Someone once asked me where I get my ideas from. In other words, where does creativity come from? Two different questions, really. My ideas come from others’ stories, family lore, newspaper articles, books and other places. Wherever I can hook into a straightforward story and begin wondering the “what ifs?” Once I can do that I’m off and writing.
Plots usually come to me fully developed—beginning, middle and end. All I have to do is fill in the gaps with dialogue, character development and descriptions, and the story spins itself. I do check facts, and I am careful of time lines. I have a dictionary that gives the date when a word comes into common usage, eg. zipper in 1925-1930. I struggle with time lines. I get so engrossed in telling the story that time takes on a life or its own and when I reread what I’ve written, I think: “What? When did that happen?” So I usually have to straighten that out.
There are a number of ways of putting a story on paper, too, of which I’ve tried. One I’ve tried and discarded was to make an outline on recipe cards so that you can move scenes around. I know several writers who use that technique to good advantage. I’m more of what has been described as a “seat-of-the-pants” writer. The only things I make a list of is where the beginning middle and end of the story is and steer (sort of) toward those points. I carry that list in my head. It seems to work just fine but I suppose there will come a day when it won’t work, and I’ll be left trying to figure out how I got to wherever I find myself plot-wise and how to get out or this particular hole. It could be a problem but that’s what novel writing is all about—the posing and solving of problems.
