Just about everyone I know wants to write a book. They somehow feel inspired after I tell them I’ve written three books. After that, I get hammered with a bombardment of compliments and questions. How long did it take you to write your first book? When can I buy your books? Where can I buy your book? Trust me when I say, writing a book is not as easy as it sounds. But I will say this, with the right idea and enough motivation, it can feel easy. And the cool thing about getting a great idea is that the motivation will come with the idea if it’s interesting enough, so make it interesting.
So, how do you get the ‘right’ idea? That’s the big question. The truth is we can get ideas from any and everywhere. You could be walking down the street and see something that gives you a great idea for a book. You could have an experience that you think would make a great book. Someone could tell you a story that you think would make a great book. The possibilities are endless if you have an open mind. I could go on and on with examples, but to make things easier I’ll just give you my top five sources when it comes to getting ideas for a novel.
The first source on my top five is movies. This is honestly my favorite source when it comes to getting ideas. Aside from being there for entertainment purposes, films are a good source to get the creative juices flowing. My first novella, Love Limit, was an idea that I got from watching a movie. It just hit me. Ironically, a lot of movies are actually adaptations of books. Stephen King has at least seventy-seven books that were adapted into movies. You don’t want to go too far with this source. If your finished product contains copywritten elements you could be sued for copyright infringement, so be careful.
Second, on the list is… a book. What kinds of books do you like? Do you have a favorite character? What genre of books do you like? These are all good questions to ask if you are looking to get an idea from a book. Narrow it all the way down the subgenre if necessary and start reading. When you read analyze what it is you read. Ask yourself questions. Keep a notepad handy and take notes as soon as they pop into your head so that nothing slips your mind. As I said before, when you are extracting ideas from sources with copywritten material, you want to be careful that not to infringe on someone’s copyrights. My advice is to do research on the idea that you have. Make sure that it isn’t copywritten. If the idea isn’t copywritten then you’re good to go.
Do you know any interesting people? If so, ask to interview them. Extract all of the interesting characteristics of them and build your protagonist. We interact with interesting people every day. We meet them at work, school, on the bus ride home, or on vacation. There are over seven billion people on this planet. That’s seven billion different personalities. Not all of them will be protagonist worthy, but it’s up to you to weed out the ones who are.
Have you gone through a lot in life? Do you feel like your life would make a good story? Have you ever thought about writing an autobiography? There are people in this world who have lived amazing lives. Their experiences could possibly inspire others to action. I am intrigued by the autobiographies of war heroes. These men have done stuff that you wouldn’t believe and lived through some of the worse situations imaginable. Most of their stories sound like something you’d only read in a fiction novel. You may not be a soldier, but that doesn’t mean your life story isn’t worth reading.
When it comes to getting ideas for a book this is probably the easiest way to get an idea. If you have a skill you might want to think about putting that knowledge in a book and selling it. Self-help is one of the biggest book markets. Aside from making money utilizing the skill itself now you can make a passive income by bottling that knowledge in a short ebook and teaching others. These books are normally short ‘how-to’ manuals with valuable information that will enrich the buyers’ life. Even if you don’t have any skills, you can learn a skill and then write a book teaching others.
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