Where do you get your ideas from?

Hello again, and special greetings to my readers in the USA, Germany and the Ukraine, as well as those in the UK. Today I will look at another commonly encountered writing phrase: 'Where do you get your ideas from?' It's the question most asked of writers, both professional and amateur, published and unpublished. It's a good question, too. Stephen King, in his book 'On Writing,' likens creating a story to carefully excavating a fossil - in other words, the story is already there for us to get if we are determined enough. The story idea is thus the exposed weathered bone or footprint which leads us on to discover the rest. For our stories we must ask ourselves: What if? What could that mean? What is that person's past? How old is that building? Look at everyday things in a new way. Connect them, find a link. The story, complete with genre, will suggest itself. So, how does this all work in practice? Here's an example. A while ago I saw a calendar photograph and wondered where it was. It turned out the picturesque whitewashed cottage next to the winding river was in a village in Norfolk, England. I began to wonder who lived there. Then I saw a sad little news item in a paper - a little girl, due to compete in a horse-riding comtpetion, was kicked to death by another horse in the same field. The man in the cottage became her father. I soon had him losing everything - a widower with no children and whose business was going to the wall in the harsh economic climate. And the only thing he had left to keep him going was his faith. Then, as I looked at the history of the area (you must always do your research), the parish church and ecclesiastical things generally became prominent and I found a centuries-old scandal. I needed to somehow connect the present day with the past. But how? I had the main character be a builder and make an archaelogical discovery as his team dug the foundation for a kitchen extension - work he was doing for a woman who becomes his new love. A woman who has a little girl. The answer to his prayers. And together they solve the past mystery. The component parts of a story rarely come fully formed - sometimes the connections are made over months or years - but there is no great mystery. No real secret that writers know and the rest do not. No Ideas Store Inc. What you need is scattered around and absolutely free. You just need to see the possibility in the mundane, and once you do it's like floodgates have opened. Suddenly, those disarticulated bones assemble into Stephen King's fully-fledged dinosaur and there's no stopping you. Jack Orchison 8 November, 2013