Get the idea?

If you’re a writer it’s the one question you’re guaranteed to be asked –“Where do you get your ideas?” And, if you’re like me, it’s the one question you hate. But why? Well, there are a number of reasons. To me. It seems to imply that there’s some kind of hidden idea factory to which – probably by nefarious means – I’ve managed to gain access. As a result, my writing life is one of ease. All I have to do is pull up, load up with some ideas and off I go. It also feels as if the person is saying that, any success is down to luck. Finding an idea is like finding a wad of cash in the road: all you have to do is take it to the bank.
So, for those who are wondering, let me state it as clearly as I can – finding an idea is the easy part! Got that? An idea isn’t a story. And, if you can’t find an idea, the real answer is that you’re not looking hard enough. Ideas are all around. In your newspaper. In that anecdote you heard the other night. In books. You can even make them up. Anyone can have an idea. The skill is taking the idea and working it into a story, adding characters, suspense, humour.
Let me give you an example. Many years ago, I was reading a book of interviews with prisoners. In it, I came across the story of a man who had murdered his wife and not been caught. Then, years later, he heard a news report that a woman’s decomposed body had been found in the same area where he had dumped his wife’s corpse. Figuring that the game was up, he went to the police and confessed, only to learn later that the woman had been buried hundreds of years before. Oooops. Good idea for a story, I thought. What I didn’t realise was, it would take me 15 years to write it. See, I had the idea – but nothing else. Who was this guy? What was his wife like? Why did he kill her? How come the police didn’t catch him at the time of the killing given that the spouse is always the first suspect?
Eventually I answered all those questions to my satisfaction and wrote the story, entitled ‘Edwin the Confessor,’ which was published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.
Now, you could argue that I was lucky to find the story and, to a degree, you’d be right. But I was reading the book intentionally to find ideas for stories. And, once I got the idea, I worked at it until it was right.
So, ideas are not the problem. In fact, I’m toying with the idea of giving prospective writers ideas, then showing them how to progress from there. But that’s for another day….