Have you ever noticed there is drama all
around you? Pay attention! There are always people who wear their
problems on their sleeves – as the old cliché goes! But that’s great for us . . . listen to their
passions, their dramas, their dilemmas, their successes and failures, and even their
sorrows. You can even pick up drama in
newspapers, magazines, and the news.
It’s all around us . . . start jotting down notes of inspiration.
You might see an
interview on TV – the guy is a sole survivor in a war-torn country. Don’t you really want to know how he survived
when no one else did? How about a mother
who takes her life . . . and that of her daughter – why? Aren’t your story-telling feelers asking you
‘what would make her do that? If you see
a guy that is trying to survive in the desert, no modern help-just him and the
elements – don’t you wonder what on earth brought him to make that decision?
You hear about a priest
who leaves his devotion and suddenly marries.
Wow – doesn’t that spark your creative spirit and make you wonder why? What would bring him to this decision? How difficult was it? What does his family and friends think about
this? How does this affect his life
now? Does he regret it?
There are the numerous,
horrendous killings and sad disappearances in real life . . . that could spawn
hundreds of books.
So why don’t we write about them? Well . . . we do! There's drama all around us and if you’re
one of those smart authors – you’re finding material for your stories every
time you listen to the world around you or you open your eyes – drama unfolds
at every turn.
What sets one writer out
from another is their passion to write the story. They take the ardent fervor for life and fill
in the blanks that take the reader on a journey. Sometimes it’s uplifting and other times it’s
nitty-gritty and even devastating.
The drama all around us
results in the birth of innumerable ideas that becomes the basis – the drama –
for yet another wonderful read. Key here
is to tell your story with passion. Your
reader will believe every word as though they heard it on the news or read it in
a paper or online.
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Rita Karnopp
Author ~ Romancing the West
Author ~ Romancing the West
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Great article, Rita. I find story ideas everywhere from sitting in traffic, watching people in restaurants, and even in the Classified ads in the newspaper. One of my books, Deadbeat Dads came from conversation overheard by my husband at a bank. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteYou're right about ideas being everywhere. I think part of being a writer is being an listener (spying on people's conversations} and looking and inventing stories to go with what we hear and see.
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