From SRP author Mark Posey:
Writers get asked this a lot. “Where do you get your ideas?”
There’s an assumption buried in the question, that ideas arrive fully formed. That there’s some hidden reservoir writers dip into. A secret well. A mysterious process involving lightning, muses, or possibly a subscription to the Acme Idea Factory where a fresh concept shows up every Thursday.
I hate to ruin the mystique. But most ideas don’t arrive like that. They start sideways.
I was doing inventory the other day, getting ready for upcoming artisan markets, counting how many print copies of each title we have on hand. That’s when I realized we’d somehow neglected to order copies of my most recent book, Assassinating Yesterday.
Which immediately made me laugh, because the entire book grew out of one of those sideways questions; the kind that sounds casual but won’t leave you alone once it lands. The question was this: If you went back in time and ran into yourself and your parents… what would you say?
- Not “Would you stop a war?”
- Not “Would you win the lottery?”
- Just that.
Would you say anything at all? Could you? Should you?
And the dangerous follow-up: What happens if you do?
That’s where ideas come from. Not answers. Questions. Specifically, questions that tilt reality just a few degrees. Not big, flashy ones. Small ones that make the ordinary suddenly unstable.
- What if this conversation went differently?
- What if this person knew something they shouldn’t?
- What if you had one chance to speak to a moment you’ve already lived through?
You don’t start with plot. You start with a mental itch. And once the question sticks, your brain does the rest. It turns the question over while you’re doing dishes. While you’re walking. While you’re trying to fall asleep. It starts testing consequences.
If I said this…
Then that would happen…
And that would break this…
And then I’d have to deal with—
Congratulations. You’re outlining and didn’t even notice.
Ideas aren’t delivered. They’re discovered by poking at the edges of normal life. Most people have these questions. They just let them pass. Writers don’t.
We grab them. Worry them like a loose thread. Follow them past the point where they’re comfortable. Because stories live just on the other side of “What if…?”
That’s the real idea factory.
No subscription required.
— Mark
