In search of an idea

[John Dean]

I have just finished editing my latest Jack Harris novel and am looking towards my next book, a process which always brings the idea of ideas into sharp focus.

So where do ideas come from? For some writers, stories start with a place, somewhere that strikes them so forcibly that the story unfolds around it. I tend to be like that. Hillsides, patches of wasteland and fog-bound fields have all inspired my novels.

Other writers start with a character, sometimes someone who is purely fictional, others someone the author encounters who is so interesting, so intriguing, that they form the basis for a fictional character who can almost tell the story on their own. Others begin with the story itself, an idea inspired by everything from a newspaper snippet or something someone says to a sudden sense of ’what if?’

Some write for additional reasons, to get a point over, to add to our knowledge of the world, to make us think about an issue in a different way.

Whatever their motivation as writers - and there will be many others - one thing is certain: if it drives them to sit down in front of that computer or lift up that pen, it’s got to be worth writing about.