One of the most asked questions a writer gets is this one - "Where do you get your ideas from?" - or some other variation of that same question. It can be one of the easiest
and hardest questions to answer. And there are as many different answers as there are people writing. I've heard everything from
they come from my real-life experiences to
the idea fairy, to
they come to me in my dreams, and everything in between. I even heard one author tell his audience that his ideas come from magic, and I supposed there may be some truth to that answer.
I mainly write private investigator mystery novels and I find it hard to define exactly where my ideas for the storylines come from. All I really know when I sit down in front of a blank page is that someone will be murdered. But here is a peek at what sparked the idea for the first of my four novels in the Razzman Mystery Crime Files series.
Dead is Forever: This was my first book
ever and comes closest to my real life than anything else I've written since. Now don't misunderstand, not close as in the murder and all the shenanigans that happen around it. More like the closest to my life as in the relationships and some of the scenes and conversation between the characters. I knew I wanted to write a murder mystery and I was going through some, let's call it, issues, at the time. Now don't read anything into this that really isn't there, but the murder part of the story just seemed to form from there.
The story is set in both Syracuse, NY, where I grew up, and Charlotte, NC, where I've lived for almost thirty years. And except for the names being changed, my protagonist, Tony Razzolilto, his friends, the relationships, and the places they hang out at were all drawn from real life. As far as the murders, the people who committed them, and the circumstances behind the plot were all obviously a fabrication used to construct a murder mystery. This book is more of a whydunit rather than a whodunit style of mystery as the reader knows early on who the antagonist is, yet the reasons behind his heinous acts are revealed as the story unfolds. But the real question is where the idea came from for the actual murder mystery part, and that is the conundrum. And all I can say is damned if I know. As a pantser, I discover the story as it unfolds. It comes from some part of my brain as I'm typing and flows through my fingertips onto the blank page.
So, in Dead is Forever, I find it hard to describe where the idea for the murder plot came from. The backdrop and all the good-guy characters came from what I knew best at the time--my family and friends, relationships, places I frequented, and the two cities where I've lived. Easy-peasy. I'd like to say that I carried through the series with all those same familiarities. But, no, I threw a wrench in the whole thing with all the books going forward. In the second book, Deadly Passion, I advanced the timeline by about five years, so I could make Tony a more seasoned PI, and the only carry over from the first book is the Charlotte location--which is now where all the stories take place--the main character, Tony Razzolito, Scott McHenry, who is the PI he worked with during the Charlotte, NC scenes as well as Rita O'Connor, the Charlotte police captain. Everyone and everything else were left behind in the first book.
I've never had an idea for a storyline come from an idea fairy or from my dreams, although I have dreamt about my characters while I'm actively writing a new story. The latter has helped me solve a few jams my characters were in--or more to the point, the corner I was in that I was trying to write myself back out of. And, yes, I'm fully aware that if I was more of a plotter or an outliner rather than a pantser/discovery writer, I might not write myself into those corners. But where's the fun in that?
Nowadays, my ideas mostly come from the oddest places. For instance, the idea for
Dirty Air, the third novel in the Razzman series, came from reading an article in a racing magazine I was flipping through while in a Walmart. And I didn't even read the whole thing. I was fascinated with the first part of the article which had to do with the turbulent air currents caused by the lead race car compromising the aerodynamics of the car behind it, which could cause the second car to lose control. Apparently, this can be used as a racing strategy. Not being a big NASCAR fan, it seemed to me that it was kind of a dirty strategy, thus the term 'dirty air' since the air is deemed dirty in that situation for the cars behind the lead car, which causes the control issues.
The words, dirty air stuck with me. When it was time for me to start the third book in the series, and living in Charlotte, where stock car racing is huge, I constructed an entire storyline around the words, dirty air, and even used those words for the title of the book. I had never thought of writing a mystery with racing as a part of the story, and if I hadn't happened to have seen that article, probably never would have written Dirty Air.
Coming up with ideas for a story is not as hard as one might think. The hard part, at least for me, is fleshing that idea out across two-hundred and sixty or more pages and having it all fit together in the end. THAT is the question that should be asked - not where do our ideas come from, but how do you take that germ of an idea and make it grow into a full-length novel. Because that's where the magic truly happens.
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As always, I appreciate you taking the time to read my blog. And of course, your thoughts and comments are always welcome. 😊
