonds.
I have asked my representative in United Kingdom (Mr. Richard Hearths) to transfer your family’s share of the recently concluded deal with Phillip Pitts which is US1, 950,000 into your account through his bank. I rather will prefer that you do not let Phillip and Andrew Song know about my new deal with Goshi Exports in India as it will have to be between two of us. I do not need a Buyer as I will seal the deal with you when I am back.
Cheers,
Bill Harris”
This is spam with a story in it. This is the Indiana Jones of spam. Can you imagine? Who is Bill Harris? He’s obviously talking to our hero, whose father has died in mysterious circumstances. I bet he was murdered when smuggling the diamonds out of South Africa. Was someone on the Bangkok end of the deal in on the job? And why is Bill so concerned that the Indians not know what’s going on?
Suppose this was set in the 18th century? Then we have Imperialistic machinations by the members of the East India Company. Perhaps Bill is really Sir William Harris, a renegade member of the Honourable company who is working against their heavy handed business practices. Or it’s later, the era of boat-planes and bi-wings and H Rider Haggard type adventures in far flung locations where piles of treasure still lie for the taking?
Whatever you make of it, this is a piece of spam like a diamond itself, and I treasure it. I have a special folder on my computer for spam like this, which arrives with inspiration attached. Normally I have to look harder for a new idea, and my most reliable forms of inspiration are visual – TV, movies and sometimes pictures. I know a lot of people get inspiration from books, but I can’t seem to do that. I need something that bypasses the writer in me and goes straight for the id, and pictures do that. So, for example, my latest novel, Shining in the Sun, (which is currently out seeking a publisher) was inspired by a combination of my summer holidays and
this picture
I was so struck by the vitality and sensuality of the picture that I wanted to know who this young man was. So I put my hero in a position where he came across the guy unexpectedly at the sea side, and I found out all about him at the same time my hero did. I have a special love for villains, sidekicks and walk-on characters in movies, as very often the third spear carrier from the left will have something about him that makes me wonder what his story is. Or I’ll wonder what that villain would be like if he had grown up in a loving family on a different planet, or if he’d suddenly decided to change his ways. Sidekicks in particular tend to be the kind of under appreciated, quirky characters who inspire me to wonder what someone like that would be like if he was to be the hero of his own tale.
I also enjoy taking tropes and twisting them a little – so John in False Colors is simultaneously the Natural Leader and the Nervous Virgin. Max in Shining in the Sun is the Villain because he’s the alpha male, whereas Jasper in The Wages of Sin is an alpha male born into a position in society that requires him to be subordinate and meek, and he’s done his best to fit into that position.
So how about you? Do you get inspiration from other people’s books? Or from conversations overheard at the supermarket? From Wave’s Friday Guys? I confess that Jasper would not be the man he is had I not seen this picture of Kent Edwards on the left (Kent Edwards has been on the old
blog many times because he’s so great looking) and Harry and Garnet from Blessed Isle owe their existence to
these photos on the right.
But I’d love to hear where you find your inspiration. And if you’re a reader I’d love to hear about the stories you desperately wish writers would give you more of, but you just can’t seem to find. There’s probably someone listening right now who would be struck by the lightning of inspiration and start writing the story you want to read, just from being given that first spark of an idea when you mention it.
You might want to put “A guest post by Alex Beecroft” at the beginning of this, as it took me until half way through to realise that it wasn’t Wave speaking! 🙂
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I get ideas from everywhere. I have the TV or the radio on all the time I’m at the PC and I often pick up phrases that spark something off – I was listening to a programme in the car the other day about Austro-Franco war and had to pull the car over and write down an entire novella’s plot because I got hit by a massive bunny. Sometimes it’s a phrase, or a picture. Standish came from a word, just a single word in a dictionary that I didn’t know what it meant.
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Mere Mortals came from hearing a programme about a book written about cloning – and although it’s nothing to do with cloning, it takes that kind of theme. I see a lighthouse on the horizon and bunnies hit me. I have far too many ideas than I’ll ever be able to write!!
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As a reader I’d like to see (as I mentioned a week or so ago) more real life stories. Michelangelo, Ludwig II, that kind of thing. I’d like to see more stories set outside England or America.
