Hey everyone! I’m back! Back, now that the summer is over with a fun new series for the start of fall. I’ve been preparing for this series during my hiatus as well as taking some well-deserved time to work on my own personal projects. I hope you enjoy! So, without further ado…
From Idea to Book: The Idea
The first steps of writing before you even begin the actual work of writing is the development and creation of an idea. Both of these steps are essential to the creation of a book. A lot of writers will spend years of their life writing and writing and writing and never really make anything that gets published or gets the attention their stories deserve. There are a lot of reasons for that including the structure of story, the character development, or the writing style to list a few.
One of the reasons that a lot of writers never really get anywhere is because they don’t fully understand the writing process from the beginning to the end. A lot of writers (including myself) often only think about the first part of the process – the writing the first draft bit. So, I’m hoping with this series we can put it all into more of a perspective.
As I mentioned before the first step is the idea. Finding an idea when writing can be really hard. Little bits and pieces of inspiration are everywhere but sometimes it feels like you can’t find any of it. In this post I’m hoping to talk about a few ways that I find inspiration and how I can turn it into an early book idea.
Ask Questions of Everything
One of the things that I do to help me find inspiration is to ask questions of everything. Hand in hand with this is that to constantly be learning new things to ask questions about. I’m constantly learning new things. Watching documentaries, YouTube learning videos, nonfiction books from the library, podcasts, nonfiction audiobooks. And I’m constantly asking questions.
Some of the questions I ask are sometimes ridiculous but some of my best ideas come from the silliest questions. One time while watching a documentary with my sister one of the archeologists in the film mentioned that one set of the clothing found in the location of the dig site was actually from a different time period about 200 years after the previous things. I asked out loud, “Huh. I wonder how that got there?” And I kept pondering that question and letting my imagination go crazy. Historical time travelers instead of futuristic ones, magical beings from other realms, something as mundane as someone staying in ruins while traveling. But all of them were interesting ideas to think about that could inspire a book later.
Always Write Down the Smallest of Things
From the large majority of writers that I talk to it seems like writers have more ideas than they think they do. Often times writers will have several questions or ideas a day, but the problem is that often time they will not write these ideas down. When this happens, they end up losing those ideas as their brain continues on with the day. One way to avoid this is by writing down every little idea. I do this all the time and it has 2 effects.
The first is that it helps me to realize that I have more ideas and thoughts about writing than I give myself credit for. This in turn motivates me even more to continue writing and come up with even more ideas. The second is that a lot of these ideas can sometimes be combined down the road to create really good and interesting book ideas. The book that I am currently working on that I will focus on for Nanowrimo this year, was a title idea I came up with three years ago combined with a character list I wrote for a series of short stories, and a world that I built two years ago for fun when it popped into my head. You never know which ideas will work together in the future so you should write them all down.
There are lots of interesting ideas out there and writers are a very inspired group even if a lot of them don’t believe it. Now that I’ve been doing these two things for the last few years, I have found that I am constantly overflowing with ideas simply because I don’t let a single one pass me by. I hope that every writer can take some time to see that they are always inspired and that they always have a cool and unique writing idea.
That’s all I have for this week’s post. Next week we’re going to take the inspiration you hopefully gained from this week's post over the next week to try and explain how to take those ideas and develop them into full book ideas and not just bits and pieces of inspiration. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, become a blog page member, share, and follow me on social media at the link on the bottom of the page. And remember,
Get Up, Get Writing, and Get Published. See you next week!
Comments