Writing ideas

A question I am asked quite often is “Where do your get ideas for your stories?” Surprisingly, many writers are asked the same thing. This question puzzles me, not because I don’t know the answer, but because subjects for stories are everywhere. The world is so interesting. People’s behaviour– in fact LIFE–is fascinating.

I might observe a couple at a coffee shop gesticulating wildly and this spurs me to make up their conversation in my mind. My fabricated dialogue probably has nothing to do with what the couple was, in fact, talking about. Still, the seed of a story has been planted. I might develop it into a murder mystery, or a family drama, or even a comedic marital farce. Or I may never write any story prompted by my observation of this couple. Yet simply by noticing them, I came up with an idea.

If you pay attention to what happens around you, you will find an overabundance of stories in ordinary life. If you then allow your imagination to take hold of them and mold them into a feasible plot line, then you will have a narrative that you can develop.

Life. That’s where I get my ideas.