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in this lesson I'm going to talk to you about how I came up with some of the ideas for my books and

try to help you find some inspiration of your own I've written 20 books and I've had loads

and loads of ideas sometimes I've come up with two different ideas and realize that they could

later work together in the same novel so you can never be short of ideas no idea is wasted

even if it's not a groundbreaking one I of find that when I'm in a creative head space like if

I'm actually writing my next book or even if I've just got time to sit and you know on a

long car Journey or go out for a nice long walk and listen to music that's when I come up with

all of my ideas so it's really really important that you get yourself into a creative head space

I think doing anything creative like watching a movie reading a book listening to music watching

the news and and seeing if a story inspires you that's all really really helpful in in coming up

with story ideas what is it that really inspires you maybe it's going out to an art gallery or a

museum just do whatever you can to be inspired wherever you possibly can so I'm going to talk

to you about where I came up with some of the ideas for my books starting with music the song

Someone Like You by Adele inspired my sick book one perfect summer in the song Adele is talking

about how she's heard that someone is married now and she still thinks of them hopes that

they're happy and I just wondered you know what would it be like to be the person that that song

was written about you know what would it be like to be living an ordinary life you know with your

husband or wife and have this incredibly massive celebrity still thinking about you and writing

songs about you so I decided to flip the idea on its head instead of writing about Adele Uh I

decided to write about the person that the song might be written about I decided to write about

a character called Alice who when she's 18 she goes to spend this summer Endor set in the UK and

she meets a boy Joe Alice and Joe have the most incredible summer they have one perfect summer

together and at the end of the summer tragedy tears them apart they go their separate ways

Alice goes on to University she eventually meets the man that she's going to marry and

in the meantime Joe is having a journey of his own we don't know what Joe's getting up to but

one day Alice sees him on the big screen and has discovered that he's a movie star and she still

thinks of him she's still in love with him along it seems with every other woman on the planet and

then one day Alice hears Joe talking about her on a television interview and she realized that

he still loves her too so that's kind of the idea of the story as I say it was inspired by

adell's someone like you in which she talks about someone who she still thinks about many many years

later so I'd like you now to practice being inspired by some songs I'd like you to make

a playlist write it down in your notepad of all of your favorite songs hopefully there

are some love songs in there because obviously this is that's what this course is about it's

about writing a love story and then really listen to them listen to the lyrics Listen

to the way that they make you feel write down the emotions that they dredge up in you write

down lyrics that really appeal to you maybe even song titles all of this stuff is really

good inspiration and you might find that a lyric or something unlocks some little idea

inside your mind which leads you to come up with a much bigger idea that could form the basis of a

novel throughout the entire process of coming up with ideas I'd like you to keep in mind

how your characters will meet for the first time your main love interest and your main

character this moment where they meet in film is called a meet cute and it can be like a

funny or embarrassing it can be packed full of chemistry you know it could be anything at all

just be thinking about that because that's the really really important key scene that's going

to form the basis of Your Love Story next we're going to look at films and how they might inspire

you I've been inspired by films so many times I can't even tell you often it's just an emot

that I'm inspired by you know that I want to try and recapture it might be a character or

I might think I wonder if that character had gone on to do something else and then suddenly

that whole you know something else you know that I imagine them coming up to do can inspire a whole

story idea I could be a bit embarrassed about this but my book if you could go anywhere was

actually inspired by the Disney movie Moana so inspiration really can come from anywhere

Moana is the story of a girl who's trapped on an island who was longing to travel and you know she

just desperate to get off this island so she can go and see the world and I wondered I mean I love

the emotion that that captured in me I love that feeling of longing and I wondered whether or not

I could write an adult book with this as its theme and I came up with the idea of a character called

