Where Authors Get Their Ideas from

Do you ever wonder where authors get their ideas from? If asked, authors will give various answers, but these can be summed up in one word, “Everywhere.” This answer can be both exhilarating and frustrating. It’s exhilarating to think that anything can be turned into a story. It’s frustrating when you can’t think of how to turn anything into a story. Perhaps seeing the ideas behind specific books will help others find out how to turn their “everything” into a story. Here are examples of children’s and young adult books and the inspirations behind them.

The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot: What do you do when you find out your mother and your teacher are dating? You could get embarrassed, call a friend and complain, or ask your mother what she was thinking. Or, if you’re Meg Cabot, you could write a book about a fourteen year old girl going through the same experience. Then, Meg came up with another twist.

She took her love of princesses and turned her character, Mia Thermopolis, into a girl who not only had to deal with her mother and algebra teacher dating, but also found out that she was really the princess of a small European country. These two ideas turned into a popular series of books and two movie adaptations starring Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews. More info here: http://www.megcabot.com/aboutmeg.cfm#interview

The Schwa Was Here by Neal Shusterman: Neal was visiting a school to talk about his books, and he failed to notice a kid with a question for him. This gave him the idea of a kid, Calvin Schwa, who nobody noticed. Calvin Schwa, or “The Schwa” as he’s called, just seems to disappear into his surroundings. He can stand right in front of you, and you still might not notice him until he said something, and sometimes not even then. Neal took a simple mistake at a school visit and turned it into the story of a kid who finally gets fed up with being invisible. More info here: http://www.hbook.com/publications/magazine/articles/jan06_schusterman.asp

3. Frindle by Andrew Clements: This idea also came from a school visit. Andrew Clements answered the question, “where do words come from?” His answer was from everyday people. He expanded on this by writing a book about a young boy named Nicholas Allen. Nicholas was a boy with ideas, and a knack for pulling them off. His latest idea was to get everyone to start calling pens “frindles.” With this idea, he invented a whole new word. More info here: http://frindle.com/faq_idea.html

4. Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery: Sometimes story ideas come from things we’ve read, like newspaper articles. That’s where LM Montgomery got her idea for her famous novel. She read a newspaper article about a couple who asked for an orphan boy but got a girl instead. She took this idea, combined it with her memories of her own childhood, and created one of the most beloved characters in literature. There are seven books in the Anne series. More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_of_green_gables

These authors still had to work to turn the original inspirations into the books they wrote. Finding ideas is just the beginning. It takes thought and work to turn an idea into a book. But, knowing the stories behind these stories may help you find the initial ideas that you might not have seen before.