Where do you get YOUR story ideas from?

It seems like at least once a week I get asked the dreaded question: "Where do you get your story ideas from?" My answer is simple. I have a garden gnome with a magic pen locked in my attic, who comes up with all my ideas for me. He writes the ideas down on a slip of paper, puts it in a bucket and then lowers the bucket to me through the hole in the ceiling. Then, I sift through the slips of paper to find the perfect story idea.

What? You don't believe me? Darn. Well then I'll have to make something up.

My ideas usually come to me at the most inopportune times. Sometimes it's when I'm showering (this is a frequent place my muse likes to attack), sometimes its when I'm driving to the grocery store. Most often, however, is at 1 a.m. when I should be sleeping. I jump out of bed, grab my pen & paper and start writing out an outline, or a scene, or whatever else my muse has decided to bless me with. Sometimes its an entire full-blown outline (like my last WIP). Sometimes it's just a scene that I will eventually wrok into an entire story.

Most of my story ideas begin with some sort-of prompt. It can be anything from a picture, to an object, to a song. I find music extremely inspiring, and have written entire books to a single playlist on repeat. It's the feeling the song gives me that I try to incorporate into my story.

So for Awaken, my YA Fairytale reimagining, there was a particular picture that inspired the entire story - but I can't post it here for copyright issues. But, there was also a song that inspired it. (To be honest - the entire soundtrack for the movie was on repeat the entire time I was writing it.)



So tell me - how do you come up with your story ideas? Do they just pop into your head, or are they brought on by a prompt? What do you find most inspiring for your writing?

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Shelley Watters writes romance for young adults and adults. She lives in Arizona with her husband, two kids and two dogs. She loves listening to music, reading good books and letting her imagination go wild as she creates new worlds and torments her characters in delicious ways. She is an active member of the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. She is represented by Mark McVeigh of the McVeigh Agency.