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That being said, I’d also like to see more classic Regencies. 🙂
Thanks Erastes. I usually include a sentence to introduce the guest posts but I forgot this time. 😀
I wish I had the problem of having too many ideas to manage to write them all! I have about four ideas a year, I think, and the majority of them are not really goers. I certainly can’t imagine how you would get from cloning to three men in a mere 😉
M/M classic regencies would be wonderful. Something in the Georgette Heyer line, but with two heroes – and with all the horrible things taken out, so that non-historical-fans wouldn’t have to cope with scurvy rogues or nitty peasants. That sounds rather fun.
I totally agree with you about books set in somewhere other than England or the USA, though I’m guilty enough of setting mine in England. I would love to see some Aztec settings, or maybe something in the early days of Canada (have just been watching Ray Mears in the Northern Wilderness, or whatever it’s called.)
That is indeed prize-winning spam – all I get is offers for Rolexes and Viagra!
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Hmm, it does seem that some ideas are never meant to see the light of day in sparkly finished form. I used to have something like 70+ works-in-progress but now I only have, er, 20ish. Some of those have a full synopsis and everything, but I know deep down they’re destined for the recycle bin. My problem is not so much finding the inspiration but keeping it!
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But some ideas need to be sat on for a while. Currently I’m writing a spy story, something I’ve wanted to do for 15 years. It’s always foundered before, but now it seems to be working fine. The inspiration for that came from one too many schnapps and a really weird dream, so I guess inspiration can be found everywhere…
Oh yes, that hits the nail on the head for me too, Kate. I do get ideas, now I think about it, but very few of them are keepers. Maybe I should write them down, like you, so that they’re there to come back to at the right time.
What kind of a spy story is that? Sort of Ian Fleming-like or Scarlet Pimpernel-ish? Modern or historic?
It took me ages to work out that if the story idea was strong enough, it’d come back. Life’s too short to spend on flogging dead horses and half-baked plots!
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The spy story is retro-technopunk a la Len Deighton. Almost certainly it is too deranged to be publishable, but I’m still writing it 😀
>>It took me ages to work out that if the story idea was strong enough, it’d come back.<>The spy story is retro-technopunk a la Len Deighton. Almost certainly it is too deranged to be publishable, but I’m still writing it<<
Oh no, it sounds cool! I like deranged in a story – it's far better than 'done to death'. If you finish it, I'll read it!
Gah! My reply disappeared! But yes, I agree – often ‘resting’ a story will sort out which ones are alive from which ones are dead. When you come back to the living ones, you find out they’ve actually been developing in your absence, but the dead ones just sit there and you can’t remember what you ever saw in them.
>>The spy story is retro-technopunk a la Len Deighton. Almost certainly it is too deranged to be publishable, but I’m still writing it<<
Oh cool! It sounds good to me. If you write it, I'll read it 🙂
I think you have to be a writer to “see” the ideas like that.
I only would get annoyed if a message like that slipped through the spam filters.
I have to admit that the stories in spam don’t normally arrive as fully formed as that one. I think it’s because gemstones are romantic in themselves (in the sense of bringing to mind stories about obsession and power and jewel-thieves and souls trapped in diamond etc. You don’t get the same evocative feeling from adverts for viagra 😉
Sigh. I posted this morning, then the site went wonky and it’s gone. Waaaahhh Do I try again? Is Wave censoring me? Telling me to shut up? (I kid)
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I’m a reader but often something will pop into my brain and I think “Ohhh, some author should write a story about that” and then it floats off into the ether. What triggers those head pops? Usually it’s some weird combination of something I read, combined with something I saw combined with something someone said that pulls it all together in a weird and wonderful combination. Maybe I should write them down.
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Real life works. A friend who was a lap dance tester in a gay strip joint. Honest to god. They used him as a guinea pig to train new guys, he hated it (wasn’t quite comfortable yet as a gay Mormon). Wouldn’t that be romantic? Uncomfortable lap dance tester with new shy dancer? Someone run with that kay? We don’t have to give my friend royalities do we? It’s not quite his life, he didn’t fall in love with a dancer. 🙂
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As a reader there’s nothing I’ve been dying to see, I’m usually pretty happy with whatever authors can think up as most of you lot are pretty darn imaginative. 🙂
It’s not just you! It’s been wonky all day, and I’m still not getting notifications. Wave said that she’s been having problems with this server for some time and is getting it sorted out soon, so it seems to be an over all problem.
