Where Ideas Come From by Sara E. Tall – Guest Blog and Giveaway

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Sara E. Tall will be awarding a $15 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Where Ideas Come From

Thanks so much for hosting me! For my guest post today I wanted to talk about writing inspiration and where ideas come from. The cool thing about writing is there are so many places and ways to get ideas for books and other writing. I feel like I find a new source of inspiration every day.

Most of my story ideas come from dreams. I’ve even plugged some of my dreams in as character backstories or side plots. If you have an overactive dream imagination like me, then I definitely recommend keeping a dream journal to write down your more captivating dreams. Usually when it comes from transferring dreams to story ideas I ended up tossing a lot of it because most of the dream is completely nonsensical, but there’s usually a powerful moment or emotion that I can’t get out of my head, and I find myself crafting an entire story around that one moment.

My story ideas that don’t come from dreams usually come from something I saw in another book or other fictional story. There’s either a character dynamic or world element that I’m obsessed with or think was underdeveloped, and that obsession eventually develops into a story. This is also fun to do with plot holes. Figuring out what a story would look like if certain plot holes were filled in is a great starting book for our own stories.
Those two ways cover about 95% on my story ideas, but there are a bunch of other inspirational activities I’ve heard about and want to try.

For those of us writing speculative fiction, cutting edge science magazines or other wacky news sources can be a great way to get those creative juices flowing. I recommend finding an article or news story that interests you, identifying what about it interests you, and then asking a bunch of what-ifs about that question. From there, a story, conflict, or even characters usually start to emerge, and you’ve got yourself a great premise for a speculative fiction story.

And of course, there are the real life inspirations. The family drama, the wacky best friends, even the weird people you encounter at the train station can be great inspiration for characters or novels. It’s been said a million times but I’ll say it again. Writers have universal permission to eavesdrop in the name of inspiration. I’ve also made sure to warn all my friends that anything they say or do might end up in a story one day.

Piper’s Song has a bit of unique inspiration story. It was originally meant to be my first series that taught me how to write, but I fell so much in love with the story, I just kept revising and revising until I was so in love with the finished product, I knew I had to publish. The story itself was mainly inspired by the Mortal Instruments. I found the dynamic between two characters, where deception mixed with chemistry was the driving force of the relationship, absolutely intoxicating. The dynamic between these two characters mostly happened behind the scenes, and it was my constant imagination of what those two characters may have been like that brought Alpha to life.

My other inspiration was the Winx Club, which was a show I used to watch as a kid. In that show The Fae and the Witches went to rival schools. The Witch school had its own set of mean girls that were constantly terrorizing the Fae. While I’d like to think I’ve given my Witch characters more nuance that that, there’s no denying their origins.

Billie’s relationships were also inspired by my relationships. I had a lot of female friends growing up, so Billie is the same. I would say her relationship with her friends is far more complicated than mine ever were.

Thanks so much for reading everyone! I hope you’ll check out Piper’s Song to see these ideas in action!

Billie thinks stopping her fellow students from committing murder and almost getting kicked out of the Realm is as bad as it gets, but she should know better. Not only are seven of the most powerful students out for her blood, but Sedna —her former enemy turned ally— turns her enemy again when Billie refuses a part in her revenge scheme. What’s more, Alpha Administration’s refusal to address the injustice in their school is sparking a full-on rebellion, and a lot of innocents are going to be caught in the crosshairs. It isn’t just the school either, the Realm itself is overrun with violence and hatred, which will have deadly consequences. Lucian, her self-imposed magical guru, insists Billie’s extraordinary magic is the key to stopping the flood of violence coming their way. Billie knows her magic is extraordinary, but she also knows its destructive power. It might do more harm than good.

Enjoy an Excerpt

Nothing said, “I’m sorry,” like a scalding hot iron mallet to the face. Especially when you were a Faerie, and allergic to Iron. Saranya and her friends really knew how to make a girl feel special.

At least, we heard they were going to attack me with a mallet, it was hard to keep up with all of Saranya’s schemes to get revenge on me for preventing her from torturing another student. The nerve of me.

I tightened my grip on the empowered soap Iris, my roommate, had given me. It paid to be friends with an Elf, I’d learned, as they possessed the ability to infuse magical properties into a variety of house-hold objects. And all she ever wanted in return was my help getting books down from her top bookshelf.

“Uhh, Billie,” Thea, my other roommate, said. “Perhaps it would be in your best interests to not look so tense? We are supposed to be discussing a class project, after all.”

I loosened my grip on the soap and gave her a quick smile. Thea was terrified of Saranya and the others, but that hadn’t stopped her and Iris from telling me about their plan, or offering to help me thwart it. She had a lot to lose, too. As a Wizard, she had a certain image to keep up, and helping a Misfit against other Wizards would do nothing good for that image.

About the Author:Sara’s enjoyed creating fantastic stories since she was old enough to hold a play sword, around the time she learned how to walk. Gradually she learned to direct her creative energy into writing, and it’s been a downward spiral ever since then. When she’s not writing she’s probably either dancing or reading batman comics. She also loves running away to the mountains of Utah and Montana. Nothing gets more fantastic that those views.

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Comments

  1. Thanks for hosting!

  2. Victoria Alexander says

    Sounds like a good book!

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  5. danielle Merkle says

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