Lightbulb
Moments on Dark Themes
So where do the ideas come from?
It is a question I often get asked - as does every
other writer. But for the writer of horror/supernatural stories the questioners
are even more fascinated by how or why the ideas strike. The answer, of course
is they come out of my imagination but they may have been sparked by something
I have seen, heard or experienced. Or sometimes tiny nubs just appear from
apparently nowhere… But I don’t believe they are apropos of nothing, they have
just oozed up from my subconscious.
Perhaps I can give an example of how it worked for
me with one project.
The original idea for my latest book “The Afterlife
of Darkmares” came to me from apparently nothing?? I had been tossing around
some occult-type ideas that might seem fairly believable when the thing
suddenly presented itself. It was simply an image and I can still clearly remember the ‘eureka’ feeling it gave me. The picture in my
mind was of a 12 year old boy standing rigidly in a graveyard, hands by his
sides, his glossy black hair - pageboy style -
gleaming in the sunlight. His
clothes were old fashioned – as if he’d stepped out of the pages of some 60’s magazine.
He wore a buttoned up paisley shirt, a hand-knitted waistcoat and smart black trousers. There was something very off centre about him…
Where that image came from, I have no idea, but it
must have arisen from something in my subconscious mind.. The scene was so vivid
I used it as a jumping off point for my story. At that point I had no idea what
my story would be about but I knew I had to use that scene somehow. The boy is
called Grif and he is central to the story and the entire plot of the
supernatural thriller “The Afterlife of Darkmares.”.
I then used free writing to further explore and
develop the idea. As I did this and the
plot began to identify itself I became more and more excited and enthused by my
slowly ripening story. For me this is the best part of writing a book. The
creating of the story!!.
So what is your favourite part of writing a story? Do you
dream up ideas or characters first?
