Writers are frequently asked what inspired them to write. The truth is… everything and anything!
We all look at things differently, that’s human nature. But for a writer, how each one looks at an event, quote, experience, more and finds the seed to grow a novel idea.
My most recent release, “Too Close to Home,” came about from an offhand remark. My cousin and I were in Cooke City, Montana, exploring Yellowstone National Park a few years ago. It was July but when we got up the first morning, there was frost on the cars and metal rooftops. We learned that the Beartooth Pass had been snowed in overnight!… in mid-July!
Out of nowhere, my cousin said, “You ought to write a story about this.”
It took a while but several factors guided my creative process: the small permanent population, the atmosphere, and how someone we think we know fairly well can totally fool us.
Here’s another example: In the photo attached, you see a small cave on the shore of a waterway. Without telling you where it is, imagine a story around it. Start with the people who may have explored the cave. Smugglers? Pirates? Native Americans? A killer hiding a body? Kids playing?
Now you have the basis for a story idea. How it plays out is totally up to you, the writer. And if 20 writers decided to write this story, I know there would be 20 different stories, fact and fiction, that will emerge as those stories develop. It can be that simple.
Of course, it can also be a lot more complex, such as writing a fiction story based on a personal experience without exposing those who were actually involved without their permission. A story can be compelling, demanding to be written no matter how difficult the circumstances.
So you understand that the element that inspired a book or story can be factual, imagined, experienced, or based a number of other things. It’s up to you, the writer, to take it the distance in order to find where the inspiration is leading you. If it is to an appealing, readable book or story, so much the better. If not… don’t let it die. Set it aside and perhaps, later, something else will happen to trigger a different vision of the same idea. P.S. the photo of the cave is from Cave Point County Park on the western shore of Lake Michigan, near the town of Bailey’s Harbor in Door County, Wisconsin where my novel, “Door,” is set.