Many writers get their story ideas by watching people. How they look. What they do. How they interact with others. Without judging, can you guess the motivations that might lie behind their actions? Start with the most obvious, but don’t stop there. Make a list of all the possible reasons for what you see. I’ll […]

The seed that sprouted to become my first manuscript, More Precious Than Gold, was no more than a footnote in the historical account of my hometown. During the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, an agent of the Freedmen’s Bureau was sent to investigate a hate crime. The victim was a nameless African-American boy, and […]

Each summer we’ve delved into one particular aspect of writing–story prompts, a tour of author blogs, basics of self-publishing. This summer let’s look at where story ideas come from. This is one of the questions most often put to writers by people who don’t write. For people who DO write, it’s almost unnecessary to ask. […]