Finding Inspiration for Your Stories

Are there times when you need inspiration to use in your stories? For instance, if you are imagining a setting but can’t quite figure out how it should look. Or how the cities are constructed. Or how people in your story worlds express themselves in art or leisure – there are ways to be inspired.

When I’m not sure about how to build a story world, I do a lot of online research. But there are times when I’m not sure what to look for. Perhaps what I’m looking for doesn’t actually exist in the “real world.”

What I’ve found (and what you probably know) is that authors can gain inspiration just about anywhere. You never know what will spur an idea that will give you one more piece to the puzzle.

There are three YouTube channels that I find especially helpful when looking for inspiration.

Architectural Digest

https://www.youtube.com/@Archdigest

For the most part I watch their videos because I have an interest in architecture. A recent video showed a futuristic home with detachable rooms! Sounds like a setting I could add to one of my stories. 

Another video compared Disney animated castle interiors to real castles. The presenter went into detail with comparisons and history without being dry or boring. So, if I want to use something similar in one of my fantasy stories, I have a starting point.

 

The Met

https://www.youtube.com/@metmuseum

The Met museum's channel has videos about art, music, interviews and performances.  You never know what you might see that will inspire a story idea. They go into detail in their relatively short videos, so you can end up watching quite a few of them at a time. .

 

Library of Congress

https://www.youtube.com/@loc

As with The Met, the LOC includes a lot of information about history, interviews and special events. They sponsor a yearly national book festival, and you can watch the presentations online. 

Even if you aren’t able to physically visit the museums and libraries. There are options for research or just to learn something new. You never know what will spark an idea or help you to imagine a world that’s a perfect fit for your story.

 

The Name Game

 By Maureen Bonatch 

I’m terrible at names. Remembering them or creating them. I blame it on my writer nature since I often remember other little details like appearance or mannerisms, such as the way someone laughs, or if they use a certain word frequently in conversation. This might help me in crafting a story, but the inability to remember or create names is a challenge for me as a writer, and in real life. 

Luckily, my husband remembers everyone. If I’m with him he always remembers someone—even if that someone has the deer-in-the-headlights look that is probably what’s on my face when I’m approached by someone and I can’t remember their name. 

In my A Charmed Cocktail Cozy Series I called upon my daughters for ideas for my main character Marissa’s last name. So Marissa Hale was born. 

The problem is that when you are creating a story there are a lot of things you have to name. Character names can be challenging enough without repeating names or having ones that sound too familiar or are hard to pronounce. 

Then, the town, shops, and other key areas for the story all need a name. 

Sometimes when I see something the visual helps inspire me to create the name, or the name might provide me with the visual. A church I saw on a bicycle ride inspired me to create the library in GRANDMA MUST DIE. The visual helped me expand the description and bring the setting to life. 

I could visualize the setting of Gran’s retirement community in A Charmed Cocktail series in my mind, but I couldn’t come up with a good name. Until we drove by the sign for Willow Hill motel on the turnpike. 

After several books were completed for the series, on another trip we took the exit to get a look at the motel. It wasn’t what I visualized, but the name still fit perfectly. 

 Another old, deserted structure I came across on a bicycle ride was given new life as a key setting in NOT A CHANCE. 

How Do You Remember Names?

No matter what you call it, here are some goodies for you!

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Just a small-town girl, Maureen Bonatch leads a double life. She lives in a      magical world as a novelist, and as a nurse leader in reality. Maureen’s first  novella was a paranormal romance published when blogs were a new-fangled thing. She’s since changed her focus to writing paranormal cozy mysteries as M.L. Bonatch and urban fantasy as Maureen Bonatch. 

While she’s not busy writing or doing nurse-things, she’s a mom to her twin daughters, bicycling in the beautiful woods of PA with her hubby, doing the bidding of a feisty Shih Tzu, and dancing as much as possible. She believes music can be paired with every mood, laughter is contagious, and that caffeine and wine are essential for survival. 

https://www.maureenbonatch.com/

Music To Write Angst To

Way, way back, when I first started writing for publication, having the right music to listen to while I wrote was an absolute necessity--right up there with scented candles, an inspirational coffee mug, and the beverage of my choice--which tended to change on a scene-to-scene basis.  I  gradually grew out of my need for most of these (I still like the mugs, although I have let a lot of those go in this last move) but  then I began beg having trouble writing AT ALL, so I've been experimenting with bringing some of them back.

