Many writers get ideas from listening to the news, reading newspapers or the internet, watching programs about current affairs, noticing topics that are trending… 

In fact, being alert to what's going on in the world is usually a great way to get started as a writer. Many local or regional newspapers are interested in stories of community events. A simple news item might give you inspiration for a follow-up feature article, a poem, a story, a related news item, or something larger. A story in a national newspaper or magazine might give you a bigger idea.

Or you might simply use something in the news as part of a larger story or book. 

Let me give you a few examples:  

Years ago, I decided to enter the Toronto Star's short story contest. I think it was fairly new at the time. However, I had difficulty thinking of something to write that I thought the panel of judges would be interested in. I tried several things and was feeling my wheels spinning. Nothing felt right.

After some thought, I decided that the judges would likely be looking for something that was "current" in some way. So I pulled out the newspapers for the past week. I found several stories about the closures of some of the VIA rail services. Hmm. What did I know about railway services? Well, I had been raised in a small town and I knew there were some people who depended on the train. Plus one of my mother's uncles had been a railway station manager. And I began to ask what if? I thought of my grandmother. What it she lived in a small town and didn't drive a car? And what if there was a railway train she could take to the city once in a while?

The resulting story, One Last Ride on the VIA Rail, was a Judge's Choice in the Toronto Star Short Contest that year, and was published in the Toronto Star. 

One more example:

Even though my novel, Glitter of Diamonds, is a mystery, it's actually based largely on actual events.

One of the main characters is a young pitcher who has escaped from Cuba and been granted asylum in Canada.

I got the idea for this book from three different news/events sources.

1. Listening to Bob McCown on the FAN 590 one day, he and his guests were talking about sports figures who act like jerks and how some of them needed a good wake-up call.

2. A Cuban ball player had recently defected. I knew that over the years, Livan Hernandez and a number of other Cuban baseball players have escaped from Cuba and gone on to play for major league teams. Surely there would be more.

3. My knowledge that Worldteam Canada, a mission organization, is planting churches in Cuba because Worldteam USA cannot (due to government regulations).

I put the three things together: what if a Cuban baseball player defected and came to Canada, where he got lost in the glitter of the opportunities and became a jerk, while at the same time, back in Cuba, his wife was being influenced by Christians from Canada? What would happen when they were reunited in Toronto? 

And that's where my starting ideas for Glitter of Diamonds came from.

Read the first chapter.

Note: The irony is that the Toronto Blue Jays recently signed a Cuban player who defected. He's a short stop, not a pitcher, and hopefully he'll remain a nice guy.

I find it almost impossible to read my Bible without getting caught up in possibilities. Such unique settings! Fascinating characters! So many complex themes! Idea after idea tumbles through my mind…. A mystery novel retelling the story of Cain and Abel with a modern setting. A Bible study  or devotional where you can share what you've learned. A poem similar to those in Psalms.A drama about Joseph. And on and on….

My guess is that simply by reading the Bible every day, most writers would get enough ideas to keep them busy for years. 

So why not simply use the Bible for ideas all the time?

Well, the possibility is that other people have had the same idea that strikes us. Let's face it, there are only so many ways you can rewrite the "love"' passage in I Corinthians 12 into modern language. Or are there? Whether you're writing fiction, non-fiction, poetry, a play…you need to be fresh, and that means real and honest. Don't write what you think you ought to say—write what's in your heart.

A few ways to use an idea from the Bible:

1. Retell a story.

The key is to do it from a new angle, in a "fresh" way.

Let me give you an example:

The one play I've had published is a Christmas play, retelling the story of the birth of Christ, but in a rather unique way. Starting with the death of the children by Herod's soldiers—the event I thought would be the most newsworthy—I had a North American TV news team tracking down the reason for the slaughter and interviewing people who had been involved, including a couple of shepherds, Mary's neighbours and the innkeeper and his wife. You can see it here.

