Visit the All A-Blog each Tuesday and Thursday for a chance to win a book by an Access Romance author!
 |
|
Ideas: the building blocks for a story
 By Shelley Munro Imagine this scenario: Two people meeting for the first time. There’s a discussion about occupations. Usually, but not always (it depends on the situation), I’m upfront about what I do for a living. I write romance. Erotic romance. Yes, that’s right. My books contain a lot of love scenes. Yes, that’s right. Sex. After we move on from the stunned shock or maybe startled laughter—evidently I don’t look as if I should write erotic romances—conversation just about always turns to ideas. “Where do you get your ideas?” or “I could never write a book. I’d run out of ideas.” Without fail the person interrogating me is shocked to learn I never have a problem with ideas. In fact the opposite problem is true. If anything I have too many ideas. I find ideas everywhere: When I read magazines, watch television especially documentaries, watch movies, at the shopping mall when I’m people watching. Things I see while I’m traveling inspire me. My family and relations, my friends provide me with ideas as does my background. Like many writers, I invest a lot of myself in my books so personal experience plays a part in the ideas my fertile mind hatches. Not that I’d admit to anyone which ideas come from fact and which are pure fiction. Here are some of the ideas I’ve come across that I have used in books. i.e. non-embarrassing. I went through a stage where I was interested in aromatherapy and did a lot of research. I still enjoy burning candles and oils to scent the house. Rugby is one of our national sports, and I’ve been a huge fan since I was a child. I still am, although our current team needs a kick up the…oops! Now where was I? Oh, yes. Ideas. I came across a story in our local paper about someone stealing garden gnomes. The cops found them arranged artistically in a traffic island elsewhere in our town. When I was a teenager we used to go to Lake Taupo for the holidays and I have fond memories of our holidays there. And finally, I’ve always enjoyed reading mysteries and suspense stories. I stirred all of these ideas together and they turned into a romantic suspense called PLAYING TO WIN. If you’ve read any of my MIDDLEMARCH MATES series then you’ll probably already know about the ideas behind this series. I found several newspaper stories about mystery black cat sightings in the South Island of New Zealand. No long afterward, I watched a special interest story on television about a small country town with a shortage of marriageable women. I mixed the two ideas and that was the start of my series about a feline shapeshifter community who live in the small country town of Middlemarch—a community with a severe shortage of females of marriageable age.
I have a new release out at Ellora’s Cave today called HOUSE OF THE CAT. It’s a sci-fi romance with a feline shapeshifter hero. (Gotta love those felines!) I decided I wanted to write about horses and horse racing (part of my background knowledge). I also wanted a paranormal story but wanted to make it a little different, hence the sci-fi/shapeshifter mix. I’m a huge Firefly and Farscape fan and decided to write something along those lines. I like historicals so tossed in a little of history (convict Australia and Regency England) and finally I added family stuff—the sort of tumultuous family relationships that are both good and bad. You can grab a copy of the completed story today.
Here are a couple of ideas that I’m saving for future stories. My sister-in-law went to work wearing two different shoes and didn’t notice until lunch time. Last week I heard a noise at our front door. I thought it was my husband but when I peeked out the window I couldn’t see his van. When the noise occurred again, I went to investigate. I unlocked our door and yanked it open only to come face-to-face with a lady, set of keys in hand, trying to unlock my door. I don’t know who was more surprised. Me or her! She’d gone to the wrong house. Ideas are everywhere. All you have to do is look for them. Do you think you’d have trouble thinking up ideas? Shelley Munro writes erotic romances for Ellora’s Cave and Samhain Publishing. Her most current release, HOUSE OF THE CAT, is due out today. You can visit Shelley at www.ShelleyMunro.com Tags: Ellora's Cave, House of the Cat, ideas, Shelley Munro 5 Responses to “Ideas: the building blocks for a story”Leave a Comment |
New Books
Copyright  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. |
October 14th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
I love your examples, Shelley. I think my problem is just being unobservant and/or being extremely forgetful–I imagine there are loads of ideas out there, but I have a tendency to just glide right by… (or rush right by, kids in tow, hollering, “come on, guys! We’re late!!!!”)
October 14th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
The mixture of personal experience and odd triggers is a potent one. I wrote a series of five books because the obituary of a 107 year-old Digger contrasted so sharply with our family history and my current story owes much to a twenty-year-old conversation in an international transit lounge in the early hours of the morning when our plane was delayed by bird-strike.
Some ideas germinate immediately, while others lie dormant until another triggers them into active life. The problem has always been to find the time to write the stories.
October 14th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
I would probably have a lot of ideas, just not know what to do with them.
October 15th, 2009 at 12:54 am
LOL Fedora – I hear you. When kids are involved there’s not much time to people watch etc. I think writers sort of train their brains to observe and note things.
Amy – definitely. Time is something I wish I had more of. Your current WIP sounds interesting.
Linda – I bet you’d get into the swing of things quickly enough.
October 15th, 2009 at 9:07 am
Great post, Shelley! And I think you’re right about writers training their brains… no matter what a person’s profession/intersts, they can’t help but filter the world through that lens. So whereas a physical therapist might notice limps and awkward gaits wherever she goes, teachers see “teachable moments” and writers see stories. My dad the farmer can’t take a ride through the countryside without noticing new strains of corn or a patch of heirloom tomatoes ;-).