One of the most asked questions I receive from new and inspiring authors is, "Where do your ideas come from?" To this, I would have to respond, from anywhere. My stories and characters usually incorporate characteristics and events from my life, but the idea of the story often comes from a spark of interest. What I mean by this is any random thing that I happen to see or hear in my daily life that creates a spark of thought within me. One tool that has always sparked my imagination is practice prompts. As much as I hated them in school, I now love them as a source of inspiration.
An example of this is, this morning while listening to the television and drinking my coffee, I heard one of the characters say the line, "And, then there was the girl in the red coat." That one simple line captivated my thoughts, as I thought, "The Girl in the Red Coat...Huh... That would make a great book title." After that I found myself wondering what type of book, mystery, coming of age, romance... The answer to that question is endless possibilities.
It is this type of thought process that has often generated multiple story ideas because that one little prompt albeit basic and succinct opens the mind to a world of possibilities. It triggers the questioning phase of thought. What does the coat look like? What does the girl look like? Is there more than one red coat? Does she always wear a red coat? Why is the coat special to her? And, each question triggers a new question to be answered, creating a complete picture. The best part of this process is that the answers are different for each person who is asked because there is no right or wrong answer. It is all about perspective and preference. This is why I say "Practice Prompts are an essential writer's tool.
Whether you are an established writer or a newbie, you will at some point have writer's block. Sometimes it hits halfway through a scene and sometimes it's before you ever write a word. That's why I recommend keeping a notepad or two or six with lists of story prompts. At any time throughout your daily life when you have one of those aha moments about something you hear or see that has potential for a story, write it down. You may not have time to build it out at that time, but you never know when it could help save you from the dreaded writer's block situation.
I have file drawers full of one-line prompts, short stories that have been started and not finished, character descriptions, and setting descriptions tucked away for those times when I accidentally write myself into a corner, or a character just isn't filling-out as successfully as I envisioned them. And, for those god-forbid writer's block moments. Writer's prompts will often transition into another invaluable writing tool I call Freeform Writing. Which is basically writing without direction. Whereas other times, a prompt will provide a writer with enough inspiration to write the entire novel without the need for freeform or some other writing tool.
The point is don't ever stop writing because your mind is drawing a blank. My first novel, Passing Ships Are Not Always Quiet, came from entering the NANOWRIMO competition without a story idea. On the first day of the competition, I had not one idea what I was going to write about, so I looked around my bedroom as I sat on my bed laptop screen blaring at me, the clock on the wall ticking at me, and saw a picture of my son when he was around eight years old. With that, I started freeform writing one paragraph after another. After an hour of basically writing character descriptions, I had five pages written that had nothing to do with one another. From that, I managed to incorporate a storyline that both made sense and transformed my freeform writing materials into detailed characters that the reader could believe in. This same process can be done with writing prompts, making writer's prompts an invaluable tool for any writer.
With that, I would like to end this week's blog post with your first writer's prompt, The Girl in the Red Coat. Feel free to send me a paragraph or two in the comments section of this post of your version of The Girl in the Red Coat. I look forward to reading them.
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