2.Take the story as a starting point and come up with something brand new, something totally yours. 

Let me give you an example.

Years ago, I was reading Samuel and I was struck by the fact that King David had a son named Nathan  That seemed totally amazing to me. Why name a son after the one person in your entire Kingdom who called you out when you sinned? I felt this showed me something about David's character that helped me understand why God called him a man after his own heart.

I simply had to write about it. I chose teens as my audience, and I chose to write an article. I've since rewritten it for adults as well.

"Show of Strength"

3. Use the story or verses from the Bible as your example, proof, etc.

This is essentially the opposite of the article above, which is focused on the story from the Bible as the central point..In this type of writing, you are writing about a specific topic and then you go to the Bible to find examples or proof for what you believe, or to make a clinching point.

The biggest problem with this type of writing is that it's very easy for us to become preachy. At all cost, we need to avoid the "you" mentality where you are at the least talking down to the reader and at worst yelling at the reader.

Let me give you an example.

In my article, "But What About Those Gates of Hell?", which is a combination of inspirational article and memoir, I started with the fact that I was very frustrated with the church. I wrote about my investigation to see if there was something I was missing, beginning with looking up the meaning of the word "church" in a concordance, and from there wove together various verses and facts with my feelings of first confusion and then determination to make a difference.

"But What About Those Gates of Hell"

A Writing Exercise:

Take out a Bible and leaf through it, remembering stories, people and themes that have caught your attention in the past. Write them down.

Read a few verses or chapter of your Bible each day and write down the ideas that come to you.

The idea could be as comprehensive as discovering something about your mother that makes you want to tell her life story, or as simple as having the odd way a complete stranger backs out of a car trigger an idea for a character.

There are actually numerous outlets for articles about people, whether they're famous or not. Our society seems to be always looking for new information about celebrities and athletes—sometimes to a ridiculous extent.

But community newspapers also often include profiles or features articles about interesting residents. Denominational magazines use articles about members of their denomination who've done something interesting. People write biographies of those they admire, both on a small level—for family and fiends—and on a broader level. We also write memoirs, in which we include ourselves but normally at least one other person.

We can also take a person and create a story around them. Maybe watching a young child refuse to give up when trying something new might lead to an article about knowing when to quit, or, conversely, about not giving up our dreams. Or we might take create a character and write a short story loosely based on that young child.

In other words, there's no end to the ideas we can get from observing other people. And those ideas can be used in a variety of ways, from poetry to drama to articles, biographies, how-to, and all kinds of short stories and novels.

The only "rule" here is that if you're going to write about another person by name, it's a good idea to let them know ahead of time. In the case of a casual mention, what you think means nothing might in fact mean a lot to the person involved—either in a negative or a positive way. Of course, if you're writing a memoir, about something very negative that happened to you, you need to really think long and hard about the effects it will have. That's a whole 'nother ball game and I'll talk more about that later.

If you're writing fiction, it's best to disguise the person in various ways so it isn't obvious who you're writing about. Unless, of course, the person knows and is fine with it. Some people actually love to  have authors put them into their books, although usually as minor characters, and not the villain.

One way I find new people to write about is to go to shopping malls and sit in the food court. What a terrific way to see all kinds of people —how they dress, how they interact, etc. etc.I don't know them and they don't know me, so the chances of anyone recognizing him or herself in one of my stories are extremely low.

Let me give you an example:

This idea came from a complete stranger. 

Some years ago, my husband had to go to Cleveland for his job and we decided to drive there. While he was busy, I had very little to do. Plus we had our dog along, so I couldn't really leave her alone in a motel. So I kind of watched TV and took her for walks. On one of our walks, we met an elderly lady who asked me to help her across the street. I did.

Months later, when I needed to come up with an idea for a column I was writing, I remembered that day and that lady. So I wrote a story of our meeting.

"God's Sparrow"

Let me give you another example:

This is a lot more complex.

