The Key

Story ideas come to me all the time, in many different ways. Sometimes it’s when a character pulls up a chair in my head and begins talking to me, and sometimes, it’s in a dream. The first time I wrote about a young woman and a rock singer (many, MANY years ago) their names were Emma and Joseph and their story came to me in a dream. Although I fell hard for both of these characters, it was apparent right from the beginning that theirs was a story I could never share. Why? Because romance books just didn’t feature heroines with inoperable brain tumors.

I love their story so much…a tale full of pain and happiness, strength and weakness. The story of a woman who dreams of a key – a key to heaven, or so she believes. Turns out it was a key to her future.

The story played out like a movie, from start to finish – one of the most detailed and complicated dreams I’ve ever had. At the end, there was Emma, reading from a journal she had kept through it all. From her initial diagnosis to her first meeting with Joe, from leaving him to their happily-ever-after. A highlight reel of sorts: the good and the bad moments. And so that is how I began writing their story – in a series of journal entries:

September 1

I dreamt of an angel last night. An angel of fair skin and long auburn hair with a white gown made of delicate lace and wings that took my breath. Her arm was stretched out before her, a key dangled from her fingers. Not a car or a house key. Not a key of gold or fancy jewels. A silver key about an inch in length and of plain design. A simplified skeleton key.

I awoke before I could take her offering and immediately began to sketch my angel. To capture on paper the image so clear in my mind. But somehow I have lost the memory of her face – the angle of her cheeks or the shape of her lips – and only that key remains. That silver, uncomplicated form hanging from a basic chain. Why was she offering it to me? What did it represent? I’m afraid to speculate, for deep down, I believe I know what she was offering me.

I saw my oncologist yesterday. My treatment isn’t working, just prolonging the inevitable. And so I made the decision to opt out of further treatment and accept my fate. Then I dreamt of an angel, and a key.

This story lives with me still today. Enough that I have a key collection that began after my dream: skeleton keys, charms of keys and my favorite, a sterling silver key necklace. It comes back to me at the oddest moments, at least once every year. One day perhaps I will finish writing it down. Maybe then I can let it go. Maybe not. It’s hard to say why some things stick with us through the years. Perhaps it was that like Emma, I felt as if that angel was offering the key to me.



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Story Ideas

As a writer, the question I get asked the most is ‘Where do you get your ideas?’ The answer to this question is very simple. It is also a bit complicated. Confused? Hang in there, I’ll clarify.

Story ideas come to me all the time, from lots of different places. Sometimes it is as simple as a line in a song sparking my imagination. Usually a line of dialogue comes to me first. From there, I begin to imagine just who said it, the hero or the heroine. Or maybe it’s something the villain says. From there, I begin to see the scene unfold. (Yes, as odd as it sounds, my stories come to me like movies in my head.) I have written an entire book around one particular scene.

In fact, this is how AFTER MIDNIGHT came to me – as the opening scene. From there I had to figure out who the characters were. That brings me to the next part of the creative process for me. Who are the hero and heroine? Why are they doing what I envision them doing?

Again, I’ll use AFTER MIDNIGHT. The book opens with the heroine playing the piano in a bar after closing. Why, you ask? Well, that’s one of the questions I asked myself. Why is she doing this? Why is she drawn to play? Why doesn’t she play more often?

However, not every story idea starts with a line of dialogue. Sometimes it begins with a question. For NOT WITHOUT RISK, it was this question:

What if a killer set his sights on you and the only way to survive was to revisit a past you swore never to look back on?

For me, story ideas that come to me in the form of a question are easier to flesh out than those where I ‘see’ the scene in my head or that begin with a line of dialogue. Why? Simply because when I have one question, it’s simple to come up with a second question:

What if you then had to trust the type of man experience told you was untrustworthy?

Then, a third:

What if you fell in love with that man? Is love worth the risk?

Oops, I guess that’s four. LOL

Anyway, as you can see, for me at least, answering the question “Where do you get your ideas?” is not easy. I get my ideas from everywhere - people, movies, a line in a song, a news report on the television. From there they either become dialogue, scenes, or questions I feel the need to answer.

Still confused? I think I am. Which brings me to my favorite quote - so true in my case.

"Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing." ~ Margaret Chittenden

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