HAVE A NOTEBOOK AT ALL TIMES
Do you have a notebook, or a plethora of notebooks to hand when inspiration for writing strikes?
Sound advice!
All it took was just a sentence popping unbidden into my mind:
‘While picking blackberries in the hedgerows one day, I found a dice.’
CHOOSE AN UNUSUAL PROTAGONIST
I had already decided to write about a homeless person but wanted to choose an unlikely character, This one sentence was the perfect lead to my protagonist, Dot. Picking blackberries is second nature to her and thus she would be a ‘jam making women’s institute sort of lady’, the sort who you might pass unnoticed in the street. If a lady like that who hadn’t done anyone any harm, well almost, became homeless, straightaway I felt that the reader would feel empathy towards Dot when her husband went missing.
BACK STORY
Then I began to think of her back story. Holding the dice which I had found one day it struck me to be a fantastic tool for Dot’s memories while she was trying to recover from the breakdown of all she had known. (Her memories were not personal ones to me by the way, except maybe one, but I’m not going to admit which one.)
SUBTITLE
No one deserves to have their life destroyed, but what sums up the overriding question in Dot’s mind as she tries to make sense of it all. Life is never fair but
Is Life Just a Roll of a Dice?’
My subtitle came to life.
MISSING Past and Present on Amazon
SETTING
The scene of picking blackberries could be an idyllic one, but in Dot’s case it was a means for survival, to glean from the countryside. What was it like to survive when homeless.
MAIN THEMES
This led to the main themes in my novel, as explored in previous blogs, leading to further tension and miscommunication.
Homelessness, soup kitchens and food banks
Mixed race relationships
Prejudice, racism and acceptance
SUMMING UP
Thus, finding a dice in the hedgerows gave me a sentence.
Out of the sentence came the protagonist, back story and major setting.
This allowed me to develop my plan, including themes pertinent to my story.
What originally inspired you to write your latest novel?
If you would like to be a guest writer on this blog why don’t you take the Dice Challenge and get in touch with me diana@dianamaryjackson.co.uk
I almost always get inspired by research into archaeology or ancient history. A setting captures my imagination and I think of what it would be like to be there, living through those historical events.
My current trilogy was kicked off when I was reading the account of the Tower of Babel in Genesis, and imagined how the sudden confusion of everyone’s languages changing might not be merely disorienting but also dangerous.