One of my novels for teens, In Time of Trouble, is very loosely based on a character in another book and on several students I taught years ago.

When I taught high school, I had a number of students who were somewhat like this bully. On the outside, they appeared to be hard, tough, rude, smart alecky, and were often not doing well in school. I learned first-hand with several of them that the outward appearance was simply a shield protecting the sensitive, troubled person inside.

The book was The Bully of Barkham Street, by Mary Stolz, the sequel to A Dog on Barkham Street. The first book was about a young boy who had to deal with a bully. The sequel was about the bully. I loved both books, but the second really hit me. So often, we cheer for the underdog and forget about the other person involved, who might be hurting just as much, but usually shows in it in less acceptable ways.

After I read the book, it occurred to me that I needed to write a version of it for older readers.

I based my book on my students, but the character and the story are completely different. My character, Shane, is a teen who has derailed his own life, gotten himself involved with the wrong crowd, and is now failing at school and getting into more and more trouble at home. Yet inside, he's sensitive and intelligent enough to see he's getting deeper and deeper into trouble. The problem is he has no idea what to do and no one to go to for help.

Read the first three chapters of In Time of Trouble

Writing Exercise:

A. Make a list of people you know who have stories that should be told. Consider interviewing them and writing profiles or other kinds of articles about their accomplishments, their struggles, their hobbies, etc.

B. Make a list of interesting people you've known or met at some time. Don't just write down their names; write down the characteristics or mannerisms that make them stand out in your mind. 

C. Go to a shopping mall or another location where there are lots of opportunities to observe people. Jot down whatever Ideas come to your mind.

This is one of the most common ways people find their ideas. Out of their lives, and values, they think of something they want to say, and then figure out how to say it.

Maybe you've had cancer and recovered, and you want to tell other people how they can survive cancer. Maybe you've been treated rudely one too many times and you decide you need to write something that will tell people how they ought to treat other people. Perhaps you've discovered a way to plant a garden that is more successful than any other way you've seen. You would like to tell someone what you have learned.

Let me give you an example:

I homeschooled all of my sons until they went to high school. Naturally, people would often ask me why i did it and sometimes how. One day, it occurred to me to write an article explaining why and how I did it. I queried a suitable magazine and got a yes, so I wrote the aritlce. Not difficult. Then I wrote another one for a different magazine. And then I wrote yet another. If you're interested, you can see one of them here.

Home Education

However:

When you write an essay, article, or non-fiction book, you normally have a theme—an idea you want to get across (very similar tot he thesis you have when you wrote an essay). However, beginning with a theme when you want to write fiction, or even drama or poetry, is a lot trickier. Some people might even say you shoudln't even try.

The problem isn't that you can't do it. The problem is that your writing is likely to feel constrained or even pedantic when you have something you want to make it say. The best fiction comes from characters who come to life as you write them. And then when you read what you've writen, you see what your theme is. Plays and screenplays are the same. Poetry is best when it comes striaght from the heart.

Now, I'm not saying you can't ever write fiction or plays or poetry with a theme in mind. Just that if you do, you have to be very, very careful not to force the theme.

Let me give you an example:

Years ago, I had just gotten married after a couple of years as a high schoo English teacher. One of my biggest frustrations was that so many kids saw themselves in a negative way, as in “I’m not smart enough, not athletic enough, not good-looking or pretty enough, don’t have a car/computer/DVD player,” and so on. The trouble was, most of the kids I knew thought this way—even the ones who seemed to have it made.

I was taking a writing correspondence course and I was supposed to be writing a short story of some sort. But instead, a whole book began taking shape in my head. It would be about this really ordinary teenage boy—who saw himself as nothing special, and this other teenage boy who had everything every teenager could want—the looks, the girls, the car, the athletic ability, the brain—the works!

I would have the ordinary guy tell the story from his point of view, and of course the whole novel would hinge on the premise that what’s really important isn’t any of those surface things you have little control over, but who you are inside.

