“Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any.”
- Orson Scott Card

How true is this? How often is a story inspired in your head by a song you hear, a story you see on the news, or an experience someone tells you about?

People ask where I get ideas. The honest truth is that I don’t know. They just come to me, most often without conscious thought. Of course, it then requires some serious thought to create a plot that works, and all the other components of a successful story, but the ideas themselves can come from anywhere.

Until I started writing, I never realized why I paid attention to other people shopping in Wal Mart, or drivers of other cars at red lights until it hit me that I often use their descriptions to create characters. I use accents, colloquialisms, mannerisms, and even modes of dress I see in everyone around me to create the people who populate my fictional worlds.

It’s something unique to writers, I think - this ability to observe, listen and take in details, then spin them into a compelling story. The vast majority of the world simply blasts by everything they pass, never stopping to look, to pay attention, to what’s going on around them. They miss so much. Makes me rather sad for them.

Life is a drama. It can provide all the story ideas you could ever need. So don’t ignore that niggling little idea that popped into your head when you’re standing in line at the checkout counter. It could be the next NY Times bestseller!

Happy Writing!
Su