Today I am returning to a frequently asked questions, “where do you get your ideas from?” is something I can be sure I’ll be asked whenever I am talking about writing or the business of being an author.
I’m a polite person, brought up by nice and loving parents who taught me right from wrong. And I know it’s wrong to grab the questioner by the throat, slap them around the head a few times, then get up really close and screaming “open your fu**ing eyes, you moron”
Look around you and do it with an open mind. Observe your surroundings, the places and people. See how the crowds ebb and flow through a railway station, one way in the morning and the other later on. Have you ever noticed how young men walk with a swagger and how old women move with more care. Watch a group of drinkers going out after work and see how they greet each other, it’s very different from a parent and child no matter what their ages. There’s inspiration poring forth from everywhere. It gushes like a fire hydrant, you just need to seewhat’s in front of you.
An example. Earlier this year I was traveling on the London Underground. It was a Saturday morning, around nine thirty. At that time of day during the week the tube would be packed with commuters going to work but on weekend it’s more relaxed and there were plenty of seats available. Some people still chose to stand and it was one of these that I noticed was drinking from a can of beer, a bit early in the morning for me but he might have been coming home from a party or even just finished a night shift. In a city like London, one which never sleeps, there are plenty of people whose clock runs at a different time to yours or mine.
Anyway back to our underground train. Two or three stops after I noticed the young man drinking he got off, or I did, I don’t remember and it’s not important, but by then I had created a back story for him, a family and a job. He worked in a big building with lots of companies spread across many floors. His job was to maintain the infrastructure of the building, heat, light, air conditioning, that sort of thing. He also ran the cardboard compactor and from time to time he’d abduct a homeless person and put them through the compactor, streaming it live on the dark web for strange people who got their thrills from that sort of thing. He was paid a lot of money by each viewer to let them watch, more if he could stage a particularly warped fantasy devised by a viewer who’d also come and see it happening live.
The story needs a lot of work and anything or everything could change but the fact is I’d got inspiration from just seeing a person on a train and wondering “what if…” You see there are no sacred cows, nothing is out of boundsand the only limited to what you can write is what you’re willing to put your name too.
If we are surrounded by inspiration then we need a way to record it. That’s why I always carry a note book, it gets filled with jottings, some terrible drawings and maybe even snippets of overheard conversations but I’ve always got it to refer back to and use when I want to build a character or remember a scene.