But from there, instead of starting to write the story, I developed the six main characters. I had been raised in a small town, so I set it in a similar small town. And then I worked on getting to know those characters as well as I knew myself. I knew that the characters had to drive the story: not me.

When I was done, I knew the characters and the story so well that I honestly wrote the last three chapters first. Then i went back to chapter one and started it. I got to chapter six and got stuck. around the same time, my first son was born and I was very busy. So I put it in a file folder.

It was over ten years before I putlled it out, read the beginning I had written and, without missing a beat, wrote the missing chapters, barely changing the last three.

And yes, it's a coming-of-age novel about a very ordinary, average teenage boy who has a very low self-esteem, and who learns that what's important isn’t any of those surface things you have little control over, but who you are inside.

If you like, you can read the first three chapters of the book, Best of Friends.

Writing Exercise:

Think about some people or groups of people you would like to say something to, and then write down 10 things you would like to say to some or all of them. Don't worry about the form of writing you would use; just think about what you want to say.  

Now, there are some common sense boundaries. If I tell you I'm going to query a specific editor about an article on an upcoming event, and you quickly fire off an email to the same editor about writing an article on event, that is definitely a no no. And anything that has been published or produced is protected by copyright.

But on less specific things, stealing ideas is allowed. For example, if I read an article on how to raise great kids in a magazine, and I find that I have things to say that weren't said in the article, there's no harm in my writing another  article on how to raise great kids using my perspective and my own examples. No, you can't  combine three of the first author's points with two of yours. What you write has to be different, has to be uniquely yours. Other wise you're guilty of plagiarism.

So you write a totally different article, but with the same overall focus—how to raise great kids.

Now, what do you do with it? Well, unless raising kids is the primary focus of the magazine, I probably wouldn't send my article to the same magazine where you read the original. At least not for a few months. Why? Because they just published an article on that topic. And they likely won't publish a similar article for at least several months, probably a year.

You can also steal ideas from other places. The key is that you have to make it totally your own and not simply mimic what someone else has said.

There's also a reason most great writers have hung out with other creative people. When you get talking to each other, ideas get thrown out and you never know what any of you will come up with.

Let me give you an example:

One of the very first articles I had accepted by an editor came from an idea I "stole" in a sense. Years ago, I'd been part of a Bible study where the pastor had a lot of things to say about Jonah—very few of them good. I have to confess to feeling rather annoyed during the evening, but not completely sure why. Later, I spent some time rereading the book of Jonah and thinking about what had troubled me about the pastor's words. Eventually, I realized that I strongly sympathized with Jonah.

I actually was doing very little writing at that time. Besides having three young sons, I was part of the leadership in a church plant. But I felt so strongly about this one thing that I made time to write an article I called "My Friend, Jonah." It later won a prize in the Alberta Christian Writers Contest. And when I finally began sending pieces out, it was accepted by the first magazine I tried, Confident Living. That gave me a big boost in my desire to do more writing.

Going off-topic, but the irony here is that although I was paid for "My Friend, Jonah" in 1989, the article has never been published. Although Confident Living published a number of other articles I wrote, for some reason, the editor never found the right issue for this one. When the magazine went out of production, they returned my rights to the article.

If you want to read it, here's a link.  You'll be one of the first people to read it.

My Friend Jonah

Writing Exercise:

Look through a few magazines you have. What do you see that interests you, and that could be written from a different perspective?

Check out copyright laws here:

Canada

US

That happens to me frequently. Often, it's an elusive  feeling or insight that disappears as quickly as it came. But sometimes it stays long enough to jog an awareness in my brain, and I make notes before I lose it.

Let me give you an example.

I've been familiar with the song "Oh, Freedom" since i was a child. Always loved it, no doubt as much because of what a good singer can do with it musically as because of the meaning behind it.

