Where do writers get their inspiration from?
Writers are a strange species and what’s more peculiar is that most of us don’t mind being referred to as strange. Strange is not always a bad thing. Writers often look at things from different perspectives and usually swim against the tide. We try to explore the alternatives – what if your spouse, who you love with all your heart, secretly wanted to kill you? Or you discover the body of a person you hate in the trunk of your car and can’t remember where you were last night?
But where does this inspiration come from?
It’s difficult for me to talk about every writer, but I can tell you about me!
When it comes to inspiration, I get it from almost everywhere. I have always had a bit of a wild imagination – what if hijackers took over the plane when I was on board? What if I found out my best friend was actually a spy or a robot? You get where I’m going with this, right?
I get inspiration from day-to-day things that I see – no, my friend isn’t a spy or a robot, but it doesn’t stop me from imagining what life would be like if he was. He might do or say something that triggers my untamed imagination to conjure up an idea.
Writing a story, however, takes so much more than inspiration. Inspiration needs to form into an idea and an idea into a story, and so on. I get inspirations and ideas every day, but I know when one will become a story – when I lay awake at night unable to sleep or think about anything else.
But before any writing can occur, I usually spend a week brewing the idea, narrative, plot and characters – this is an integral part of my planning process and usually happens on my morning walks. So, if you see me aimlessly walking around looking like I am plotting a murder, I probably am!
