When the Idea Well is Dry...

By Morgan Tarpley

Extra Extra! Read all about it! Here’s a fact. There is never a shortage of story ideas - just the need for inspiration to think of them.

And I think one of the absolute best places to get a dry well of ideas flowing is through the news. I should know because not only am I a fiction writer - but I’m a journalist, so the news is my business so to speak.

I try to keep up with the comings and goings of U.S. and world news as best I can, scanning headlines and articles throughout my workday for inspiration to write my weekly column/editorial and for story fodder. There have been so many fascinating and horrifying stories I’ve discovered over the years that I wanted to save them to fuel possible fiction ideas.

I did so by creating a folder in my email account for these ideas and emailing the link to myself, then placing the email in a folder. I suppose I’ve been building an idea well in a way.

Yes, I’ve heard the arguments of everything we read or see in TV or in movies is just ripped from the news headlines. But honestly what isn’t? I mean there aren’t really truly original ideas anymore, but we as writers can put a spin on any idea and it’s original to us, with our unique style and voice. So why not get ideas from the news?

I’d like to share a few articles that have caught my eye lately. And who knows maybe it’ll get the writing ideas flowing!

This article raises the question: what is your nationality when you’re born in the sky? And it follows a young woman born in an airplane who set out to find others who were in her situation. http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/29/aviation/people-born-on-airplanes/index.html

This article centers around the amazing and horrific story of a young woman who was raped at age 11, became pregnant and chose to keep the baby. http://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/a50949/raped-at-11-years-old/

This article features contrasts of selfies taken by women in the U.S. vs. China and the differing standards of beauty in both countries. https://www.yahoo.com/health/selfies-america-vs-china-tell-222900246.html

And my personal favorite of the four is a heartbreaking read that would make for such a moving book/movie - ‘I Found My Dad…Too Late” from a 2007 issue of Cosmopolitan (and republished recently by Country Living Magazine online)

“I've always known I was adopted. My mom and dad explained that although my birth parents really loved me, they hadn't been ready to take care of a baby. I had a happy, ‘normal’ childhood with a loving family, but a huge question mark remained.

“In Saint Paul, Minnesota, where I grew up, adoptees don't have access to their birth parents' names until they turn 19. So I spent my childhood wondering what they were like. The social services agency provided some info about them at the time of my adoption, so I knew general details, like their ages (19 and 21) and hair color (both brown). The older I got, the more anxious I was to know where my ancestors came from and where I got my looks. Because I was raised as an only child, I especially wanted to find out if I had siblings…

“In 2001, during my junior year of high school, the principal announced over the loudspeaker that two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center. Everyone was upset, but I felt a strange, overwhelming sadness deep in my gut that I couldn't explain. When I got home, I blurted out to my mom that I thought one of my birth parents had died. I'd never had such a strong intuition before. My mom reassured me that the odds of this being true were tiny. But that scary intuition still haunted me.

“In the weeks that followed, I was too spooked by my hunch to watch any coverage of 9/11, but it was impossible to escape. Tom Burnett, one of the men who helped thwart the hijackers' plans to crash United Flight 93 into the White House or Capitol, grew up nearby, so his photo and story were everywhere. I tried to tune it all out. I just went on with my life, hanging out with friends and writing for the school newspaper.

“When I turned 19 in January 2004, I requested a copy of my birth certificate. Six weeks later, my mom called to tell me it had arrived and confessed that she'd opened it. When I asked the names of my parents, she insisted we would discuss it when I came home that night for spring break. Her curt tone surprised me; she'd always been very supportive of my search. ‘Is it someone famous?’ I asked.

“‘Kind of,’ she replied. I also asked if one of my birth parents was dead, but she repeated that we would talk when I got home. I hung up and started sobbing. I suddenly knew that my dad was the Flight 93 hero from the news. I just kept thinking That Tom guy is my father. My gut feeling on 9/11 had been right all along. When my parents showed me my birth certificate, they were shocked that I'd already figured it out. They tried to comfort me, but I was too upset. I'd waited so long to meet my birth dad, and now it was too late…”

Here’s the full story: http://www.countryliving.com/life/a36994/birth-father-adoption-tom-burnett/v

[Note: It goes on to say that she ended up meeting Tom’s parents (her grandparents) but didn’t have a good reception with them though she did with his widow (her stepmother) and her half-sisters.]

