Where Do Authors Get Their Ideas?

Not long ago, I had an idea for a new book series because of two words I read in a nonfiction book. The words weren’t even in the same sentence. One appeared in the first sentence of a paragraph and the other in the last.

For some reason, my brain put them together.

They were two words I had never heard used together, and once they connected, they refused to leave me alone. I thought about them all day. Then, right as I was falling asleep, a story began to form.

Thanks, brain. Your timing is impeccable.

I’m currently writing another series—stay tuned for The Path of Madness, Book One of the Crown of Ruin—but I had to put it aside for a few days while I chased this new idea far enough to see whether there was actually a book hiding inside it.

Speaking of The Path of Madness, that idea came to me while I was playing an old-school RPG—the kind I first played way back in the olden days on my Nintendo.

The game began with a slumbering hero being awakened after centuries to stop an emerging threat. That made me wonder: What would a story like that look like today? How would the character be awakened?

What if he “woke up” in a mental hospital after killing his parents?

Except he insists they weren’t his parents. They were people who had stolen his parents’ faces.

The book opens with him staring out a window, watching for monsters. Things get crazy very quickly, and you’re left wondering whether the voices he hears are real—or whether everyone around him is right about him.

Ideas arrive like that all the time, and I try to write down as many as I can. Some grow into entire books or series. Others become a chapter, a character, or a small moment inside something much larger.

Abby and the Stone Heart began with a question from my granddaughter.

She asked if she could read one of my books. Since my books can be rather dark, I told her no. Then she asked whether I had ever thought about writing a book from a kid’s perspective.

I hadn’t.

So I did.

I wrote that book for her, and it launched at number one in children’s coming-of-age fantasy. I’m already planning another story with Abby as the protagonist. She’s such a nuanced character that I’m not finished with her yet.

So, yes, it depends.

An idea can come from two unrelated words in a nonfiction book. It can come from an old Nintendo game. It can come from a question your granddaughter asks without realizing that it will lead to an entire novel.

Ideas are everywhere. You just have to notice that little tickle in the back of your mind that says, “Hey, there’s something here.”

As we get older, life gets crowded. We become too busy to stop and ask, “What if?”

So here’s my challenge: Ask yourself “What if?” five times over the next week, and follow each thought wherever it wants to go.

Who knows? You just might be onto something.