Angie who lives in a tiny Outback opal mining town 8-hour drive from you know the nearest

city and she's been stuck there her entire life she's 27 when we meet her and it's on the day

that her grandmother passes away and she has been looking after her grandmother for

the last 10 years just as she was about to go off traveling her grandfather had passed away so there

were all these reasons that had kept her rooted to this tiny spot and in the first six chapters

she discovers that her father lives in Rome Italy and so that is where the story takes her and it's

a story about breaking out and discovering this whole other world out there but primarily it's a

love story we don't meet him until chapter 7 but the first six chapters very much about you know

based on this idea of Moana and longing so that's what I'd like you to do right now is to come up

with some ideas based on films that you've watched again make a list of all of your favorite films

hopefully there are some love stories in there think about the emotions that they capture watch

them again next time you're watching a movie think about you know other characters who are in this in

this film you know does anyone else interest you or Intrigue you you know could you imagine a novel

based on that character and and what they might get up to it will be really interesting to see

which choices you write down what sort of films you're drawn to if you're writing down a lot of

romantic comedies then chances are you'll start to write a romantic comedy um as a book A lot

of my favorite movies are emotional love stories and that is what I've ended up going on to write

I like to include a little bit of light-hearted humor in my books but on the whole I like just

to be packed full of emotion and like one of my favorite movies of all time is The Notebook and

that moment when Ali is choosing between like a really good kind man who she's engaged to or the

man that was like the love of her life when she was younger you know that sort of dilemma that

really really inspires me to write about forbidden love and unrequited love so definitely take note

of all the things that really inspires you because that chances are it will be what you end up

writing I also get some of my ideas from books when I worked at heat magazine I was asked to

review a biography about Robbie Williams I wasn't like a huge Robbie fan or anything but I remember

you know the author Chris Heath talking about Robbie's PA and I thought to myself what would

it be like to be an ordinary girl being injected into that crazy woen lifestyle of a celebrity to

be the person that that celebrity you know talks to above anyone else potentially and I thought

I would love to write a book about a personal assistant to a celebrity and that was where I

came up with the idea for my second book Johnny Be Good Johnny Be Good also is INSP spired a little

bit by Jane Austin's Sense and Sensibility and in this novel maranne Falls head over Hills for

this Rogue Willoughby and she ends up with this sort of safe Colonel Brandon who's a little bit

boring and my heart was kind of aching for her you know I wanted her to be with the guy that

she was really in love with and that's basically what inspired me for to write Johnny Be Good Meg

Falls head over Hills in love with this bad boy Rockstar she becomes a really good friends with

his best friend and at the end she's very much torn between these two men so have a think about

the sort of books that really inspire you what emotions they bring up Do You Love a Forbidden

Love Story is there something in there that you know might inspire you maybe even a historical

novel that you could do a modern take on make a list of all of the books that you love all

of the emotions they bring up and see whether or not there might be a character or something

that you could potentially take in another Direction and come up with a story idea of your

own so now we've talked about how you can come up with a different ideas is by putting a spin

on a on a film or a book or a you know song that you might have listened to now just have a think

generally about people that you used to know is there anyone who's interesting in your past who

might be able to inspire you to come up with a book idea my 10th book the one we fell in

love with was based on three girls that I went to school with who were identical triplets I

was thinking about them years later when I came up with the idea for my book how they were like

celebrities you know people used to say oh she's one of the triplets and just everyone knew who

they were basically but I thought at home you know they're just one of three and it must be

really quite difficult to be living in a home where you literally are one of three all the

same age all going through the same things at the same time having to share everything from

birthday parties to the knickers that you put on in the morning and it just really inspired

me and I thought I'd love to write a book about identical triplets and then I imagined you know

what if a gorgeous guy moved in next door what if all of them fancied him and initially he

would fancy all three of them because they all look the same and one of their personalities is

going to be the one that's most closely aligned to you know his soulmate or you know whoever but

