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I've been doing a lot of interviews lately, and a common question is: Where do you get your ideas? Usually, I fall back on my old standby (Walmart, aisle 13), but the fact is that it's a legitimate question. It's also one that's hard to answer, not only because the question is usually asked of in the sense of the "royal you," as in "where do all authors in general get their ideas?" Like maybe there's an Idea Mart over behind the Dairy Queen. But all authors are different, so I can't speak for the entire species.
Worse, I can't even really speak for myself, because each book is completely different. Some I remember in detail, and some I remember a kernel, and some I don't have the foggiest idea.
Right now, my book Tainted is on shelves (yay! hooray! release the balloons!). It's the first book of three, which are being released back-to-back, and this is one of the amorphous ones, because the story stems so much from the character, who I really got to know while writing and revising. Alas, I can't go into too much detail without revealing spoilers, but basically: I had the germ of a character (an assassin who hunts demons) and the germ of a plot (there are bad guys doing bad things and she needs to stop them). But when you get right down to it, that's pretty generic. And the story itself isn't really generic at all. Why? Well, for one, the story twists and turns all over the place. For another, the heroine really is the story, and Lily is pretty unique (and, thankfully, the reviews so far are backing me up on this, which is always a nice feeling for an author!). All of which is my rambling way of saying that the "story idea" of Tainted wasn't a Slam Bam moment, but a slow build of working out character and story in tandem.
It's a completely different story with my demon hunting soccer mom books. With those books, I was up for contract, and trying to think of something to submit as an option book. I'd just written two romantic comedies and wanted to go with a romance series, possibly paranormal. I had an image of a group of guys--very alpha males--with long, black leather coats that billowed as they marched over the marshy ground, each searching out evil, battling it, and finding love in the process.
At the same time, I was a relatively new mom, and the chick lit market was just taking off. I wanted to do something mommy-ish. And as I was brainstorming both of these desires with my critique partner, Kathleen O'Reilly, I had one of those V-8 moments. Or, to create a better metaphor, I had a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup moment: two great tastes that go great together. A soccer mom. And a demon-hunter.
Right then, Kate was born, and I banged out the first chunk of chapter one. It hasn't changed much since that first hour at the keyboard. (Though the title did change: Demons & Dirty Diapers really didn't do it for anyone. Carpe Demon was much better!)
With other books, I can remember kernels, but not as much. My first book was born because my first manuscript was rejected with a note from the editor that it didn't have a sexy enough hook. (I'd submitted to Harlequin Temptation). I came up with the opening line, "You need a man." And a story and heroine were born.
I wanted to do a chase the clues book, and The Givenchy Code appeared. A not-quite perfect superhero, and I got Aphrodite's Kiss. And the entirety of the Ghoul books came when the title--The Good Ghoul's Guide to Getting Even--came to me on a plane ride home from a conference. So you just never know where ideas will come from. Pop culture, a word overheard in line at the grocery store, the headlines, could be anywhere. And although I don't use all of them, I do make sure to scribble them down. Like snipe, sometimes it's hard to find an idea when you're looking for one!
Tainted, Julie Kenner, The Blood Lily Chronicles, urban fantasy, Ace
