Post by
Kathryn Page Camp
Some writers have trouble coming up
with ideas. I have the opposite problem. I have computer files filled with
potential story lines, and my challenge is deciding which one to use next.
So where do they come from? Many of
my ideas are generated by what is happening around me. I’m not as good an
observer as many writers are, but I see enough. A good story line comes when I
watch strangers interacting or read a newspaper article and ask questions: What
makes them act like that? What will happen next? What if the facts were
changed?
Sometimes my ideas come from
reading books with similar themes. The idea for my first middle-grade historical
novel, which I am now circulating to publishers, came from reading Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki
Houston and James D. Houston. Their book introduced me to our infamous actions
toward Japanese Americans living on the west coast during World War II. But
those events are quickly fading into history and losing their impact. So I
wondered what it would be like to write a story that brought children into the
experience and kept them from forgetting it.
But maybe you would rather hear it
from a widely-published writer. Phyllis Reynolds Naylor is one of Indiana’s
best-known children’s authors, and her works include the Newberry winning Shiloh. She also wrote How I Came to Be a Writer, which is a
memoir for middle-grade readers. She describes how she gets her ideas in a
chapter called “The Things That Make Me Up.”
Many of her ideas come the way some
of mine do—from reading the newspaper and observing the world around her. But
what does she do when they don’t flow? Here is her answer from How I Came to Be a Writer.
I
found it helpful then to just sit down in a quiet place and get reacquainted
with myself. What things were important to me? What did I know so well I could
almost write about it with my eyes closed?
So if you are having trouble coming
up with ideas, don’t panic. Watch the world around you. Read. And if that isn’t
successful, find a quiet place and think about what matters to you.
It works for Phyllis Reynolds
Naylor.
__________
Kathryn Page Camp is a licensed
attorney and full-time writer. Writers in
Wonderland: Keeping Your Words Legal was a Kirkus’ Indie Books of the Month Selection for April 2014. The
second edition of Kathryn’s first book, In
God We Trust: How the Supreme Court’s First Amendment Decisions Affect
Organized Religion, was released
on September 30, 2015. You can learn more about Kathryn at
www.kathrynpagecamp.com.
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