How Conversations Inspire Writing
By Kelly Ohlert, author of To Get To The Other Side
One gorgeous sunny day, I took a walk on my lunch break. Thanks to my incredibly low attention span, or rather, the low attention span of humans in general these days (thanks technology), I of course couldn’t just walk and enjoy the sunshine. I called up a friend from high school that I hadn’t seen or talked to in a long time. Despite my calling instead of texting faux pas, she thankfully fought the millennial urge to scream. She answered, and whew did she have a story to tell.
You see, she’d recently quite literally found a chicken crossing the road in Chicago of all places. That chicken was injured, and so she got it a little chicken wheelchair, and next thing she knew it was her and her new feathered friend living it up in the big city. She sent me pictures, and it was quite possibly one of the best things I’d ever heard. I immediately knew it belonged in a book. I asked for her blessing to use her story as inspiration for mine. She agreed, but I couldn’t get past the fact that she lived in a small apartment with a chicken.
My next question was how on earth did that work? It was true and it was happening, but I still knew readers would say yeah right, so I thought, what if her apartment is no pets allowed, and she has to find a new place to live? I write romance, and it was the perfect way to bring the couple together.
Stories can be found everywhere, whether it’s a song lyric, a news article, or even a funny meme. Whenever the old idea engine is running low, I highly recommend checking out Tara Lazar’s annual Storystorm challenge. It’s all about generating ideas. She brings in guest authors throughout the challenge to share all the ways they generate ideas, and while it’s intended for picture book writers, it works for anyone.
The key is to always place yourself in an idea generating mindset. While deadlines can drive productivity, their pressure can also squash creativity. If you wait to generate a new idea until one is needed, odds are you’ll place so much stress on finding one, you’ll inadvertently close yourself off to it. Instead, make a point of being open to ideas all day, every day.
Keep a no self-judgement journal, where you can jot down ideas that life inspires no matter how terrible they are. Later, you can go back and review them. I like to pick a handful that sound promising and speed date them, setting a timer for a few minutes to free-write on the idea to help me decide which one is the ultimate winner that I’ll turn into my next work in progress.
So, where do you look? Better yet, let those stories come to you. People’s natural inclination is to want to be interesting to and liked by the people around them. We have a nasty habit of being bad listeners, putting too much of our mental effort towards figuring out what we’re going to say next in a conversation, and not enough towards listening.
Resist that urge and take advantage of it in others. Listen to what they’re saying. Their minds have been working hard at turning their life experiences from that day, or that they’ve accumulated over time into great party anecdotes. As you listen and enjoy those conversations, think about how you could expound on it, and turn it into the plot of your next novel. Remember though, you’re using conversations as inspiration, not plagiarizing their lives. Twist what happened. Flip it on its head, add in your own characters, use a small element as a jumping point to build into something more.
Conversations can be vital to writing, not only for your initial inspiration, but in other ways too. One of these is to get past a block. Sometimes a certain point in a story refuses to come out. Whenever I run into a block, I turn to friends. Sometimes it’s explaining where I’m stuck and thinking out loud. Other times, it’s a brainstorming session, where I’ll tell them where I’m stuck, and we’ll bounce ideas back and forth until something sticks.
It doesn’t have to be that direct though. Maybe you know that in order to advance your story, you need your character to accomplish something big, but you’re having trouble getting that chapter out. Ask a friend about something they’re proud of. Their scenario probably won’t make sense for your character to do, but hearing about how your friend felt achieving that can help inspire you to get a better understanding of how your character should feel. Bonus, it’s a great way to get to know your friend better.
Lastly, one of the things I struggled a lot with as a new writer, and still struggle with sometimes, is making sure that when I write dual point of view, the character’s voices are distinctly different. When you’re having a conversation, listen to how two different people describe the same situation, and make note of those differences. Use that as an example to help guide those voices in how different people, and therefore different characters view the world.
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Website https://kellyohlert.wordpress.com/
TO GET TO THE OTHER SIDE
In the vein of Lyssa Kay Adams and Abby Jimenez, Kelly Ohlert’s charming debut is a one-of-a-kind rom-com that explores the power of overcoming the past and fighting for the things you love.
Trixie isn’t exactly sure what she was thinking when she stopped her car in the middle of downtown Chicago, scooped up a chicken struggling to cross the road, and drove off… but she does know that she has to find a new home for herself and her new feathered friend. The landlord at her apartment doesn’t allow pets and has caught Trixie in one too many pet-smuggling attempts in the past.
Bear likes his quiet life with his close-knit family, who own a flower business, but he’s in for a rude awakening when his meddlesome sisters post an ad to rent the spare room in his simple home, without asking his permission. Still, when Trixie responds to the ad, he agrees to let her move in, despite immediate worries about keeping things platonic.
Determined to keep her new room, befriend Bear, and give her rescue chicken the care she deserves, Trixie fights to keep her walls up and resist her romantic feelings for Bear. However, it’s not long before the pair’s proximity and chicken parenting ignite flames that have Trixie and Bear testing the boundaries of their platonic ground rules. They have to figure out how to save a family business, pay for mounting vet bills, and navigate their own emotional baggage if they want to find the love that they all deserve.
Perfect for readers of The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary, and fans of The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez, readers will find themselves rooting for every one of the relatable, but tenderly flawed, characters in this book as they follow the heartwarming antics of a rescue chicken and her human companions.
PREORDER HERE
Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips
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