But one day, over 30 years ago, someone's remark about "freedom in Christ" started the lyrics from "Oh Freedom" playing in my head. "…And before I'll be a slave, I'll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and be free…"

An instant later, it popped into my mind that I needed to write a story about freedom, and that it's not, as most of us think, a physical state, as much as it is a spiritual state. I remembered Paul talking about being free in Christ while being chained in a Roman prison. And my brain began to whirl.

In the next couple of days, I developed my idea into a plan for a book about a man who was running from the physical reality of prison, but would somehow find that he was able to face a prison cell once he knew what spiritual freedom was. I developed character sketches for the primary characters, a plot, the works…. I titled my book, Oh Freedom, and went to work writing it.

I'd love to point you to where you can read it. Only I can't. Because I haven't finished it yet. 

Not to go on a tangent here, but not everything you begin will get finished. Not every idea will result in a completed manuscript. And not every completed manuscript will get published.

Life happens. You lose interest. Publishers change their minds. Everything takes more energy and more time than you expect. You realize you don't have the skills to complete what you've begun as you'd want to have it. 

What happened to my book? Well, it's still here. In my files. I've probably got more than a book's worth of writing done on it, but two things happened to me. When I started writing, the main character turned out to be very different from what I expected (especially his very dry sense of humour). Secondly, the story grew in various ways so that the silly thing evolved into a 5-book series. And while I still want to finish it, I doubt if that will happen any time soon.

Want to see a little bit? Okay, here's a PDF of a scene that will show you what happened to my very serious story-line.

Freedom Trail Series excerpt

Writing Exercise:

Take a look at your own writing ideas and see if you can remember where they came from.

Or maybe you were alone at a table in a coffee shop, a shopping mall food court, or a restaurant when you discovered that the conversation at a nearby table was impossible to ignore. Maybe it was someone's birthday and they were celebrating. Even opening gifts. Maybe they were discussing where they had been, what they had bought, what they were going to do next, other people they knew….  And you felt guilty for overhearing things that were none of your business.

Well, actually, those were moments for you to grab your notebook and start jotting things down, or at least take mental notes and write them down later. What made the mother angry? How did she react? How did she look? What was the child doing to get his way? I can think of all kinds of things you might have seen and heard that could one day be useful in your writing.

Writers frequently use the technique of Observation to discover new ideas.

Let me give you an example.

When my third son was born in 1980, I had a Cesarean section. Back then, hospital stays were way longer than they are today, and I was in a semi-private room. The other occupant of the room turned out to be a sixteen-year-old girl. We were together for about two days, but in the course of those two days only a thin curtain separated us, and that wasn't always closed.I had little choice but to overhear many of her conversations with her parents, her sister, and her boyfriend, as well as nurses, doctors, etc.

Now I could have discreetly left the room, I suppose, but I had just had a C-section and while I did get up to walk in the hall for short periods, most of the time I had nowhere to go except my bed. So I overheard a lot. Okay, maybe I eavesdropped. But you have to admit it was a one-time opportunity to gain valuable information.

And I'm sure you've realized by now that I made copious notes.

I never saw the girl or anyone connected with that moment again. But years later, I wrote a short story from the point of view of a young teenage mother. It's called "Conversations in Baby Blue." I changed a number of things, and no one would ever recognize the actual people involved, but the emotion I tried to put into the story was the emotion I'd felt in that hospital room years before.

If you're interested, you can read the story. Conversations in Baby Blue

Writing Exercise:

Think about how you feel about making notes about the things you see and hear as you go through your day-to-day life. Do you have a plan for doing it without being too obvious?

You might ask, "Don't ideas just come?"

For some of us, the answer is a loud, "Yes." There are people who are overwhelmed by a constant flood of ideas. I'll talk about that problem later.

I find, however, that many new writers really only have one idea. Often, it's related to something that happened to them. And, quite often, they think they have to write a book about it.

