How to come up with ideas

– Nikki Smith

I am delighted to welcome Nikki Smith to my blog today. Nikki tackles that thorny subject of how to come up with ideas. She certainly practises what she preaches as her psychological thriller ‘All in her Head’ is a brilliant debut. Nikki studied English Literature at Birmingham University, before pursuing a career in finance. Following a ‘now or never’ moment, she applied for a Curtis Brown Creative course where she started writing All In Her Head. She lives near Guildford with her family and a cat who thinks she’s a dog. Her second novel, Look What You Made Me Do, will be published in April 2021.
Nikki’s website | Nikki’s FaceBook Page | Her twitter handle is @mrssmithmunday

The advice attributed to Hemingway of ‘Write what you know’ is often given to aspiring writers but is this really the best way to get inspiration? Surely if every writer did that, we’d all end up reading a series of (probably rather uninteresting) memoirs. I think the job of a good writer is to transport the reader into their world, wherever that may be, and make them believe in it. It’s the little details that can make a place memorable, and perhaps where Hemingway’s advice can be applied best – taking universal emotions and writing about them a situation that people can identify with. Jealousy feels the same, no matter what context it is in, and whether you put your characters in Brighton or on the moon, if a scene is written well, the reader will believe it.

I find some of the best ways to come up with ideas are as follows:

·      Walking. I find going for a long walk and letting my brain absorb what is around me, means I can come up with some great ideas. I also find walking great for sorting out plot issues. Knots that seemed to be tied fast when staring at a computer screen seem to loosen after a long walk.

·      Watching films & television. Sometimes something happens during a TV series or film that sparks an idea I haven’t thought of before. I might see a character running away and wonder what if she hadn’t done that? What if she’d stayed? What if she been left on that island instead of escaping?

·      Newspapers. I often find inspiration from reading stories in the news. Not necessarily the headline grabbing events (although sometimes that might be the case) but local stories that aren’t necessarily reported nationally. Someone dying in unusual circumstances makes me start thinking about how their life might have been and what drove them to end up living in the way they did.

·      Reading. I find reading other people’s books inspires me not only with ideas of what to write about, but also how to write. So much of a book is about structure and I’m continually learning different ways of doing things by reading other authors’ books and examining their structure and narrative by picking it apart to work out how they did something.

·      Dreams. This doesn’t often happen to me, but very occasionally I might wake up after having dreamt something that I think I could include in a story. It isn’t ever the whole story (unfortunately!) but it might be an idea or a theme that could lead onto something else.

·      Listening to others. Coffee shops are a writer’s dream for inspiration – it’s such a shame that access to these has been so limited during 2020. Eavesdropping on another person’s conversation can spark an idea for a story, or a character. I write psychological suspense thrillers and after listening to a stranger talk after picking up my daughter, I actually used their mannerisms and tone in one of my characters in my second novel that’s coming out in 2021!