It's a curious thing. A story idea may come when I hear the words of a song, or think about a passage from the Bible. Often when I am driving in the car, I begin thinking of a character or a plot, and a story starts to form. I don't always have to be awake to be inspired. One night I had a dream that was so vivid I wrote it down the next day in a novel form.
When I get a story idea, I think about it for awhile, forming characters and plots in my head. When this happens, sometimes I jot down a few details or an outline. I have sheets of paper in my files that have nothing more than the names of a few characters and their description. There is a story about them in my head, but I haven't taken time to develop it.
Sometimes I think of a story, and a wave of inspiration hits. I sit down at the computer, or with pen and paper, and write away. One time I wrote 75 pages in three days (well, typed them on a computer, which is much faster than long-hand.)
A few months go, my friend read one of my books, and she asked me, "What is in the trunks?" The trunks I had written into the story had no special meaning to me, but when she read about them, she grew curious and wondered what was in them. I started thinking about the trunks one day while I cleaning up at work. And seemingly out of nowhere, I realized what was in the trunks. The realization literally gave me chills, and another subplot formed in the series.
Just today, I was cleaning the chicken fryer at work, and pondering the current story I am working on. There were some details I couldn't figure out. As I worked and thought about it, the plot developed, and a new character came into being. It was a "hallelujah!" moment. I rejoiced because the story could move forward.
And would you believe, the story has nothing to do with fried chicken, even though that's what I was doing when the inspiration hit?
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