Since all of writing is dependent on ideas, I want to explore this world of ideas in the next few weeks, starting with how to find ideas to write about. But first, there are a few things you need to know about ideas.

Four things you should know about ideas:

1. An idea is simply a starting point. Fifty people if given the same idea would likely write fifty different things.

2. It's what you do with an idea that matters: not what you might do.

3. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Good writers learn to separate the good ones from the great ones.

4. Ideas must be refined. Yes, a good idea well executed is a wonderful thing, but ideas have to studied and evaluated and  shaped and crafted to make them work for you.

Writing exercise:

Using 3" x 5" cards or small 2" or 4" pieces of paper, write down every idea you have at this time.

The files are in many categories. Files with stories and articles that have been published. Files with stories and articles that might never be published. Resource files on a variety of topics. Files on various areas necessary for writers. A file for each book of the Bible. Files for contracts and marketing pages and characters in new books I'm working on…. 

But that's not all I have. I also have clear plastic bins. And binders filled with drafts of books and workshops I teach. Some of us are complicated…complex… 

But never fear. There's a book for us that I have found very helpful. It's called Get Organized, Get Published, and it's by Don Aslett, who has written a number of books about cleaning, and Carol Cartaino.

I've read it several times. When it first came out, it let me know I wasn't crazy to want to write 5 or 6 or 20 books at the same time. Later reads taught me other things about how best to organize so that I could work on all those books at one time. I reread it again last fall and it eased the panic I was feeling that I'd never be able to fulfill all my writing goals. One step at a time. One file at a time….

A file folder holds beginning info, but when you start adding pages cut from magazines or newspapers, books, audio tapes, journals, and other materials, it's time to get a small plastic bin and label it with the title of the book, so you have a proper place to put things.

When you're ready to stop gathering information – and that might be a few months after you begin or 20 years later – you can go through the materials and then create file folders to start organizing the book. Maybe a folder per chapter, or maybe a folder each for characters, plot, theme, etc. And then a folder for query letters and proposals, and one for marketing ideas, and so forth.

The point is, whether you're just going to do a little writing – maybe 3 or 4 stories per year – or a lot of writing – say 30 or 40 articles a month or three or four books per year, a little organization will help you get there.

Mark the blue folder Nonfiction Ideas, the red one Fiction Ideas, the Purple one Drama Ideas, the yellow one Poetry, the pink one Resources, and the grey one Business….

Now, you may have decided you only want to write in a specific genre. Say fiction. No non-fiction for you. And definitely no poetry or drama. That's your choice, but if you are just beginning to write, I'd suggest you at least have a few extra file folders just in case. You never really know where an idea will take you. Better to be prepared.

Of course, as you get going, and one or more of your folders begins to get full, you'll need more folders. Or you may already have lots of ideas.

What you do next is tear each idea page from your notebook and file it in the right spot.

What happens next?

Let's say the idea you take from your fiction folder begins to blossom into a short story. Now you need a file folder for that story. If your catchall Fiction folder for ideas is red, you might want to get more red folders and give one of them the title of your new short story. As you go on, creating first drafts of stories, article, poems, or plays, you can designate a folder for each one. 

You'll also soon find yourself in need of more general business files. One for writers groups you belong to (maybe one for each group if they send out a lot of information). One or more for writers conferences you attend. Another one for information about potential publishers, one or more for information you gather on topics such as writing believable characters, how to create rhymes that aren't cheesy, goals, and so forth.

The other thing you may want to do if (or when) you have oodles of ideas, is to sort them into a few topics. Maybe you're a parent and have lots of ideas for other parents. Or maybe you're a nurse, a pastor, a lawyer… and you have a lot of ideas that might be of interest to others in your profession. Or maybe you're passionate about justice, good food, safe water, etc. You can not only gather your ideas for things you could write about, but also print off relevant articles, cut out stories from newspapers, and file all the items you want to keep until you know what you want to do with them.

Tomorrow: more on filing