How do you get your ideas?

…Is a question many people ask, writers or not. Plus, I'm sure every writer worth their blog has posted something along these lines, but if this helps anyone out there, then its worth it to me.

I was drinking (a lot) the other night with a writer friend and he was curious about my process because he is only half way into his first book, whereas I have a couple collecting dust.

Getting the idea is pretty easy because everyone can come up with a cool storyline. I told my friend that what works for me is after you know what your story is about you need to create characters that you believe to be real.

And then it’s as simple as this; the world gets created as your character does what they need to do. Ex: he needs to borrow money from a loan shark, then you create that loan shark and his environment. There’s a chapter.

The world gets bigger and more complicated and before you know it, these characters are deciding things for themselves and taking the story in a direction you would have never known. If your characters are well developed and deep, then how can they be predictable?

As long as you don’t lose sight of your final goal, you can stay on track. Imagine a line that represents your story from start to finish. Don’t let your tangents run too far off of the line. Always work your way back to that line and you won’t get lost.

The alcohol probably didn’t help me explain it, but this is what works for me and I’m sure every writer has their own process. Good luck to millions of writers who read this.

The Creative Process

A lot of people have asked me how I find the ideas for my novels and the process that gets me to a full length book. It has to be different for every writer, but in my case, I take several factors into account.

First, know what you like and what excites you, because if you lose interest half way through, you're done. I like to think of an overall concept or the big picture and if I think it is interesting, then I break it down into an idea - a specific idea. Then, I need a beginning, middle and climax.

If I can get that far, then a main character has to be developed. Who is this going to happen to. He or she has to be likable and has to have flaws. They need a personal life and they need conflict. If a reader doesn't care about your character then they don't care what happens to them. I make a list, create some names and make some general points of personality and looks.

Create the outline. Like I said, you need the start, middle and end. From there, I interject moments, situations and plot specific points that need to happen to reach the conclusion. This is the hard part because you don't want any boring, non-related paragraphs that the reader will want to skim over. It might be fine to do for a fully developed story at first, but I tend to weed them out in the final editing.

Plus, the outline is usually trash half way into the book. Things change. My characters start making decisions for themselves and I can't help it. Once your characters are developed, they will write themselves and then your story will start taking a tangent, but its very important that if you slice, you curve back to the main thread of your story.

If you find you have a rough draft of your novel at the ready. Try this, go into the first few chapters and find a spot where you can start the novel and cut out the original beginning. Most times, my introductory beginnings can be assimilated into the following chapters and if I find a place where intrigue or action starts, then that's where you want to be in chapter one, line one.

Finally, edit - edit - edit. Every few months, go back and read it as if you had bought the book and edit. And finally, this was very unexpected; with every one of my novels, I've found that X-factor idea, that glue or uniting concept that had been missing long after I thought the book was finished. It's like a light goes on and then after incorporating that, I feel I've finally finished.