Real Life Provides Inspiration for Story Ideas
“San Diego man arrested for taking 2-year-old inside elephant exhibit at zoo.”
“Bodies of two hikers found at Acadia National Park in Maine.”
“Uber driver charged with kidnapping after allegedly trapping woman in car in Boston.”
These were some news headlines today.
Real life provides ample opportunities for writers to come up with ideas for their first or their next novel.
The truth is that real life can be odd and crazy events are happening all the time. Paying attention to life and taking notes of things that jump out at you may provide just the inspiration you were looking for.
A headline the like the ones above can spark an idea. Writers may not necessary write about the event that happened as it happened, but it has happened to me that I needed “something” and a real event provided the something I was looking for.
In my novel That Was Then, I needed a problem, a catastrophe, or an event where the male protagonist of the novel could be a hero. He could be the man the heroine believed him to be. The year I was writing this novel, we were having heavy rains and…