Wow! What a story. It’s sad but it gets you right to the core – right where I hope a book will.

So have you seen any news stories that have gotten that idea train moving? What are they? Have you drawn a specific writing idea from a news article, etc. before? I’d love to hear about it! Thanks! And have a great day!

Morgan Tarpley

Morgan Tarpley is an award-winning newspaper reporter and photographer in Louisiana. She is also a contemporary-historical (dual time) novelist currently seeking representation. Besides writing and traveling to over a dozen countries, her interests include acting in her local theater, genealogy, photography, and singing. She resides in Louisiana with her husband.

For more information about Morgan, visit her website (www.morgantarpley.com) and blog (www.pensonaworldmap.com). You can also connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Goodreads.

Writers are like Goats

I really like goats . I think they are very cute. A while back we had a vacant block near us which was home to a number of goats.

It was common to see people stopping their cars to pet the goats, or feed them grass.

Sadly the goats had a tendency to get out which was not good for the neighbour’s gardens. Neighbours complained and the goats were subsequently removed to other land.

The goats made me remember a friend years ago who bought a goat. The idea was that the goat would keep the grass down so that he didn’t have to spend time mowing. Unfortunately for him, no-one told him goats were not discriminating. The plan was the goat was supposed to eat the grass. Perhaps the goat didn’t know that piece of information and no-one told our friend that most goats will eat just about anything that comes into their vicinity. This means not only grass got munched, but small shrubs and some not so small disappeared.  The end to the goat experiment came when the goat ate all the washing off the line. The goat was quickly moved on to a new home on a farm.

Writers tend to be a bit like goats. Now before you take offence at being compared to a goat, let me clarify.  Just as goats will eat anything they can clamp their mouths around, writers tend to collect ideas from all different sources. They might come from conversations overheard. I’ve heard some really interesting conversations while waiting in line at the supermarket checkout or while waiting in the doctor's surgery.  Stop and listen one time you will pick up a lot about relationships.

Other ideas may come from people you see, or it may come from reading a poem or book by someone else that sparks ideas.  Recently while reading a novel about a woman in a coma, it sparked an idea for a poem about memory.  I quickly wrote down a rough first draft which I will return to as more stimulus arrives. The seed for a poem or story may come from places visited or even closer to home. A poem I wrote years  ago for School magazine  was written looking out my study window onto the weeping mulberry tree outside and imagining a child using it as a hiding place.  Obviously editors have liked it too as over several years it has been printed once and reprinted twice more by School Magazine. Many a poem of mine has had its inception while walking along the beach near where we live.

 

I’m currently working on a poem that owes its inception to a grey heron that comes into or backyard from time to time.

Part of being a writer is also reading widely. I’ve been mazed over the years at people who claim they want to write but are not readers. How can we learn what works or what doesn’t unless we read?  I’m a great believer in reading not only the type of genre you want to write but reading outside your area of interest. Whenever I go to the library, which is one of my favourite places, I try and include a book that is outside my area of interest or my preferred reading. It might be nonfiction or it might be a different genre of fiction. It might be too do with a topic we know little about.  

For example I have just recently started  Gawain and the Four Daughters of God by Anne Hamilton.  This is a book about mathematics and medieval poetry. Now I admit I am nobody’s idea of a mathematician although I used to love algebra years ago at school, so I anticipate it will take me a while to work my way through this book. Quite simply I don’t have anything near the breadth and extent of knowledge Anne has.  But I am willing to learn. I may not know a lot about mathematics and medieval poetry now, but I fully expect to learn a lot as I go along. The information I glean may not be anything I will use in a piece of writing myself. But I believe no knowledge is ever wasted. So it may  well be the key that will open up a piece of writing or spark other ideas  in a fresh , new way.

I’d love to hear about the impetus for one of your poems or stories. Or maybe you'd like to share how you were able to incorporate some research on a topic you knew little or nothing about into a piece of your writing.

Dale writes fiction and poetry. She has had poems published in literary magazines and newspapers as well as in several anthologies in Australia and overseas. She has a collection of poetry, Kaleidoscope which was published by Ginninderra Press. She is working towards another poetry collection as well as writing another novel. Her latest novel Streets on a Map was published in December 2010.