DEAR INCREDIBLE STORY IDEA...I will find you and I will write you!

      

One of the top questions I get asked by readers is, “Where do you get your inspiration for stories?”  The easier question to answer is, “Where DON’T I find inspiration?”  Everything I see, I wonder what the story behind it is, like these shoes in the image. It’s all about asking a few questions and then making up the answers.  

     Say you’re walking down the street of your small Midwestern town and notice that the large clock atop the town hall has stopped working. You ask yourself when and why did it stop?  A writer might (and one did) wonder if it had been struck by lightning. Hence the time it had been struck was preserved for future generations to cogitate about. That begs the question, if someone were to travel back in time and needed to harness a huge amount of energy, they would know what time the clock was struck and arrange to be there when the lightning struck. Hence with a few questions and a little imagination, you could have written Back to the Future. And you would have made a little bit of money doing so, too.

THE SCENE OF THE CRIME

 

     The first thing any good detective does when entering a crime scene is to look for clues. Not just a quick once over, but an inch-by-inch detailed inspection for a stray hair, an unexplained fingerprint, or anything out of the ordinary. Every detail is documented, for it may become important later in the investigation.

BEACH WRITING:The Genre Whisperer

EVERYTHING YOU’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT GENRES…But Were Afraid to Ask 

          (Whispered conversation between two young ladies recently overheard in a library bathroom…)
          “Do you know anything about, you know…what they’re talking about in there?”
          “No. I’m pretty inexperience when it comes to that kind of stuff.”
          “Me too.”
          “Is there some sort of book or something that would explain everything?”
          “You mean like an illustrated how-to manual?”
          “Yeah.”
          “Not that I know of. But I’ve heard some of the older girls talking.”
          “And?”
          “I think they’re talking like they know, but they really don’t know.”
          “So how do you learn?”
          “I guess you just learn by doing it…”

          No, these young ladies were not talking about the facts of life. They were aspiring authors attending their first mystery writers’ meeting. Words like genre and sub-genre and novella had been bandied about like bits of gossip dropped at a high-society cocktail party, all followed by a knowing look and responded to with an I’ll-pretend-I-know-what-you’re-talking-about-even-though-I’m-clueless nod. It might surprise you to learn that these two seemingly unrelated topics do have a lot in common.

Beach Writers: June Starter Sentence

<<Once again, over at East Beach Writer's Guild we were challenged to write a few paragraphs based on a starter sentence.  The May one was right up my alley!  Here is mine.>>

I was lying in a pool of blood...or some sort of red liquid substance.  Hard to tell by the meager light of the moon filtering through the thick canopy of pine trees.  All I know is that my backside was soaking wet and when I lifted my fingers to see what’s what, blood-red fluid dripped from my pinky.