This year I've found myself listening to music once again, and that's been exciting because I've not only discovered some great new (or new to me) songs, but I've also been inspired to write more stories based on song titles (some old, some new) and/or lyrics. Like this one, for example:

 And, no, you won't be seeing him THIS Christmas, but I'm gonna try like hell to get him out there NEXT Christmas even though I already have TWO OTHER vampire Christmas stories scheduled to release next December because he's just too cute to keep to myself. 

But right now my playlists are filled with sad, alternative Christmas music, breakup songs, multiple versions of I'll Be Home for Christmas and at least a dozen different covers of Joni Mitchell's song River. I thought I'd share a few of my favorites:

Maybe in Another Lifetime

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7p4XcH1o8bvWweWGrPabmn?si=ee359609608148e6

Sorted Noise Christmas

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5zR15VSpMUiOUZR7SY9dZj?si=81771a07f30d4b20

River Covers

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2YssyZFYEjs3AHu5dV3jTT?si=b0d7d1eec7c14a35

New York City Christmas Benefit 

https://open.spotify.com/album/2h3KsArV2WCgXpyBdZQmZh?si=NiB35qh-TM6WACN5_i18OQ

Folk and Indie Christmas 2021 (AKA I Hate Christmas)

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/62ugl92OM7e4BbV1l3cghf?si=03daa868a11142f2

Music Can Be a Magical Time Machine

By Maureen L. Bonatch

When I’m in the car I usually listen to my favorite, hand-selected songs I’ve accumulated on my phone or iPod, but occasionally I get a free trial of satellite radio. Even though I might only have the extra stations for a short time, I immediately lock in a few favorite stations to listen to when I’m in the car. 

One of the stations is usually for songs that I recognize but don’t know the name performed by artists I never really knew, singing songs about experiences I’d never lived through from a time before I was born—the 1960’s. 

Music is in my Blood

I love music. I’ve never played an instrument, but I was raised with the radio on and my mother singing along. Or tossing an album, or a 45 record, on the player to dance in the living room with my Mom and sisters was something that could happen on any day. 

When I hear those old songs from

the 1960’s, and into the 1970’s, I’m transported back to that time in my life when things were simpler for me. 

Memories of lazy summer days and long afternoons reading on the sofa were plentiful. 

I can almost hear the scratch of the needle as we changed the album, and I can fondly recall bragging to my friends that we had all the Elvis Presley records. Today when I listen to these old songs on the radio, and sing along to some, I temporarily forget my troubles as the years slip away with the magical time machine music provides.

Let Me Hear the Magic

Imagine watching a movie without the soundtrack. Think of how many movies have a distinctive theme song. One that when you hear it, you return to those characters to visit their world. Surely, I’m not the only one who imagines the wind blowing through my hair and the sound of the waves when I hear My Heart Will Go On? The Titanic theme song is only one of many songs whose sound transports me away from my every day.

Many songs on my iPod evoke a memory. Perhaps they were playing during a significant event, or their verse takes me there. Some of these memories are ones I’d rather forget, because they evoke painful emotions, although these emotions prove helpful to pour into a character and enrich the story while absolving me of the discomfort.

The Playlist Chooses 

Many authors create a playlist when they’re writing a story to help them feel the character and their world better. Writing is the only time that I don’t have music on and I prefer silence, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have a playlist. I don’t intentionally choose songs for the story, but rather the song chooses. 

I’ll hear a particular song and realize it fits the story perfectly, or that I’m longing to run back to write more as it inspires me and delivers character secrets that they’d kept hidden until now. Because to me, music is magical. 

What kind of impression does music make on you?

 

Author Bio: Maureen Bonatch grew up in small town Pennsylvania and her love of the four seasons—hockey, biking, sweat pants and hibernation—keeps her there. While immersed in writing or reading paranormal romance and fantasy, she survives on caffeine, wine, music, and laughter. A feisty Shih Tzu keeps her in line. Find Maureen on her website, Facebook& Twitter

One Photograph is Worth 80,000 Creative Words

By Maureen L. Bonatch

I love photographs, just not taking them. It seems that everyone is taking tons of pictures of everything these days. Whether it’s for social media, or their own collection, people seem to have a huge assortment of photographs. Everyone that is, except me.

While other people are Snapchatting and filling their Groovebooks and Instagram feed, I haven’t taken a picture in weeks. Often I realize with regret at the end of a celebration, or a holiday, that I forgot to take any pictures. Luckily, I have family members who are snap happy and I can copy their photographs so I have some of those memories to reflect back on.

