Ideas

10 Aug 2016 Comments Off

Dear Fellow Journalers,

Without ideas, there are no words. Without words, there are no books. Ideas are the things that drive your writing. You can have all the skills and experience but without ideas, your pages will be empty. So where do you get ideas?

1. Take a popular idea and add something to it.

2. Think like a kid by asking questions over and over again.

3. “What if?” What if your main character narrated the story? What if you interjected a major event into the story?

Before you “go crazy” with this theme, get out a journal page and write Ideas on the top line. Your next great idea will not live long in your mind unless you write it down.

4. Employ your five senses in creating the setting for your book. Start by reading a poem or story that’s rich in expressions of locale. While I absolutely love the “Murder She Wrote” series by Donald Bain and Jessica Fletcher, I relish the descriptions of the places the main character finds herself, the clothing of the characters, the sights and sounds

5. Next write about taste, smell, sound and touch. Finally in one sentence, sum up the mood you want to convey in your setting.

Some more idea sources are:

A television program or movie, a painting, conversation, people-watching, lecture, holiday, family relationship and beautiful landscape.

One thing can lead into another. For instance:

Romeo and Juliet became West Side Story.

Pygmalion became My Fair Lady

My Fair Lady became Pretty Woman.

What are your ideas?

‘Til next time,

~Sallie