developing ideas for a novel

“Where Do You Get Your Ideas?” Silly Question, or Not?

May 15, 2009 — Pat Bertram

“Where do your stories come from?” A couple of people had a problem with this question in a discussion on Facebook today. One woman thought it was the worst discussion question ever. She said that our ideas come from our heads, and that it was the kind of question asked by an interviewer who hasn’t read the book. Another person agreed, saying that he expected the question from someone who knew nothing about fiction; that it had no single answer.

Whenever a guest on this blog talks about how he or she got his ideas, I get a huge response from readers, so I know it is a good topic — and one I never get tired of discussing — so I was surprised by the responses on the Facebook forum. I truly never understood why writers hate to be asked where they get their ideas, where their stories came from, or how their stories got started. I always thought it was a perfectly sensible question, and now that I am a writer (and published) I know that it’s a perfectly sensible question. Sure, ideas come from our heads, but how? And why does one particular idea take hold when others don’t?

Of course there is no one answer to the question — that’s the beauty of it. Your answer tells who you are as a writer. If you can’t answer it, there is a chance you are one of those writers who can sit down and write without thinking — just let the story flow. If you can answer it, you are probably a writer who needs to know the story before you can write. Either way, it does not negate the validity of the question.

For me, a story usually begins with a series of ideas or a combination of events. For example, after reading Albert Zuckerman’s book about how to create the blockbusting novel, I decided I wanted to write such a book. But stories of major ideas and ideals, personal upheavals and changes generally take place during times of great strife, and so I needed an extraordinary setting for my story of women with “a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity, but which kindles up, and beams and blares in the dark hour of adversity.” Not wanting to write a war story, I searched about in my mind and finally settled upon an epidemic so severe that the entire state of Colorado had to be quarantined.

There is no way anyone can have learned that simply by reading my novel A Spark of Heavenly Fire. The evolution of a story is completely separate from the story itself, and the evolution begins with an idea. And where did my idea come from? I created it from the wild stretches of my imagination, reasearch, and lots of hard work.

So, where do your stories come from?

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How Do You Choose? Or Why I Wrote This Novel

September 25, 2008 — Pat Bertram

DeLauné Michel, author of Aftermath of Dreaming and The Safety of Secrets, has graciously agreed to guest host my blog today. Michel says:

I was at a dinner party once when someone threw a question out to the group, “If you were stranded on a deserted island, would you rather be stuck with a man or a woman?”

My first response was, “A man, of course.” But then I started to think about it. And as much as I love my husband, I can talk to my best friend in a way that I never can with a man because I know she has felt exactly the way I have. But I still need my husband, so whom would I chose?

After I got married, a significant friendship in my life underwent a shift. It was as if just by signing that paper and walking down that aisle, things with my friend had changed, even though I really hadn’t, other than the option of Mrs. that I didn’t even use! As my friend and I struggled to get our friendship back, and to redefine what it meant, it forced me to think about that question, about being torn between a husband and a best friend. I wondered what sort of situation would make a woman be more loyal to her best friend than to her husband. Maybe a childhood trauma locked away with a life-long pact to never tell? And what if a woman lied to her husband to protect that secret? Could that ever be okay?

I realized that I didn’t know the answers to those questions, and that’s when I knew that they were the basis for my second novel. I wanted to explore deep-rooted loyalty between women, and how sometimes it can be a sword that cuts both ways, opening up whole worlds of safety within the friendship while exacting a price, as well.

When I started looking at loyalty, I also had to look at betrayal. And it occurred to me that one currency of intimacy in a best friendship is shared secrets, so I wanted to see what would happen to that relationship when its most powerful secret is given away, and given away thoughtlessly, like so many pennies dropped on the floor. There is such stark and deep knowledge of one another in an ages old friendship that I wondered about how some secrets are used to protect ourselves, while others are used to try to continue to be the person we think our best friend needs.

Then I realized that if there is any world in which secrets are at a premium, it is Hollywood. All of that shielding and hiding are essential tools in that town. I think one trait that distinguishes stars from other actors is their ability to appear completely exposed while in fact they presenting only and exactly what they want us to see. I felt that making my main characters, Fiona and Patricia, actresses in LA (though part of the novel occurs in flashbacks in south Louisiana where they grew up; I can’t let go of my roots!) would deepen their connection to secrets and revealing truths. Besides, my first novel, Aftermath of Dreaming, was mostly set in Los Angeles, and after living there for so long, I wasn’t ready to leave such a rich and provocative backdrop yet.

By working through Fiona and Patricia’s friendship in The Safety of Secrets, I learned a lot about loyalty and secrets between women. But I still have more to go. If you get a chance to read it, I’d love to hear what you think about how those issues play out in the book and in your own life. And if I’m in your area on my book tour, come by and tell me in person. I’m traveling to Portland, LA, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, pretty much all of Louisiana, Jackson MS, Natchez, Memphis, Boston, Newburyport, and the New York area. The tour schedule is on my gather page.

Oh, and who would you chose for that desert isle, a woman or a man? Or is it a secret you’ll never tell?