What triggered your novel

ana s

I'm doing a workshop with some 8-12 yr olds and will be talking about triggers for creativity. My trigger for Oy Yew was chimneys. Tolkien was triggered by a line of poetry: 'Hail Earendel, most bright angel'. I'd like some more examples, especially from children's writers.

Phots Moll

My character Luigi was inspired by my wish to eat lots of pizza and claim I was conducting research. (The inspiration behind my novel involving firemen probably isn't suitable for the age group of your students.)

Bill

Children often respond to odd, or funny names. I met someone called Copperwheat. I wrote a story about a character called Copperwheat [not a children's story].

Tiny Nell

I knew I had answered this question in an interview, so I've just copied and pasted below the bits where I talked about nuggets of inspiration:

Sometimes, it will be a scene or vision in my imagination. In Glass Dreams, a circus mystery, I ‘saw’ a ramshackle caravan in the woods and wondered why it might have been there. Working it out led to a great idea for a story.

I think Salt was inspired by a trip to the Cornish coast, a place rife with legends of pirates and smuggling. I named the fictional setting Pirates' Cove.

In another book, Martha and Mitch, an idea came to me as I was washing dishes at the kitchen sink. It was a cold morning, I remember, and I glanced into the garden at my children’s wooden playhouse and saw that the windows had steamed up. Straight away, I thought to myself, ‘Imagine if someone is living there and we never knew…’

Mandrake's Plot came about when I imagined a grotesque-looking figure and decided that he would be the caretaker of a strange school. Then my job was to figure out why it was so strange. My next vision was of two girls meeting on a train, having missed the start of term, and that scene became the opening to the story.

With my most recent book, The Secret of Pooks Wood, I happened to catch sign of a painted wooden sign on an old gate as I drove past. I didn’t really get a good look, but I thought it said ‘Pooks Wood’. By the time I had finished my journey, I had the entire plot mapped out in my head and couldn’t wait to begin.

The character of Charlie Chumpkins popped into my head after teaching a poetry lesson at school where the children had to describe certain things whilst imagining that they were tiny as ants.

When I walked my children to school, we used to pass a house where a wheelchair-bound lady lived. She grew plants on the windowsill of her porch and I thought, 'What if she's a witch and they are all the magical herbs she uses to make potions...' and so became Song of the Moon.

Lou Treleaven

The inspiration for Professor McQuark and the Oojamaflip came when the word 'oojamaflip' popped into my head, and I knew I had to write a story about it! I then had to think what an oojamaflip could be, and who could make one. This lead to the character of Professor McQuark and the story sort of wrote itself from there!

Waylander

Reading nineteen of David Gemmell's novels in the space of a few months. Each and everyone of of them finding a place in my heart. Along with the whole process helping me understand the fundamentals of story telling and novel structure. Once I understood that, then I knew how to get all my swirling ideas into motion.

Bottom line of it, the inspiration was to write a book that made someone feel how I felt when I finished every single one of Gemmell's books.

montholon

A bizarre but unforgettable summer in France when I was 17. Combine a 'work camp' for young foreigners in the middle of a forest, an arguably insane criminal in charge and 'things that go bump in the night' and you've got the starting point for my 'Shadows of the Past'.

ana s

Thanks all. I will use Pook's Wood and Copperwheat when I talk about being triggered by names. I love a good name.

(The inspiration behind my novel involving firemen probably isn't suitable for the age group of your students.)

Possibly not PM but feel free to share it with us.

Kayess

Seeing a man fishing from rocks on the Cornish coast using a line but no rod. He had to keep throwing it in and drawing it back. My husband said he looked as if he was conducting the sea and the image stuck.

Lizy

My Rock Child book was inspired by the weird and wonderful rock formations in Tenerife.
Helter-Skelter started out as a short story about an older couple falling in love, and when I'd written that I wondered what had happened to the man in his early life. In fact Albie doesn't reach old age in H-S but in its sequel!

happy_author

My Children's book 'The Adventures of Flossy' came from inspiration watching dragonflies in my garden, as the story evolved other characters in the book came to light as the story developed.