Monday, March 11, 2013

Who, What, Where, When and How?

Many people ask how an author comes up with the story lines we write.  Some of mine come from bits and pieces of conversations I hear.  A few develop off tangents of ideas I read in news articles or personal experience.  I read different genre as well as what I write, paranormal and erotic romance.
 My recent release, Hot for Torrey, came from a discussion on friends with benefits and the younger generation as well as generation X hooking up more.  I often listen to music as I write and my favorite group is Blue Sky Riders.  Their song Little Victories inspired Holt and Torrey’s second chance at love story. 
One thing that needs to be taken into account is letting your muse take you places and ask questions that sometimes you might find wacky or outside your comfort zone.  Once the questions start rolling you often can find a scenes or scenarios that intrigue you or percolate into characters and/or settings demanding their story be told.   My first book, Red Hot, came from a fellow author talking about a novella she was writing for an anthology call on firemen.  Brent and Bunny’s story went more than novella length and became my person catharsis to post 9/11 in many ways. 
Since mash-ups and cross-genre came on the scene, I’ve taken ideas from science fiction stories I’ve read and enjoyed, let them marinate in my muse’s juices and given them my own spin by twisting them with paranormal aspects.  It doesn’t always work.  Sometimes the outcome is as interesting as the journey.  
 I blog weekly at Shape Shifter Seductions.  My blog mates and I have come up with our own town of shape shifters.  We run flash pieces on them most days.  While others we have guest authors happen by as well as our own promo when we have new releases.  We enjoy the blog hops we participate in which gives us an idea to focus on as a theme and we go from there.  I’ve taken a few of our citizens from our shape shifter town and moved them up to Alaska.  The two triads are fun to write about.    Sharing our creative drives together allows the five of us (my blog mates and I) to use each other’s characters in our flashes and see our characters grow or find out new things about them. 
If a story line from a favorite movie, childhood cartoon, current program, or other books ignites your juices to tell the story from your view with unique and different characters go for it.  Remember plagiarism and stealing story ideas is theft. So be careful and write new and your story that we can all enjoy as much as you enjoyed the ones we authors have already written.
Solara Gordon
Romance with a Spicy Kick!

7 comments:

  1. Great post! Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open and story ideas can come from anywhere. Thanks, Solara!

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  2. I get a lot of ideas from reading or watching TV and getting fed up with cliches. "Every time this situation crops up, they handle it THIS way. What if, just once, it went THAT way?" Or you see a really bad show and go rewrite it the way it should have been. Or maybe your characters feel that way about your plot, give you the finger and go off on their own. Those are the fun stories because if you don't know what's going to happen next, neither will the readers.

    I love to read about other writers' creative process. Thanks for posting!

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  3. Just yesterday I got an idea from a music video. I said to another author, I wonder what would happen if that girl (in the video) did just the opposite in 'real' life (or in an authors case) "fiction-real" life. And from that an entire story took shape. I had the person outline it for me (I'm a pantser) and I can't wait to sit down and start writing it.

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  4. Sorry for the late arrival, a beast of a day. Wonderful ideas, Solara. When I was doing a lot of driving, I got a lot of good story ideas, and worked out plot problems. Because I'm basically a pantser.

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  5. Excellent post here,and courageous. I love when a writer opens up and reveals their creative process. It inspires me to get back to the keyboard.

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  6. Great post, Solara! I do so enjoy hearing about others musing processes.

    Many of my stories start as a picture I've seen online. Paging through any of the graphics sites online will always provide me with a story question. Some of them work for longer books, others become flash fodder and some don't work at all, but at least I've gotten the chance to marvel at the beauty found in pictures... :)

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  7. Thanks to Savanna, Serena, and Pat-my blog mates for stopping by. You ladies rock! Thank you Sandra for having me as a guest.
    Here's to pitching to St Martin's Press and a few others of the big 6 at RT Booklover's Convention in Kansas City, MO. I'll be signing at their Indie Expo.

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