More company!
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How did you come up with that idea?
It’s a question many authors receive from readers and personally, I like hearing it because it makes me think I’ve managed to take the reader outside the expected and into something new and different. Usually, I answer with “It’s all in my head”, which is true, but there’s much more involved in pulling all that’s racing around inside our heads into something interesting.
Research, reality and imagination are all part of the creative process, but what triggers that unique idea in the first place?
One is that a picture, a few words read or heard, a dream, just about anything could be the seed and it’s up to the author to make it bloom into a book. I had a general plot in mind, a hero who needed to open up and make himself vulnerable in order to bring love into his life, but it was a picture that started me on the way to pulling it all together. In the end, the image had created the path he’d have to follow in order to make this happen.
Another is when the inspiration is not one thing but a few that merge together and it’s all there for the author to manipulate into the story they’re looking to tell. I was watching a show about music and culture during the 60’s and 70’s which brought back memories from my youth. By the time the end credits were rolling, there was the story in my head, ready to be written.
There are as many different ways an author comes up with that idea as there are authors. Next time you read a book and think, how did they come up with that?, ask them and enjoy the smile that comes with however they choose to explain it.
Tilly Greene
WARNING! Red hot romances ahead!
Highland Heat and Ride ’em are now available through Ellora’s Cave