Pictures That Stir the Imagination

I don’t have a huge collection of pictures, but I tend to believe that quality is better than quantity. When I say quality, I’m not talking about professional photographs that show the perfect angle, I’m talking about the ones that stir my creative imagination.

Usually my stories start with a title, or the first line and I go from there. But often while I’m writing the story, I come across something in reality that belongs in my story. How’d that get there?

My hubby has gotten accustomed to my abrupt stops while we are walking or bicycling. I pull out my phone and take a couple pictures (of what sometimes he mentions are the oddest things). I’ll stop and stare, slack jawed as I wonder how the settings of my story showed up unexpectedly, or I begin writing the story in my mind as a plot twist unwinds.

Going to Grandma Must Die’s Library

My Inspiration for GRANDMA MUST DIE

If you read GRANDMA MUST DIE, you’d know that the old churches were turned into libraries for banned books. 

I didn’t know this either while I was writing the story, until I came across the one where Carman, my heroine, worked. Imagine my surprise to see it rising up near the trail where we bicycle. I expanded details, and wrote many chapters while staring at this image. 

Since I realized this key setting detail in my book, I’ve since begun capturing photos of old and unusual churches for future books in the story. The hubs doesn’t blink an eye anymore when I stop and say, “Wait, I need a picture. That’s in my story.”

Care to Visit This Graveyard?

Inspiration for EVIL SPEAKS SOFTLY

This picture was given to me by someone a year or so before I wrote EVIL SPEAKS SOFTLY (she said it reminded her of my books). 

At the time, I knew there was a story behind it. I just didn’t know what it was. 

While writing the story in my panster way (By the seat of my pants. That way I get to find out what happens as the story unfolds too.) I realized just where this picture came into the story. It added a level of creepiness to this story that I hadn’t expected, but it was just what the story needed. It was the missing piece.

Not Your Usual Cabin in The Woods

This was, by far, the creepiest old run-down building we’d ever come across while bicycling—and it ended up having a key place in Book 2 of The Enchantlings, NOT A CHANCE. 

I couldn’t wait to put it in the

story. My hubby, being the braver sort of the two of us, went inside and took more photos for me. They became the inspiration for my vivid imagination to further detail just what happened behind the closed doors of that dilapidated building from the days of the railroads.

I don't have a picture of the book to share, yet. It's still being written.

So, no. I don’t take many pictures. But I do enjoy the ones that I have. Because that one picture is worth more than 1,000 words, in fact, it’s worth more like 80,000 words. 

Do Your Photographs Tell a Story?

Author Bio: Maureen Bonatch grew up in small town Pennsylvania and her love of the four seasons—hockey, biking, sweat pants and hibernation—keeps her there. While immersed in writing or reading paranormal romance and fantasy, she survives on caffeine, wine, music, and laughter. A feisty Shih Tzu keeps her in line. Find Maureen on her website, Facebook & Twitter

Self-Seeding Inspiration

Nemesias

My garden's a bit confused. It's winter here in Australia, but my garden is flowering like it's spring. Not that I'm complaining! Even better, many of the flowers are self-seeded. Maybe because I'm a bit of a lazy gardener and so let a few plants go to seed each year, I'm often surprised by what springs up by itself a few months later. I've even had lettuce self-seed!

And that made me think of inspiration and writing. Sometimes people ask where the inspiration for a story comes from, and I'm generally stuck for an answer. Looking at my garden I finally understood. Ideas self-seed!

Nasturtiums

The more you read and write, the more the ideas flow. I've given up trying to trace back the specific inspiration for stories. They arise from 1,001 influences.

But I think characters gain depth from an author's interest in people. I read psychology blogs (like the BPS Research Digest blog). I'm fascinated by how people respond differently to trauma -- how the ability to heal is in all of us.

Stories are like gardens. They grow any which way, but in the end they all (for me) follow the sun; i.e. they all flower with love, hope and happiness.

My next release is Hollywood Demon, out August 27, and at the special launch price of 99c if you want to pre-order it.

Feel the Earth move! Clancy Ramirez, failed geo-mage, is back in Los Angeles and driving straight into trouble. There’s a demon on the prowl, and its target is her teenage crush. Mark Yarren is even more gorgeous at thirty, marked by tragedy and on a quest for justice, and although this Hollywood billionaire might be out of her league, Clancy can’t resist a hero in distress. Can you?