Writers have lots of ideas.\u00a0 We have great, immense, goobledegobs of ideas. Most of them are destined to be born and die within the\u00a0disturbed realms of our fertile little brains.\u00a0 Most, but not all.\u00a0 A\u00a0few of those notions do grow up to be books.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u00a0germinate ideas or\u00a0script scenarios in my head all the time.\u00a0 My imagination is\u00a0where I go to escape when the job is too sad or demanding or when reality bites too hard.\u00a0 But it's not only stress or sadness that sends me to Mary Anne\u00a0World.\u00a0 Sometimes a great TV show will send me there.\u00a0 I've written alternate scripts for many a Grey's Anatomy<\/a> episode, and I've made up whole romances that only lived in my head (Cristina and Webber, anyone? And I always thought Izzie belonged with Dr. Burke)\u00a0 Like I said, my head is a strange place.\u00a0<\/p>\n Of course, it's not\u00a0just Grey's that gives birth to ideas.\u00a0 I've gotten romance ideas for Dr. House and Cuddy<\/a> or Gordon Ramsey and a Hell's Kitchen contestant<\/a>.\u00a0 So far, none of those has grown up to be a book, but in the future, you never know.\u00a0\u00a0Griffin's\u00a0Law<\/a><\/em>\u00a0came to be after I imagined Grey's in a law school.\u00a0<\/p>\n But its not just TV that brings\u00a0ideas.\u00a0 Sometimes they grow from reading an interesting legend on the Internet (the MacLeods of Skye and their famed faerie flag<\/a> became my - so far - three part Forever<\/em> Series<\/a>).\u00a0 The idea for E-mail Enticement<\/a><\/em> came during a CLE seminar.\u00a0 The first book I ever wrote , Brotherly Love<\/a><\/em>, came from the most unique\u00a0place.\u00a0\u00a0Usually the characters create the story but with my first book, the message created the story.\u00a0 I got to thinking about how big and broad love is and I\u00a0wondered why we create boxes and rules to try to limit and define what we should only celebrate.\u00a0 The characters\u00a0in Brotherly<\/a><\/em> are more \"real\" than in most romance novels, because they were intended to be more like us - flaws and all - and the story was written to make the reader think instead of just experience.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I hear that \"famous\" authors get emails all the time, suggesting story ideas.\u00a0 I understand that most of them respond, if at all, with a reply stating that the author creates her own ideas.\u00a0 In my daily life, whenever that's happened to me, I usually suggest that the person sit down and write the story.\u00a0 I say that because an idea will never grow up to be a book unless it sprang from the twisted mind of the author.\u00a0<\/p>\n I've had ideas without number and most of them never made it to my computer screen at all.\u00a0 But a few have gotten that far.\u00a0 I have, on my hard drive as we speak, 5 or\u00a06\u00a0books, at least, that I've started but haven't finished.\u00a0 Why did those books sputter to a halt?\u00a0<\/p>\n In my creative process, the characters have to take over to tell the story.\u00a0 I'll start with a germ of an idea.\u00a0 Basically, I'll start in the place\u00a0where my characters start.\u00a0\u00a0In my current project,\u00a0a Regency historical, I started with this\u00a0idea:\u00a0 what if a duke held the title only because of a betrothal made when a future duchess was just a wee infant and the duke grew into the title but never grew into the relationship.\u00a0<\/p>\n There comes a point where I know if I'm ready to tell the story I've started.\u00a0 Those 5 or 6 unfinished projects on my hard drive?\u00a0 I wasn't ready to tell those stories yet.\u00a0 Or rather, the characters weren't ready for the story to be told.\u00a0 Because at some point, the characters have to take over, and the germ of the idea has to grow into a story with conflict and drama and passion.\u00a0 The\u00a0idea has to grow into a book where the complications are created by the relationships.<\/p>\n For me, as I write, that means two things have to happen.\u00a0 First, I find that the\u00a0story is creating circles, plot points at the beginning that get connected and looped back at page 30 or 40 or 50.\u00a0 Then those\u00a0little circles start back along the track to become bigger circles and at the end, there's a giant circle that connects back to the beginning.\u00a0<\/p>\n The second thing that has to happen is the light bulb moment.\u00a0 That's the \"a-ha\" time when out of my deviant brain, springing from my busy little fingers on the keyboard, emerges the glue that's going to tie the story together.\u00a0 It's going to keep me interested in writing and a few months from now, will hopefully keep readers interested in reading.\u00a0<\/p>\n In those unfinished books on my hard drive, I've usually had the circles starting to draw themselves, but the light bulb hasn't gone off yet.\u00a0 I'll go back to those stories from time to time, and see if the characters are ready to tell their tales yet.\u00a0 Happiness happens, like it did in my current WIP<\/a>, when it all comes together as it's pouring from my mental pitcher.\u00a0<\/p>\n The glue is different for every story but it has to be there or the tale will wait on my hard drive, unfinished and occasionally knocking at my mind, waking me up at night.\u00a0\u00a0In Faerie<\/a><\/em>, the glue was the curse that provided a reason for the intervening interest and involvement of the wee folk in the lives of the characters.\u00a0 That same glue held together for Sixth Sense<\/a><\/em>, but also held echoes of the personal trauma of the heroes' background continuing to haunt the way he lived his life - which was the glue from Golden<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 The glue for Griffin's<\/a><\/em> was secrets and for E-mail<\/a><\/em> it was perception, reputation and a duty to a family legacy and business.\u00a0 For Brotherly<\/a><\/em> the glue was always relationships and perceptions of morality.\u00a0 But finding the glue - that light bulb moment - it has to happen or the tale won't get told.\u00a0<\/p>\n My new one doesn't have a firm title yet, and perhaps soon I'll blog about that process.\u00a0 Finding a title is a big deal, and it's part of the process I may not have gotten right yet.\u00a0 I know that the right title will help to sell the book, and in the world of big publishing, the author doesn't get much\u00a0say so at all in what title their work will have.\u00a0 That seems wrong to me from a creative point of view, but I can see the benefits from a business standpoint.\u00a0 In the long run, a title is a lot about marketing.\u00a0 For my current WIP, I'm still playing with titles.\u00a0 One possibility is Eden Without The Apple<\/em>, which I like but I'm not sure it screams\u00a0Regency or historical.\u00a0 Another thought is The Duke Regent's Do-Over<\/em>, which speaks more to the period and the history.\u00a0 Like I said, I'm still playing\u00a0with that title. \u00a0But I've had my moments so I know this one's gonna make it. \u00a0<\/p>\n After the circles start to draw themselves, and then one of those circles\u00a0activates the light to show me the glue - that's when I know that my precious little idea is going to grow up to be a book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Writers have lots of ideas.\u00a0 We have great, immense, goobledegobs of ideas. Most of them are destined to be born and die within the\u00a0disturbed realms of our fertile little brains.\u00a0 Most, but not all.\u00a0 A\u00a0few of those notions do grow up to be books.\u00a0 I\u00a0germinate ideas or\u00a0script scenarios in my head all the time.\u00a0 My ...continue reading \"How A Little Idea Grows Up To Be A Book\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1012"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1012"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1021,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1012\/revisions\/1021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}