Sharron McElmeel - Author


Title: WHERE DO WRITERS GET THEIR IDEAS? ,  By: McElmeel, Sharron L.,
First appeared in Book Report, Sep/Oct96, Vol. 15, Issue 2
WHERE DO WRITERS GET THEIR IDEAS?


WHEN AUTHORS VISIT SCHOOLS, the question they most frequently hear must be "Where do you get your ideas for your books?" With good reason, students seem to feel these successfull writers must have found the secret place for good ideas. Perhaps the young people are looking for help in coping with their own writing assignments. The fact is, ideas as for books come in much the same manner as ideas for letter writing. journal keeping, or report writing.

Ask Don Wood and Audrey Wood where they get their ideas for picture books and this author/illustrator team will name a "special place"--their idea box. Whenever either of them spots a newspaper article, a phrase, or any other item that sparks a possible book subject, the idea goes into a box. When they need an idea. they scrounge through the box.

Generally, other authors are less specific than the Woods. Many say the! find story ideas from the bits and pieces of their lives. Sometimes the ideas are acted upon immediately While other ideas are stored away in the recesses of their mind, emerging only when needed or when activated by another idea.

It was a long-dormant image that inspired Llyod Alexander's inspiration to write the Prydain Chronicles (Holt). As a solider during World War II, Alexander was sent to England and Wales for training. The castles, mountains, and lush countryside made an impression on Alexander, but it was not until years and books later that he used the setting in his writings. Alexander wrote for many for many years and then writing for young for young people. Research for a book about a cat's nine lives (and nine trips into time), Time Cat (Avon, 1963, 1982), led Alexander to books about Welsh mythology. They awakened his memories of the time spent in Wales and helped him form images of an imaginary kingdom. The Welsh material never did make it into Time Cat, but it did result in the chronicles, anchored by The Book of Three (Holt, 1964) and the Newbery Award title, The High King (Holt, 1968).

Books read as a child have helped other authors form images and develop ideas for more stories. When the late John Bellairs was asked, during an interview, where he got the idea for The Curse of the Blue Figurine (Dial, 1983), he responded, "The idea for the book came from all the ghost and treasure-hunt stories I've read. . ." He went on to comment that "Many of the things that happen to my heroes are like things that happened to me when I was young."

By and large, authors cite incidents in their lives as influential ideas in their writing. Meeting with teachers and librarians at conferences, Betsy Byars is often asked where her ideas come from. She usually responds by saying that her "ideas begin with something that really happened--a newspaper story or an event." Tutoring mentally retarded children brought about her interest in writing about the treatment of children who are perceived as different. The Summer of the Swans (Viking, 1970) garnered her the 1971 Newbery Award. A newspaper article about a man who refused to give up his home to make way for a highway brought about After the Goatman (Viking, 1974) and her own interest in learning how to fly a Piper Cub resulted in Coast-to-Coast (Delacorte, 1992), the story of a cross-country flight that she actually took.

Barthe deClements' books have come out of her experiences as a teacher and her studies for a graduate degree in psychology. An early title, Nothing's Fair in Fifth Grade (Viking, 1981) resulted directly from her "inability to convince children that they should be kind to the class rejects." Elsie, the target for her classmates' scorn, became the main protagonist in three more titles, Sixth Grade Can Really Kill You (Viking, 1985), How Do You Lose Those Ninth Grade Blues (Viking, 1983), and Seventeen and In-Between (Viking, 1984). Reviewers don't always recognize that the stories are based on prejudices but readers do. Letters pour into deClements telling her about similar classmates who pick on a vulnerable member of the class.

In many instances solid research must follow before the idea grows into a book ready for publication. The child of American missionaries, Jean Fritz attended school in China with children from other English speaking countries. She often found herself defending Americans, especially to the British, who still did not accept their loss of the colonies. Her childhood arguments led to her interest in that period of history and has resulted in several historical fiction titles as well as easy-to-read biographies of six men who shaped the new government.

In her autobiography written for elementary school readers, Surprising Myself (Richard C. Owen, 1992), Fritz says of her research, "Sometimes it seems as if a person from long ago steps out from a page and speaks to me." She searches for primary documents from the times in which her subject lived and, if possible, visits the location where the person lived.

Russell Freedman begins his books in much the same manner. Once he encounters a person who interests him he begins his research. He says, "I have no set format, no set time frame, and the complexity depends on how much I know." He begins his research by reading the most recent books about the subject and working his way back to materials created at the time of the person's life. From that reading he develops questions to research and begins his search for photographs to illustrate his text.

