By Gila Green
I don’t get ideas. I feel ideas. Let me explain. I am commonly asked where my ideas come from for my fiction. It’s a legitimate question. You’ve probably read it in many author interviews. Writers often answer this question about the origins of their ideas in many ways. The most common ones are: certain ideas are based on my true experiences; some ideas are based on experiences I overheard or ones that happened to family members or close friends; I glean ideas from historical or current events; or from revamping well known Biblical themes, Shakespearean plays, Greek mythology or other famous themes.
In this post I’d like to respond in a new way. I get ideas from emotions. I ask myself this question: what can I think of that makes me feel a strong emotion. Think of this as a journaling prompt. The emotion can be negative or positive, but it has to be strong. It has to make me want to jump out of my chair, wag my finger, shake my head or dance. Those are the only rules. Nothing is off limits.
For example, in my debut novel King of the Class, eleven year old Netsach is bullied in school. I tapped into my strong emotions about bullying in order to effectively write the chapter in which this takes place. I didn’t just delve into my own related experiences, but into all bullying experiences of which I am aware from A to Z in my life: a child’s incident that I am familiar with, siblings, friends, anyone and everyone I have touched on this issue of bullying.
When I am overflowing with my emotions about this subject, and only then, I write the scene or the chapter. In this way, my passion for the subject spills out onto the page.
Now you are going to ask me, but how did I get the idea for writing a bullying scene in the first place. My answer is the same. I thought about something that made me feel a strong emotion. Almost immediately bullying came to mind and voila! the scene begins to form in my writing. This is one of the reasons why good writing is so close to good acting. You need to inhabit your characters. This means zeroing in on the emotions surging through the character at that point on the page.
Here is part of the related passage in King of the Class:
Netsach stretches his left leg and something falls on the floor; someone has shot a note onto his lap. He bends down, picks up the note, and opens it in the palm of his hand. ‘Friends? Meet. Bathroom. Ten.’ Netsach looks up and Adi smiles at him from the end of the row. What? That weenie wants to be friends? All he’s ever done is rat on me to the teacher… Netsach rereads the note. Five minutes have passed. Netsach fears falling for a trap.
In this bullying example, I wanted the reader to empathize with Netsach. He is in a complicated bullying situation and he reacts badly in the end: with violence. I did not want something simplistic because life rarely is simplistic and I wanted to create a real world for the reader, Netsach’s real world. So, I had to reveal the uncertainty going through Netsach’s mind before he fell into yet another trap, and then the anger that surged through him when he lashed out, as well as his resentment and hatred after the event.
Let’s go through all of those emotions: uncertainty, anger, resentment, hatred. That’s a lot of emotion for an eleven year old boy and as the writer I go through those emotions as I write. As soon as I stop feeling along with the character, so does the reader.
The next time you read something and you feel discouraged because you wrongly conclude that your ideas don’t come close to what you’ve just read, don’t try to think, try to feel. When you feel something, any emotion, strongly enough, focus in on it, find related experiences that you can conjure up from anywhere real or imagined and start writing. This will inspire your writing process and in turn, your readers.
ABOUT
Gila Green is the Author of King of the Class on Amazon and Kindle. You can find out more about her at: www.gilagreenonline.com She’s currently accepting signups for her Flash Fiction Workshop this June.
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