Where Do We Get Our Ideas?

by Sparkle Abbey

People often ask authors where their ideas for particular books come from. And though it's quite different from author to author, one thing we've discovered from hanging out with other authors is that most have no problem coming up with ideas for stories. In fact, most of us have far more ideas than we'll ever have the time to write. Story ideas are everywhere.

Writers are innately curious and so a news story, a magazine article, even an obituary can spark a thought that turns into a possibility. The writer imagination is off and running and wondering what if. The news of the day may be a big fire at a local business. It could have been faulty electrical wiring, but the writer wonders what if it wasn't. What if there's more to the story? What if the fire was actually a cover-up?

Also writers are by nature observers. Yes, that's us sitting quietly in the corner of the room or the park. That couple holding hands while their body language says there's something else going on. What's their story? The three girls in a whispered conversation whose foreheads are almost touching. What secrets are they sharing? The elderly woman with her purse clutched tightly on her lap who keeps checking her watch. Who is she waiting for? And the guy in a dark suit that looks oddly out of place. He's too quiet. Is he an undercover cop? Perhaps a spy?

Or wait maybe the elderly woman is the spy. Would that be a great twist? The guy in the dark suit could be headed to a job interview. We imagine the three teen-aged girls in ten years. Will they still be friends? Still sharing secrets? What if they lose touch with each other? What if they don't?

See how it works? There is drama everywhere, and secrets, and stories. As writers we are sponges for the bit and pieces that are story sparks. We get to bring those stories to life and give them twists and change them around. Ideas are everywhere. 

Now that you know how it works, the only thing to remember is when you're having a conversation with a writer, and they get that far-away look, that there is a good chance they have spotted a potential story across the room and they're already coming up with ideas. Or the other possibility is that something you've said has been the spark, and you're the story idea.

Writers, is this how it works for you? Have you come across an interesting story spark that you've yet to write? Readers, how about you? Have you come across an idea that you thought would make a great story?

Do tell...


Sparkle Abbey is actually two people, Mary Lee Woods aka Mary Lee Ashford and Anita Carter, who write the national best-selling Pampered Pets cozy mystery series. They are friends as well as neighbors so they often get together and plot ways to commit murder. (But don't tell the neighbors.) They love to hear from readers and can be found on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, their favorite social media sites. 

Their most recent book is The Dogfather, the tenth book in the Pampered Pets series.

Also, if you want to make sure you get updates, sign up for their newsletter via the SparkleAbbey.com website.

The CIA...and Gloria Steinem

By Kay Kendall

Gloria Steinem said it best: “Writing is the only thing I do that I don’t feel like I should be doing something else.”

I began writing fiction fifteen years ago. My first manuscript was a literary novel that I worked on forever and put aside when I failed to get an agent. That was important eight years ago, much less so now under different publishing conditions. But I found I still was compelled to write so I immersed myself in crime fiction, let the patterns of the genre seep into my head, and then began to write my mystery.

Within the mystery genre, historical fiction is what I like to read best. Many authors locate their sleuths and their spymasters during the great wars of the twentieth century. The two world wars and Cold War are amply represented in mysteries and spy fiction. The Vietnam War is comparatively not “taken.” Besides it is the era I grew up in. I decided it was an historic niche that needed filling and that I was the one to do the filling.

I wanted to show what life was like for young women of that era, the late sixties—not the type who made headlines, the Angela Davises and Hanoi Janes, but the moderates who nonetheless got swept along by the tides of history during that turbulent time. All that turmoil lends itself to drama, intrigue…and murder.

I don’t consider myself a daring or courageous person. My heroine Austin Starr feels fear, is often anxious but keeps on pushing regardless. I picture her as myself with more moxie.

Recently I gave a book reading and said that to my audience. Imagine how startled I was therefore, when a long-time family friend said, “That’s nonsense, Kay. You are so adventuresome. You went to the Soviet Union for a summer when you were only twenty to study, you moved to a different country (Canada), and you’re always trying new things.”

I must confess that opinion made me feel good, although I still regard it as unfounded.

Still, I will tell you a secret.

Imagine how surprised that old friend would be if she knew that the CIA training of Austin Starr was based on my own flirtation with that spy agency. I really did interview with the CIA. When offered a position, instead I chose to attend grad school and continue studying Russian history…. Just as my protagonist Austin Starr does. 

Maybe I have more moxie than I give myself credit for after all.

All that said, it’s no surprise that I’m excited for the second season of the TV spy thriller The Americans to start up in a few days on the FX Network.  Any movie or TV show, put spies in it and some derring-do, and I will be there, front and center, for the vicarious adventure.

 ~~~~~~~

Kay & house bunny Dusty

Kay Kendall is an international award-winning public relations executive who lives in Texas with her husband, five house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. A fan of historical mysteries, she wants to do for the 1960s what novelist Alan Furst does for Europe in the 1930s during Hitler's rise to power--write atmospheric mysteries that capture the spirit of the age.

Discover more about  DESOLATION ROW, here at
http://www.KayKendallAuthor.com