Today in the office, we started talking about story inspirations. The consensus was that great stories are all around us, you just have to be really observant to spot them.
It can be a sight, it can be a smell, it can be a song. Every one of our senses has the ability to power that little lightbulb above the mind in our heads. The mind with busy fingers, typing tireless tales and sorting chapters from your day into novels.
The writing bug feels its way through the world, one antenna in front of the other, relying almost entirely on intuition. And when the world presents it with a question and a blank page, you’ll begin to hear words forming sentences before you’ve even reached for the pen.
Fiction is just filling in the blanks between inspirations. We all do it. We’re all storytellers by nature.
You hear an ambulance, screaming down the street. Was there car crash? An attack? A fire? Or is the worst behind the ambulance, as it races away from a tragic scene back to the hospital with the lone survivor? And there is a slim chance that the driver just really wants to make it to the shops before closing time.
Who knows? No one until you write the story.
It’s in our nature to always ask why… and to always theorise an answer. Which nine times out of ten is pure and fantastical fiction – particularly if you are actually a writer.
To be a good writer, I think you have to be open to every idea and considerate of everything you come across in life, no matter how small and trivial it may seem. Seeds grow.
What really interests me is how different minds work when it comes to fiction. The way we can all look at the same fragments but piece together different wholes.
I personally love contradictive sentiments. When people watching, I thrive on folks who break their stereotypes. I enjoy that little disruption of reality; the way alternative notions can tear small holes in the real world, straight through to a strange fictional place. I find the stories that follow to be the best kind of fantasy – entirely grounded in reality. The writing bug just likes to give things a twist.
Anything abstract basically is right up my street. Things that demand you do a handstand in order to see them the right way up. Moments that alter time and space. People who pull you straight into their minds.
Some the things you come across in every day life you could never make up. But these unusual little moments are usually where stories take their first breath.
So what about you guys? What kind of things inspire you to be creative? What gets you thinking? What has you scrambling for a pen, ready to scribble your next novel or short story?
H
Read my previous blog here, Book To Film Adaptations?
Hannah McLaren I've worked at DC Thomson for six years! I began as an intern at My Weekly and The Scots Magazine, which was extended by a few months to help out at The People's Friend. I then covered maternity as Celebrity Editor for My Weekly, before I became Multimedia Journalist at The Scots Magazine. Currently I'm writing digital content across each title.
