One writerly question, one answer, one minute to read!
Here we go…I often get asked where my ideas come from and this is what most writers will tell you!
Inspiration comes from anywhere and everywhere! Sometimes it’s an overheard conversation, sometimes it’s a building or a place, sometimes it’s a picture or just my imagination running wild. The thing about inspiration is it’s freeing your mind to take you on a journey. Sometimes it doesn’t get very far and other times, those daydreams turn into ideas for short stories or novels.
There are also times when you can’t leave it all to your imagination though and I wrote about that in my blog post Inspiration vs Perspiration which is all about waiting for inspiration to strike or constructing a story piece by piece.
A writer’s preference will also depend on whether they’re a plotter or a panster (ie. they write by the seat of their pants, sitting down and seeing what comes). I’m a plotter so I like to have a good idea of where I’m headed before I start, but really, even then, characters can misbehave, and things sometimes just don’t workout out.
I think imagination is great and definitely needed for writing novels, but it’s important to put the work in too!
Photo by Dustin Lee on Unsplash