Where do book ideas come from my hemingwaywantabe friends? The truth be known, they spring into the mind from all directions. Remember Muhammad Ali’s famous quote, “The man who has no imagination has no wings.”
Dear Ernest would agree that writers must develop strong antennae to avoid missing an idea or event that may provide fodder for a book. Ideas are everywhere (H. L. Menchen wrote, “There are no dull subjects. There are only dull writers.”), and success can strike like a lightning bolt out of the blue.
Asked how he decided to write Ragtime, E. L. Doctorow stated, “[Inspiration] can be anything. It can be a voice, an image; it can be a deep moment of personal desperation. With Ragtime, I was facing the wall of my study in my house in New Rochelle, and so I started to write about the wall. Then I wrote about the house that was attached to the wall. It was built in 1906, you see, so I thought about the era . . . And one thing led to another and that’s the way the book began.”
William Faulkner’s classic, The Sound and the Fury was inspired, he swore, “with a mental picture.” The picture, he wrote, “was of the muddy seat of a little girl’s drawers in a pear tree, where she could see through a window where her grandmother’s funeral was taking place.”
Author Simon Garfield provides a good example of someone birthing a unique idea. His book, Mauve, is the history of the purplish color invented by English teenager William Perkin in 1856. Another is the writings of Richard Hamblyn. His book, The Invention of Clouds, surveys the landscape with a passionate tone.
Best-selling author James Patterson (Along Came A Spider, Kiss The Girls), a former advertising executive at J. Walter Thompson, uses a creative pattern. He told Writer’s Digest, “I have a big folder of ideas, and when it comes time for me to write a new book, I’ll pull it out and go over everything that’s in there.” Patterson then picks two or three ideas from the folder and writes them down. “Then I write a page or two on each to begin to see if there is a story I like,” he says.
In addition to an “idea folder,” I keep a small green notebook in my pocket. It contains a “book idea” page, and pages listing books in progress. When an idea pops into my head, I write it down. In August of 2001, I was consumed with a “what if” idea regarding an invasion of the United States. I note it in my notebook. A month later, much to my sorrow, the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon occurred. The “what if” had become reality.
Some ideas take longer to develop than others. I met the legendary San Francisco attorney Melvin Belli in the mid-1980s. He was a swashbuckling character right out of a romance novel—the Ernest Hemingway of the legal profession. Even though we lost contact after I left California, I was fascinated with “The King of Torts” and his role in defending Lee Harvey Oswald’s killer, Jack Ruby. The idea to write about Mr. Belli and the Ruby case ruminated for fifteen years, but finally the time was right and Melvin Belli, King of the Courtroom, was published.
The search-for-the-truth path to non-fiction presents many great opportunities for the writer. The book can be investigative, featuring little known, fresh facts about a subject. Other non-fiction areas of interest might be “How-To” books, inspirational material, straight interview books, and satirical material poking fun at politicians or sports figures.
Novelists, such as nine-year-old Sam Spahn, author of Krill-Guy, The Adventures of an Invincible Penguin, discover ideas from true stories, personal experiences, or the “what if” scenarios. Although personal experiences may fuel your inspiration, remember to give your story a universal twist so others can relate to it. A useful reference is Novel Ideas, penned by Barbara Shoup and Margaret Love Denman. The book features information about the creative process and the thoughts and ideas of twenty-four prominent authors.
Summing up, great ideas are everyone. Grab one and get busy writing!
hemingwaywantabes 