Authors on the Bench
Where do your ideas come from?
- Terry Ambrose:
Short answer: everywhere. Long answer, I look as life as one big treasure trove of ideas. From personal experiences to what’s doing on in the world, I’ve incorporated all of it. For instance, in Death by Blueprint, the ninth Seaside Cove Bed & Breakfast Mystery, I drew on our latest home renovation project. The contractor irked me so much when he turned our carefully thought out project plan on its head that I decided I needed to take my revenge. He got his comeuppance, and we got a beautiful backyard! Seems fair to me.
- Nancy J. Cohen:
Ideas are everywhere, inspired by personal experiences, settings, news articles, people we meet, snippets of conversation that we overhear, or even an item that catches our interest. Most of us have more ideas than we can write in a lifetime. And when you write a series, the stories begin to generate from the characters, who can be the springboard for a new story.
- Debra H. Goldstein:
Although I steal from the news, observing people’s behavior, or imagining what folks are saying to each other, the reality is that once I get the little gem to start writing something (whether from a prompt or an independent idea), it is the voices of the characters that I hear in my head that propels my writing.
- Cheryl Hollon:
My stories grow out of my own experiences. I find that the best mysteries come from moments I’ve lived, places I’ve walked, people I’ve met, and challenges I’ve faced. To write authentically, I need to have been there, done that, and maybe taken a few notes along the way.
- Maggie Toussaint:
I used to be a sponge, absorbing ideas from every source: a chance overheard conversation in a public place, something on the news, an injustice, a story I heard. The list never ends. Then I started writing character-centric books. After determining a character’s strengths and weaknesses, I target their weak points, for the mystery and/or their personal character arc.
- Lois Winston
Mostly from the news. I’m a total news junkie. My latest book, Embroidered Lies and Alibis, the 15th Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, incorporates both elder and crypto scams that I read about in the newspaper and saw on the evening news.
That's it for our authors. We cover the gamut from personal experiences to what's going on in the world. Do you ever come up with ideas you wish an author would take on? Where do your ideas come from?
