What if…? The birth of an idea, and how it felt

Today, I had an idea for a book.  I thought "What if…?" and sudddenly there was the idea.


And because I scribbled down what happened at the time, I thought I would share it with you, because one of the questions I get asked most often is 'where do you get your ideas from?'


I was meant to be doing boring businessy stuff (it's the tax return deadline at the end of the month) so I thought I'd take a break from adding up numbers and make a list of the books I'd like to write next.  Not the next book (that's First Aid 4) and not the one after that (I've started researching it) but what will I write after that.  I started making a list of the ideas I'd had, to see which one seemed most fun.  And as I typed an idea I'd got from one line of a previous novel, and always meant to follow up…


…it suddenly happened.


I found myself typing a line which started "what if they all…" and then a whole sentence and a question mark.


And I felt it.  I actually FELT it.  An idea.


My pulse got faster.  My hands went a little bit cold.  I sat up straighter.


I felt physically quite strange.  Like I'd been running too fast, or just started a fever, or almost fallen over an edge but just caught myself in time.


My body actually reacted to this idea.


Then the idea took off.  I stopped writing a list and started writing a book.


I started thinking of characters (and here is one answer to where do ideas come from  – one of the characters seems to have leapt directly out of a nonfiction book I got for Christmas, so if I'd been reading a different book this week, this idea would have been different.)


Once I started thinking of characters, I started hearing their voices. I heard them talk to each other, insult each other, ask each other questions. They were meeting for the first time, and they didn't really like each other.


Then I thought about names, because I can't get to know characters until they have names.  But names are tough. Every name has to mean something. And all the names I wanted for these characters were great for them, but didn't work in a cast of characters.  My first attempt all had Ss in them.  Every name started with S, ended with S or had S in the middle. Reading the book out loud would have sounded like snakes telling stories.  Then my next attempt had all the names ending in A.  That wasn't any better. So I got distracted by looking up lists of names on the internet


Then I had to stop, to be a mum, and take my daughter up to her sports club. So I got a fresh notebook and a pen, and I scribbled all the way up the road and through the park.


By this time, I was seeing the characters, not just hearing them. Maybe getting out into the fresh air helped.  I could see a boy with long damp hair, a woman with a shivering animal in her arms.  Wooden desks, and a large creature with a stony face in the corner…


So now I have a first scene, I have a problem to be solved, I have characters I already feel a connection to.   I don't have time to WRITE it yet, but never mind. It's there. I'm excited about it, and I'll write it soon!


So THAT is how I get ideas.  When I should be doing something else. From the magic words 'What if…' From passing thoughts I had when I was editing other books.  And from whatever is around me or rattling round my head at the time.


The fact that I had such a strong reaction to this idea, and got so involved with the characters and the story, gives me confidence that it's a strong idea.  I have ideas every day, I scribble dozens down when I'm listening to the radio, or chatting, or reading, or cooking. But very few of them become books. But I think this one will.  I do hope so…


 


 

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Published on January 11, 2012 13:28
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