You really should write your ideas down! Maybe one of them will grab you and you’ll end up writing it. Or maybe you can pass them on to willing writers. It’s always interesting how two different writers can take the same idea and come up with two very different stories as a result.
You have a much more interesting real life than mine, clearly! I had no idea there was such a job as lap dancer tester! That does sound like it could be sweet and hot too.
LOL! You have to be careful when you say that kind of thing to me though, as I have a terrible tendency to want to write the Royal Navy in Space, with elves.
As long as they aren’t Keebler Cookie elves, I’d read it. LOL Otherwise it’s an area of kink I just don’t want to visit.
*g* I don’t even know what they are, so you’re safe enough there 🙂
They are like Santa’s elves but slightly gayer. LOL
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http://questgarden.com/04/10/3/051008144204/images/keebler_2.jpg
Eek! No, I think I shall leave them to slash themselves. (Though I think I read somewhere that there was Smurf slash available on the internet. I haven’t actually gone looking for it though!)
Tam
I don’t think I could top your lap dance tester idea. 😀
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Sorry that your comment was eaten. We have been having problems with our current web host – I’m down to one option now to replace them and I’m just waiting for a confirmation tomorrow. If all goes well this weekend will be the big change.
It’s interesting to notice how you picked as example three different men (that I know well) but who have all a very interesting personal life of their own. Kent Edwards is the adopted son of a preacher, for what I understood he didn’t have an easy childhood and now he found a welcoming family that he adores. Jordan Carlyle, former model and designer, also had a very difficult childhood, and he managed to come out of it with a strength that seems impossible in a man so young. I exchanged some emails with him, and found that he is a very kind and nice man. And last, but not least, Max Rhyser, that I consider a good friend online, he gave me a wonderful interview where you can understand a lot of him and the man he will become (he is still so young ;-)). Anyway, I’m happy to see that all my Men Candy gave you good inspiration, I’m happy to be able to give a name and a personality to all of them.
Oh, that is interesting, Elisa. Yes, because I picked them not just because they were very handsome but also because all of them have something about their eyes that says to me ‘there is a story here.’ A lot of models are just good looking, but some have that extra ingredient of personality that makes all the difference.
Is Max the one with the very short hair? He has the most thoughtful look about him, like someone who is used to thinking deeply about things. That was why he ended up being the face of my Harry Thompson, who is a good man who probably thinks too much.
I definitely get a lot of inspiration from your Man Candy posts. Thank you!
Yes, Max is the one with the very short hair. he is such a wonderful man, he is still complaining since I didn’t tell him that I was in NYC, he wanted to meet for a coffee or something else, but truth be told, I was too scared to meet him for real. And when he happened to know that I was in NYC and didn’t plan to meet him, he seemed really upset 🙁 BTW, if you are interested, you find his interview here:
http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/tag/model:+max+rhyser
he has a lot of things to say and I loved to talk with him online for this interview.
Elisa
Oh no! Next time you must definitely go and visit him and instantly become the envy of your whole friends list 🙂
I hope you don’t mind, but I’m probably going to avoid learning anything about him. If I know his own real story, it’s likely that I would stop being able to use him for inspiration. It’s the way his story is unknown (to me) that makes me want to make one up.
“Or it’s later, the era of boat-planes and bi-wings and H Rider Haggard type adventures in far flung locations where piles of treasure still lie for the taking?”
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Please, please, PLEASE tell me you’re writing this. *g*
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As for where I get my ideas, there’s really not one source. TV, movies, etc. are good inspiration (in fact my most recent idea, the book I want to work on next, came to me after I watched a horror movie of all things). But sometimes it’s a line in a song, something someone says to me in conversation, just a random thought. I think those ideas can be the most fun, b/c then I’m starting with something small and have no real plot or characters and I get to “discover” it all as I go.
