A Guest Post by Kim Harrington
But the moments that have inspired my books weren’t dramatic crimes or terrifying experiences. They were small, everyday occurrences that most people would forget by the end of the day. But if you keep your writer hat on, you can spin everyday happenings into a compelling mystery.
My YA novel FORGET ME (written as K.A. Harrington, Putnam, 2014) grew out of a glitch on a social media site. One day, I uploaded a photo, and the site’s facial recognition feature tagged someone else. The two people happened to look a lot alike. Without wearing my writer hat, I would have just laughed it off, fixed the tag, and moved on. Instead, my writer brain went to work imagining all the ways this could have gone incredibly wrong. Then I played a writer’s favorite game: what if. What if you were uploading the photo of someone who had passed away? And what if the website tagged him with someone else’s name? Someone who looked exactly like him but was very much alive. Suddenly, a harmless technical error became the seed of an entire thriller.
Another YA novel THE DEAD AND BURIED (Scholastic, 2013) started with a newspaper article. I’d always wanted to try my hand at a haunted house novel, but I wanted a fresh spin. One day I read an article in the real estate section about “stigmatized properties” (murder houses) and how they can be great bargains for families looking to trade up to a nicer town or a bigger house. So I thought, instead of a crumbling Victorian home, what if my haunted house was an ordinary suburban McMansion that a family purchased to get into a more upscale town? And what if the ghost wasn’t centuries old, but the victim of a recent murder? And the ghost would haunt my main character until she figured out who amongst her friends at school was the killer? One newspaper article became the seed of my idea that blended a modern ghost story with a murder mystery.
Some ideas don’t become books right away. When my son was small, we used a baby monitor during naps. One day, I heard an adult’s voice coming through it. I raced upstairs, but no one was in his room. I eventually realized our neighbors had brought their new baby home and were using the same type of baby monitor, which was causing cross-talk. First, I got rid of that baby monitor! Then, I wrote in my idea notebook, “Rear Window meets a baby monitor.” I had no idea where I’d use it. Years later, while brainstorming the second book in my middle grade SLEUTH OR DARE series (Scholastic, 2012), I searched through the notebook and found the entry. Within minutes, I had a plot about kids babysitting who overhear something suspicious on a baby monitor. The idea had simply been waiting for the right story.
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Notice that none of these stories began with earth-shattering events. They started with a social media glitch, a newspaper article, a faulty baby monitor, and an offhand conversation.
That's the wonderful thing about writing mysteries: ideas are everywhere. The trick isn't waiting for something extraordinary to happen. It's paying attention to the ordinary. Keep your writer hat on. Stay curious. Ask "What if?" every chance you get.
You never know which seemingly insignificant moment will become your next novel.
Have you ever had a small, everyday moment spark a story idea?
