How do writers get ideas for stories? Well, sometimes they ask.

Imma write a story to submit to an anthology. Must be a mystery. Must relate to promotion/marketing/queries etc. Must be 3,000 to 5,000 words long.

Okay, there’s the first step in this project. I know the genre, one element of the story, and the general length. Now I need to hang some stuff on it.

How about characters? Hmmm…. I have a series of light cozy mysteries in the works set on Spadena Street, a Storybook Style neighborhood I invented. I already wrote one short story set in that “world”: “The Spirit of Spadena Street”, which appeared in Wolfmont Press’ THE GIFT OF MURDER anthology. That one featured LeJune and her mother, June Rose. It’s tempting to feature them again, because they’re so much fun to write, but maybe I ought to give somebody else a chance for the spotlight.

Buck Leatherbury, ex-cop? He lives just down the street. Maybe Buck can be writing his memoirs. Oh! Oh! An ex-cop writing his memoirs is just asking for a crime!

I’m putting my big-girl hat on and being a writer! The plot thickens! The game’s afoot! Hoo-hoo–I’m on the job!

So I know my setting, my protagonist, his goal and — yeah, I just got the plot. I just totally flashed on the plot. Hot dang.

Never mind that thing I said about asking for ideas.

WRITING PROMPT: Pick somebody in your neighborhood, now or a previous neighborhood, and imagine a basic storyline around him or her.

MA
p.s. Join me tomorrow, when fantasy writer A. J. Walker and I trade blogs, each writing about Landscape as Character.