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What I’d like to see more of…m/m romantic suspense/thrillers, especially political thrillers. I just adore political thrillers…so much for a writer to explore. I mean, what price truth? What would you give up for the truth? *Who* would you give up? What choice would you make between protecting someone you love and finding the truth? So much potential for delicious conflict, and an opportunity to examine humanity and the noble ideals we aspire to like truth and justice. And okay, I’ll totally admit it, a guy who refuses to give up no matter what obstacles he faces, who comes after him, or what he has to sacrifice, because deep down he knows what’s right, knows what the truth will mean, and just can’t walk away…well, I find that so very sexy. (Am I weird? Um, maybe don’t answer that. Heh.) And if you give me a fast-paced, heart-pounding quest for the truth, and then add in covert ops and the shadowy world of intelligence AND romance…then I’ve hit my trifecta of bliss.
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Not to, uh, ramble or anything, but man oh man, I keep whining for someone to write me one. *g*
*g* I am a little tempted by that one, though it would take masses of research, as it’s an era I don’t know very much about. But yes, I was absolutely gripped by “King Solomon’s Mines” when I was a bit younger, and something like that as a setting for a m/m romance does sound very appealing.
I’m with you on horror films 🙂 The Witch’s Boy was inspired by a horror film. Also songs – yes, I’d forgotten about songs but they’re very evocative and often give me ideas. The trouble with those ideas, for me, is that they tend to be too short lived to last until I can get them to a piece of paper.
*g* I don’t think you’re weird. Political thrillers are always very popular and I bet lots of people would read one if you wrote it. It’s not my kind of thing, unfortunately, but I bet it’s the sort of thing that someone like Aleksandr Voinov would enjoy writing if you dropped a hint in his ear 🙂
Hehe, just point me in the right direction for hint dropping! *g*
Actually, I’m not sure I’m familiar with him or his work…but I’d like to be if he writes m/m thrillers. 🙂
You might be familiar with him as Vashtan on LJ? Just had a story out from Noble Romance.
Mmm, my ideas come from all kinds of places. I walk through the local graveyard a lot and get ideas all the time there (although curiously, not generally featuring anything remotely ghoulish). I’ve also used real life incidents and built a story out of them.
I think only one story of mine was totally inspired by a picture, and it was one you’ve read, Alex, as it happens: Angel (coming out from Dreamspinner, er, sometime). The pic was one posted by elisa (hope the link works): http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/677639.html#cutid1 It gave me the story pretty much all by itself.
Dreams, too, are often a good source of material (my subconscious is a lot better at these things than I am). 😉
I’m encouraged by people wanting stories set outside the UK/USA; must get that Berlin story finished! Personally, I’d like to see more fiction set in Europe generally. There are so many places just oozing atmosphere and romance. I’d love to see something set in Prague, for instance – either present day or historical, I’m not fussy!
Elisa is definitely a source of top quality inspiration! I’d somehow managed to miss those pictures before, but they are amazing! I’m not surprised they sparked off your story, but it’s good to know that the story does the picture justice. I remember that one – it was beautiful 🙂
My dreams are always a bit of a washout. I rarely remember them unless they were horrible enough to wake me up. I agree with you about Europe, though – there are so many old and fascinating places where so much history-making stuff took place.
Great post, Alex! I love your spam example. I’ve received inspiration from photos of interesting faces and also real people I’ve seen in passing.
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Nonfiction is a good source too — weird news stories, Darwin Awards stuff, true crime, and even tabloid stories. Sometimes when people tell me “friend-of-of-a-friend” or “old college roommate” anecdotes, I see possibilities.
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The anecdotes inevitably get changed beyond recognition so, thank goodness, I’ll never have to worry about being sued for libel. 🙂 It’s true though that life is sometimes stranger than fiction.
*G* On the subject of life being stranger than fiction, I based a lot of the later events in Blessed Isle on the real-life voyage of HMS Pandora – but I’ve had people say that the plot was too full of coincidences to be believable. So you have to be careful with true stories because they really are that much less neat and rational than fiction. But you’re right, the really unbelievable things are strangely tempting to make work. I’m certainly a regular reader of Fortean Times, though their stories verge on the slightly too wacky to get away with 🙂
Ideas, ah, I have lots of those. A file full of them, and no time to write them! I get them from news stories, pictures, other people’s LJ posts, just a passing comment in an email (a friend once asked me in an email to remind her why this character of mine couldn’t marry his girlfriend/beard and I reminded her, the girlfriend had a estranged husband she couldn’t divorce, so as long as he was alive… the poor man was doomed from the moment I typed that and I decided I just had to open that can of worms! :D)
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Research can be a good one. I once went looking for a likely sounding radio frequency to use in a story and discovered “numbers stations” which were so perfect for the story it was like the hand of fate guided me there!
