People
often ask writers, “Where do you get your ideas?” Every novel
takes its own tortuous path, some more easily and more successfully
than others; but each of my six suspense novels began with a simple,
one line concept, which is then expanded until it ends up as a fully
developed novel.
My
e-novel, The Undertaker,
began with, “A guy opens the newspaper one morning and sees his own
obituary.” How did that happen? Was it a mistake? All the
details are spot on. It is him! Worse, there is a companion
obituary for his wife. The writing process starts when I ask, who
would do that, and why? What’s at stake? Next, who is our guy?
Who are his friends and enemies? What is going on in his life that
this situation will make even worse? I keep expanding those threads
until they form a plot, and simultaneously keep growing those stick
figures into unique, well-rounded characters. In the end, they are
what drives the story and make it logical and inevitable.
Thursday at Noon,
coming out next month in e-book format, began with, “A burned out
CIA agent in Cairo stumbles home one night and finds a severed head
sitting on his door step.” In screenplays, they call these
one-liners ‘log lines.’ As with the others, the log line needs
to be something incongruous, immediate, and jarring, like, “Snakes
on a plane.” That’s one of the very best. Screenwriters and
producers use them to sell a story, but it is equally useful to help
a writer to keep his story focused. Call it a concept, premise, or
log line, but all successful novels are based on a strong one; and no
amount of writing or re-writing can make up for a weak one.
