A writer I admire and enjoy reading the books of, Mary Roach, wrote in her book MY PLANET, “You get crumbs in the bed and steal my blankets. I still want the divorce.” It was a throwaway line in an otherwise-oriented chapter.But for a writer, such a thought can easily be a jumping-off point. Without a whiff of plagiarism, only honest inspiration, a fictoneer could write about a marriage torn asunder by petty annoyances. And a nonfiction writer? I can envision articles or even whole books on such branch-offs as the number of divorces resultant from petty annoyances or grievances as opposed to major issues such as infidelity.
I am reminded of a play whose published script I read back in the sixties, MARY, MARY, by Jean Kerr, in which the female protagonist objects to a phrase her estranged husband uses as a come-on for bedtime romps: “Let’s get those colored lights going.” It’s one of the small annoyances that cause her to leave him. There is an example of fiction—albeit in dramatic form, not a novel—based on petty annoyances that can destroy a marriage.
Ideas are everywhere—including throwaway lines in other writers’ works, conversations with friends (or strangers in line in the supermarket), newspaper stories, and random thoughts.
People who learn that I’ve had over 100 books published often ask me, “What do you write about?” Obviously not just one topic—not over 100 times! Their next question, almost inevitably, is, “Where do you get your ideas?”
I think I’ve just answered that.
Ideas are everywhere. Of course, not every idea is hefty enough to be worthy of enough words to make a book. And not every idea has broad enough appeal to find a large enough audience (unless you’re writing for a small but dedicated, targeted audience). But sift through the chaff and you’ll find some great ideas where you least expect them—if you’re open to them. You need to keep your ears, your eyes, and your mind open.
That was how I came to write my first book. My then best friend was working for me in my in-home office, computer-typesetting edited manuscripts that had come in typewriter-typed—this was back around 1992, when many writers still didn’t have computers. I was editing an assortment of magazines for a publisher, and she was keying in the stories I edited in pen on typed paper.
Christmas was coming, and during a break in our labors, she bemoaned the upcoming school vacation and the necessity of keeping her then-young kids amused for the duration.
As her plaint ricocheted around in my brain, it sparked an idea: What if the publisher we were working for were to publish a one-shot magazine filled with ideas for keeping your kids occupied over school break? It was too late now to promulgate a call for submissions, weed out the good from the not-so-good, edit all, typeset them, get the magazine pasted up, proofed, printed, and distributed all in sufficient time to make decent sales before Christmas…but what if we started now and aimed at the Easter break?
As my friend and I got paid by the issue, rather than by the week—we were working on an independent contractor basis rather than a salaried employee basis—the more magazine ideas I could gin up, the more I earned. I eagerly took my idea to the publisher.
Alas, he shot it down.
I knew that if I took the idea to some other publisher there was nothing preventing them from taking the idea and running with it with one of their own editors. I’d be out in the cold. But it was too good an idea to discard and give up on. And so I had the audacity to think of turning it into a book.
There was not in 1992 the profusion of activity books that exists now. I wrote the book, MOMMY, THERE’S NOTHING TO DO—“with a little help from my friends,” to quote the Beatles (and I compensated those friends when royalties started coming in)—and a major NY publishing house snapped up the book when I sent it to them.
Where did the idea come from? From listening to my friend’s woes and worries, and realizing she was not the only mom with these problems.
So where do we writers get our ideas? We pull them out of the ether. We listen to what people tell us, glean what’s important to them, and write. We read statistics in the newspaper, lines or phrases in other writers’ books or articles, and get inspired. Ideas are all around us—all around YOU if you’re a fellow writer.
They can be turned into fiction or nonfiction. (I could have taken my friend’s problem and turned it into a children’s novel or picturebook about bored children on a holiday break who discover a secret tunnel leading to…. Well, I leave it to YOU to decide where it leads. If you’re a writer, run with it.)
Where do writers get their ideas? Sometimes from other writers. Sometimes from their best friends. Ideas are all around us.
Are you a writer? Listen. Look. Keep your mind open. And go for it!