Story ideas – where do they come from?

I’m asked this question a lot, and I think people expect a straightforward answer.  However, coming up with story ideas is actually quite a complex and time-consuming process! It is the creative heart of the book, after all. There is no simple answer, no right or wrong way to find a commercial idea and every author would probably tell you something different.

This is my process…

A story is made up of a hook – the key sentence that makes you want to read it – the plot, and the characters. It also has a theme – say for example, coercive control. I often have more than one theme, to give the story more depth, because life is never simple, is it? There’s always more than one thing going on at any one time.

A new idea can start from any of these elements. Often I have bits and pieces floating around in my head for a while before they gel into the beginnings of a feasible story idea. For my fist book, I had the opening scene and my main character sitting on the ferry and I kept having to ask her questions before I knew what the story was about!

Let’s look at each of the elements…

The Hook

An example of what I mean by the hook… In my second book, Love You Gone, the hook is: a woman arriving at a holiday cottage in the Lake District to meet up with her family only to find that they have vanished.

To find a hook for a new story, I usually start with the question: what if…? Then come up with scenarios. For this to be productive, you have to really let go of judgement and allow anything to pop into your head. One idea leads to another, so nothing can be counted as rubbish at this point, even if it sounds a bit far fetched and ridiculous!

I find my best ideas come to me when I’m doing something else, rather than waiting with a blank page, waiting for inspiration to come. I’m much better getting stuck into some menial task and letting my mind roam free. At this point in the creative cycle my bathroom is very clean and my dogs get lots of walks!

I have a section of my current notebook for ideas and jot down anything that comes to mind. When I have a few ideas, I’ll go through them and sort out the best two or three and then work with those.

Themes

Sometimes, I will start with a theme and then work back to a hook. My books are all based in domestic settings and I try to make people wonder what they’d do if it was them in the predicament my characters find themselves in.

I scan the news, read magazines at the hairdresser and dentist, see what’s trending on social media. Ideas can come from old photos, maybe social media posts, or even an overheard conversation in a coffee shop!

I keep up with all the latest books, so I know what themes have been covered already and always try and find a fresh spin or pick a theme that hasn’t had much, or any, attention.

Plot

This is my favourite part because at this stage anything can happen, I can let my imagination run wild until I find the bones of a plot that starts making sense and which I feel an emotional involvement with.

Every genre has a structure and at this stage, I’m trying to see if there’s enough substance in my idea to create an enthralling and twisty novel.

Characters

Once the skeleton of the plot is there, I can start to populate it with characters. I’ll already have names, but now I need to know exactly who these people are! What is their job, their backstory. Why do they behave in the way they do? I love this part of the process and it’s amazing how everything connects in your mind.

The real magic happens when your characters take on a life of their own and start to tell you their story. They talk to you, have conversations with each other, take on a form so it’s like watching a movie in your head. My job is to write down what’s happening in a way that will capture people’s imagination.

Outline

Once all these elements are coming together, I’ll transfer my ideas from my notebook into an outline. This is between 6-9 pages long and I write it like a short version of the story, so I know what the twists are, where they happen and how everything ends.

This is then my roadmap. Often, the outlining process will uncover new ideas, new characters, and even take the story in a different direction.

So there you have it… That’s how I come up with new ideas and work them up into enough detail to get started on a first draft.

It takes time. And it has to be done in layers – very few story ideas come fully formed, they have to be built. Sometimes you have to go back, take bits out, re-jig, or even start again.

Creativity cannot be hurried at the ideas stage. Writing psychological thrillers is essentially writing puzzles and you need to invest a lot of mental energy in getting it right – setting a puzzle people want to solve, then planting the clues to see if they can work it out.

If a reader tells me they didn’t guess the ending, then I’ve done my job!