Getting Ideas
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by Lida Sideris
I was recently interviewed by a journalist who works for a local paper. Her first question was one often asked of writers, “Where do you get your ideas?”
Ideas come from all sorts of places, but I’m going to focus on four today, which happen to be my most common sources:
1) The easiest way to churn ideas is to ask a simple question: What if?
– What if you woke up in a deserted village in Southeast Asia and had no idea how you got there? Or how to get out?
– What if you discover that dear old Aunt Myrtle has been busy printing counterfeit bills? In your basement?
– What if your best friend of twenty years goes missing, but leaves you a note that says, “Don’t worry?”
2) Sometimes I’ll take a stab in the dark (more like a stab in the twilight).
My stabs include looking at a photo (just like Tina and Jen do right here every month to inspire them to each write the beginnings of promising stories). Or I might listen to music or take a walk outside, allowing ideas to flow freely in and out of my head. I like this latter method best because when the mind is freed from cares and worries, it’s like a popcorn popper – creative ideas pop up all over the place.
3) Then, of course, there’s always real life to turn to for inspiration.
It could be a familiar setting that suddenly transforms itself into something that would be perfect for the next book. This happened to me when I wrote Gambling with Murder. A simple drive-by of a ritzy hotel, closed down during the pandemic, inspired me to create a whole new setting - a posh retirement community where a resident goes missing. Or maybe a brush with a real-life person forms the basis for a story. Not long ago, an older, cane-carrying senior with space invader type shades strolled into my office needing legal help. His problem sounded like a tall tale, but was it? His persona and a similar tall tale were inserted in a short story.
4) My research for my novels involves at least one true crime.
True crimes can be littered with idea seeds to help writers determine the victim, the weapon, the setting, even the villain.
This is a small sampling of my idea sources. Where do you get your ideas?
Photos by Unseen Studio on Unsplash (top), Mo Abrahim via Pexels (middle), and Tima Miroshnichchenko via Pexels (bottom)