Babette
asked
Kate Morton:
Where do all your ideas come from, is it from events that happen in your life or family and friends or past events in history or current news events.....?
Kate Morton
All of the above! They come from everywhere, all of the time. A book is actually made up of thousands of tiny ideas, like threads, that are woven together to form a tapestry. I keep notebooks into which I scribble everything I see or feel or think or hear (or overhear--never sit behind me on a bus!) that gives me a spark.
When it comes time to start working on a new book I sit down with my idea fragments and begin sorting them, like pieces of a puzzle, looking for two or three that belong together. Once I have those, I get a growing sense of what the larger story is going to be.
The kernel of The Lake House was made up of three ideas: I'd long wanted to write about a missing child; I heard the intriguing tale of an abandoned house; and, I was determined to write a book that could be properly termed a 'mystery'. Once those ideas came together, the Cornish setting suggested itself, and the story really began to come to life.
When it comes time to start working on a new book I sit down with my idea fragments and begin sorting them, like pieces of a puzzle, looking for two or three that belong together. Once I have those, I get a growing sense of what the larger story is going to be.
The kernel of The Lake House was made up of three ideas: I'd long wanted to write about a missing child; I heard the intriguing tale of an abandoned house; and, I was determined to write a book that could be properly termed a 'mystery'. Once those ideas came together, the Cornish setting suggested itself, and the story really began to come to life.
More Answered Questions
Katy
asked
Kate Morton:
I have loved the stories you sometimes wrap your books around. Eliza's fairy-tales, in the Forgotten Garden and the Mud-Man in The Distant Hours. Do you write these smaller stories and then create a book around them? Or do you write them later after having started your book? How much do the stories influence your characters?
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