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Little stories I hear in real life, or even just snippets that I’ll put into a story, even if it’s not the main setup. Overheard remarks. I once heard a couple of boys on the train as we went through a station and one said he could never find this particular station actually from the street. As if it existed only on the train line and not in the rest of the world. So in a book I included a station that did exist only on the line. (And housed a big ol’ secret.)
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Throwaway lines in other stories. I read a line in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, about a character divorcing his wife because she led a mutiny against him on his yacht and thought “now there’s a story that’s begging to be told.” Maybe one day… not those actual characters of course.
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I’ve got a couple of potentially great ones from other people’s LJ posts that I hope to use one day.
Oh, I like the mutiny story! That would be a good start for a m/m AoS – it would be like Bligh/Christian, the untold story (except not very much so.)
I agree with you about research. That’s one of the joys of actually doing the research, though it’s terribly inconvenient when it strikes just as you’re in the planning stages of something else.
Maybe my problem is not that I don’t get ideas, but that I don’t tend to keep them. Do you note yours down somewhere as soon as you get them, or do they just stay in your head until you’re ready for them?
I always make a note of something as soon as I can. For one thing that gives me head space for other things as I’m not worrying I have to keep thinking about this one or I’ll forget it. If I’m in front of my PC I’ll put it straight into One Note. If not, I put it in my notebook and once a week I do a review of the notebook and transfer anything useful onto the computer. Not everything is going to be useful of course. Sometimes I go: “WTH does that even mean?” 😀
That seems very sensible. I tried carrying a notebook at all times, but as I don’t generally carry a bag, it had to be one that would fit in a trouser pocket, and I never figured out a solution to the pencil problem. I must look up One Note, as I’ve never heard of that and it sounds like a very good idea. Thanks!
How about a dictating machine? In fact, check your mobile phone, it might have a voice recording facility. Or some MP3 players include that feature.
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I’m a notebook person though, as just the act of writing or typing seems to make me think something through in a way that’s different than when it’s just going around and around in my brain.
I was so enthused by the idea of One Note, yet so continually stingy that I thought I would see if I could find a free alternative. And I could! So I’m now having great fun adding notes to my new Evernote notebook. Thank you!
I’m with you on the need to write things down, though. I tried dictating a story just recently and had to give up after 300 words.
Cool. I hear good things about Evernote too. I think the key is having things all together, not scattered through loads of files.
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I could never imagine actually dictating prose! I can see that it’s useful for people with difficulty typing for whatever reason. But otherwise – seems weird! But each to her own and all that.
So far I’m very impressed with Evernote. Up to now I’d been keeping research in bookmark folders in Delicious, but this is much better. Now I need to experiment with my camera to see if I can use that to input research notes from books into the same place. What fun! 🙂
I could mine some family history for ideas, I know that. My mother’s parents in particular. Stories I know about them make them sound like they’re characters from a Catherine Cookson novel.
Not directly related at all, but the use of evocative phrases to sum up the overall “feel” of a story (as opposed to an in-depth review and accurate labelling of plot points, POV, character motivation/backstory and sub-genre), as a sort of shorthand for myself, led me to note in my own list (a spreadsheet I’ve been using for a few years) that the recent Josh Lanyon release was “a wonderful mixture of historical m/m romance adventure – an H Rider Haggard for GLBT Action story”. *g*
Please write one, too!
Oh you thought that too? Was that “Strange Fortunes”? I thought it was like one of those old time adventure stories, when the world seemed like a bigger and more marvelous place and you could still believe in magic. A bit like Patrick O’Brian’s “A voyage to Samarkand” as well, and I can’t think of higher praise than that 🙂
I must admit, I’m tempted!
“Strange Fortune”, it was.
And running with evocative phases, your own, .. one of those old time adventure stories, when the world seemed like a bigger and more marvelous place and you could still believe in magic., hit the nail on the head. 🙂
Cheers!