I just thought if somebody saw him first maybe he'd end up with her when actually he's meant to

be with her and that was what the story the one we fell in love with was all about I think it's

really good if you can think about people who you used to know rather than people that you actually

know if you come up with a really great book idea based on something that's happened to like one of

your friends right now please get permission from them before you decide to write this book

because otherwise you'll end up changing so many details and feeling so uncomfortable and it might

actually hold you back when you come to write it so you know whereas people from your past it's a

little less sensitive so have a think about people that you used to know who might have intrigued you

when you were at school maybe someone that you worked with whether they could you know form an

idea for a character maybe it doesn't even have to be the main character you know it could be you

know one of the side characters but just make a list of anyone that you still feel inspired

by the other thing that can really inspire you is an anecdote told to you by a friend one of

my books the minute I saw you was inspired by my friend who told me about how she went to an

optician who was really good-looking and he was so up close and personal with her really staring into

her eyes and she got the giggles so I thought to myself this could make a really fun opening

to a book I turned it around so my character is the optician and this absolutely gorgeous

guy comes straight in and she has to get really up close and personal with him staring into his

eyes and he basically sort of smiles at her and and there's a bit of a flirtation going

on so it's a nice way to open up a novel so have a think about things that you might have

heard from Friends next time someone tells you a funny story see whether or not that might be

able to make like a really fun opening for your novel or something funny that happens within I've

definitely taken a few anecdotes from friends over the years and even if it's just to add a little

light-hearted injection of humor I always ask for their permission first though so definitely do

that another thing that might inspire you are inspirational words when I was younger as I

said in unit one my father said to me when I was going through a difficult point in in my life he

said five years from now you'll look back and understand how this happened and those words 5

years from now you'll look back and understand how this happened inspired my book idea 5 Years

From from now so have a think about words of wisdom words that have rung true to you over

the years you know something that you've heard maybe an inspirational quote and see whether

or not that might even inspire you to come up with a whole novel idea now I'm going to

talk about lived in experiences so this is an experience that you've actually lived through

and something that has happened to you lived in experiences are really good because if you can

later be able to talk about them where your idea came from in an interview then it's a

really really good publicity for your novel so your Publishers would love to be able to write

a story that might be Loosely based on your own experiences life experiences even negative ones

can make really good material for a book so if something bad happens to you or positive

you know it could potentially form the basis for your novel idea a friend of mine who's an author

Zoe fig she met her husband because he was on the train traveling to work on the same train as her

and she liked him she liked the look of him and one day she plucked up the courage to pass him

a note turned out that he had a girlfriend at the time but about a year or so later he had

split up with his girlfriend and he got back in touch with her and they're now married with two

children now that's a great story and she ended up writing about it in her debut novel The Note Zoe

and her husband Mark have been on TV countless times and in news papers and magazines doing

all of this all of these interviews that have ultimately really helped turn novel become a

huge success so if you can write about something that happened to you and you can later talk about

it you know maybe even on TV a publisher is going to love that so definitely try to write

about a lived in experience at least somewhere in your novel even if it's not your main idea try to

include some real experiences in there that you might later be able to talk about in an

interview also it's a really good idea to write what you know not least because when you come to

research your novel you will be doing so much research that it can really hold you back so

if you're writing about something that you feel really comfortable about that will definitely

help and again it gives you another reason to be able to talk about that in future interviews

write a list in your notepad of all of the jobs you've ever done in your life and also what are

your hobbies you know what are the things that you really really love to do so write everything

down because ideally you'll be pulling from some of those ideas to include them in your debut novel

as well as writing a list of all of the jobs that you've done and all of your hobbies write down a

list of things that you would love to learn more about because research can be really really fun

especially if you're researching something that you're interested in so you know make a

list of those things too and and you know the more engaged you are with your story the more that will

come across to your readers and sometimes research gives you a really fun anecdote that you can later

tell your friends and it might even make it into into a future novel you never know while you're

dreaming up ideas I'd like you to keep in mind the beginning of your novel most novels start with a

character who's just going around their ordinary day and then something happens to shake things

up a bit and take them out of their comfort zone so really think about what might happen in those

opening Pages for that character to be taken out of their comfort zone cuz that might end up making

its way into your novel I really hope that hearing how I came up with some of the ideas for my novels

will help you to find inspiration for finding some of your own definitely just watch movies

read books listen to music and start coming up with some ideas and that will really really

help in the next lesson I'm going to be talking to you about the sort of Love Story you would

like to write and I'm going to help you to pin down your personal writing style