People often ask novelists where they get their ideas. Sometimes, that's not an easy question to answer. Today, author/editor Ann Tatlock gives writers an inspiring tip for those times when the ideas don't seem to flow as well as they should. -- SandyAnn: Often people ask me where I find my ideas.
My answer? I don’t find them; they find me. Ideas for stories come to me when I’m doing things unrelated to writing--when I’m driving down the road or listening to someone speak or putting dishes away in the kitchen cupboard. They have somehow bubbled up out of that subconscious place where imagination resides, and suddenly they’re there, planting themselves in conscious thought and growing into novels.
Imagination is a gift from God. From out of it spring worlds that have never existed and people who have never lived, and yet once those places and people are captured in words and shaped into story, they are as influential and lasting as anything we’ll encounter on earth.
To do its job, imagination must be allowed wide open spaces of time. It can’t be forced and it can’t be argued with. We have to step back and watch it work the way we watch an amaryllis bloom at Christmastime. To interfere is to smother it. The blossom withers at the hand of the impatient gardener.
Science fiction writer Ray Bradbury is said to have kept this message on his desk: “Don’t think!”
But doesn’t a writer have to think in order to write?
Yes, but that comes later. The first thing a writer has to do is to listen. The imagination has a voice and will speak to you, but it’s a subtle voice and easily drowned out by too many anxious thoughts. If you can’t seem to get anywhere with your story, it may be that you’re thinking so hard you can’t hear what your imagination is telling you to do.
Once characters come to you, they’ll have minds of their own. They’ll tell you about themselves, about who they are and what they’re doing. They’ll let you know how the story should unfold, if you’ll let them.
Twice I’ve tried to kill off characters that refused to die. Turns out, they were right to insist on staying alive. I’d planned those stories the way I thought they should go but, heeding the guidance of my characters, I changed the endings and the stories were better for it.
Before you write, listen. A writer has no more powerful tool than imagination. Don’t squelch it by thinking too hard. Put on some music. Read a good book. Take a walk in the woods. Eventually, you’ll hear the whispers, and those first seeds of plot, character, theme, and dialogue will grow into the novel that you and God and your imagination want it to be.
Do you take the time to listen to your imagination?
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Ann Tatlock is a novelist and children's book author. Her newest novel, Once Beyond A Time, was published in December 2014 by Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas. Her books have received numerous awards, including the Christy Award, the Midwest Book Award and the Silver Angel Award for Excellence in Media. She also serves as managing editor of Heritage Beacon, the historical fiction imprint of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas. She lives with her family in Western North Carolina. Please visit her website at
www.anntatlock.com.