Kathryn Lasky says that her books always begin with a long-nurtured curiosity about a subject. About Beyond the Divide (Macmillan, 1983), she says, "The idea of doing a book about the Old West and the Gold Rush had hovered in my mind for years." At one point Lasky read journal entries of J. Goldsborough Bruff, a man who had left his job to join the Gold Rush. During a family trip to California, Lasky visited gruff's campsite, a wild area that seemed as rough as it must have been in 1849. Those journal entries, the trip, and her own interest in the theme of survival combined eight years later in the book. Sugaring Time (Macmillan, 1983) began with Lasky's interest in old-time crafts. When Lasky's daughter, Meribah, was old enough to read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, the two of them visited the sites associated with the books. Their photo essay, Searching for Laura Ingalls: A Reader's Journey (Macmillan, 1993), follows their journey.

Editors, agents, and book packagers can also be purveyors of ideas for career writers. Joanna Cole, author of the well-known Magic School Bus series for intermediate readers, was approached by an editor at Scholastic Publishing. He had the idea for a series and needed a writer who had both fiction and nonfiction experience. Cole agreed to write the series. It has since become immensely popular and has spawned television adaptations and print spin-offs based on the television episodes.

The idea for Carol Gorman's popular coming-of-age novel The Miraculous Make-Over of Lizard Flanagan (HarperCollins, 1994) came from an editor who called Gorman's agent and suggested the basic idea. From that idea Gorman developed the character, who has gone on to star in Lizard Flanagan, Super Model (HarperCollins, 1996).

Joan Lowery Nixon received an idea for a series from a book packager who called to inquire if she had ever heard of the orphan trains. She hadn't so he sent her a magazine article about the trains. She has now written several titles for the Orphan Train Series. (First called the Orphan Train Quartet, the series title had to be changed when its popularity resulted in a request for more than the first four titles.) The books are optioned for a television series.

Nixon keeps a pocket filed filled with ideas, to which she addresses the what--if question. One newspaper article told of a young farmer in West Texas who was comatose for several years. The man's mother never gave up hope and gave her son the best care. Eventually an operation for an infection resulted in his awakening from the coma. Soon he was out on the farm working. Intrigued by the story, Nixon took her own doctor to lunch and interviewed him. After learning some basic medical facts, she began to wonder "what if" a 13-year-old girl fell into a coma and awoke four years later. And, what if she had been an eyewitness to an unsolved murder? That idea developed into her book The Other Side of Dark (Delacorte, 1986).

Another incident sparked another series of Nixon's "what if" questions. She and her mother were driving home one evening in a drizzling rain. The brakes did not seem to be working so they stopped at a stranger's house and asked to use the telephone. The man who came to the door invited them in, and then left them alone in the house to wait for a tow truck. What if the man who let them in did not live in the house? What if there was a dead body in the l back of the house? Readers of A Deadly Game of Magic (Harcourt, 1983) will recognize the scenario.

A real murder in Nixon's neighborhood brought about yet another title. A postal carrier was murdered and eventually the murderer was found but many things didn't add up for Nixon. Nixon speculated that there were actually two murders that day and one of the victims was never reported missing. She eventually deduced that an undocumented household worker could be such a victim. The known victim, the mail carrier, might have been a witness to the murder or at least to the efforts to dispose of the body. Nixon wrote the story, Whispers from the Dead (Delacorte, 1989) the way she thought it had happened.

Sharing information about the sources for published authors' book ideas might encourage student writers to look around their own environment, to capitalize on an interest they have, to ask what-if questions, and to explore what they have experienced. There are ideas all around, but young writers also need to recognize that it is not the idea alone that brings about a finished piece of writing.

During informal comments at the Museum of Art (Cedar Rapids, Iowa; August 1986), the late Dr. Seuss probably best summed up the evolution of an idea into a book with this statement, "There is no simple way (to write) and the discipline is essential. I never leave the room during my workday even if all I do is sit there."

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By Sharron L. McElmeel

This article first appeared in  Book Report (first publication rights only) Copyright for all other uses copyright by Sharron L. McElmeel.  The contents of this article may not be copied or e-mailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder`s express written permission. However, users may print, download, or e-mail articles for individual use.
First appeared: Book Report, Sep/Oct96, Vol. 15 Issue 2, p33, 2p    Current Source:  http://www.mcelmeel.com/writing/wheredo.html

©2005 Sharron L. McElmeel
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