Here is the continuation of an earlier post I started a few weeks back...
To wit: eavesdrop on every conversation going on around you, and steal the dialogue, word for word, if you have to. Steal your friends’ heartfelt confessions, note their dilemmas, family dynamics, foibles, tragedies, successes. Why make it up when it’s right there in front of you? Steal from what has happened to you in your own life: lovers, co-workers, bosses, parents, siblings. Steal from your own inner life—your embarrassments, secrets, fears – and also your strengths – and be ruthlessly honest. All this is fair game.
As you can see, though, there are two very different kinds of ideas you have to contend with when it comes to writing. The “big idea” (easy) and the “detailed idea” (hard). In other words, it’s easy to begin a book and easy to finish it: it’s the middle that gets you in trouble. That’s why there are so many unfinished books in your drawer.
For instance, the general idea for THE HEART OF HENRY QUANTUM came from a series of walks I took with a friend – we used to talk in a non-stop steam-of-consciousness style about all sorts of things: philosophy, science, mathematics, politics – all of which we were profoundly ignorant. One day, I wondered aloud if I could write a story about a person who thought the same way we talked – and suddenly there was Henry Quantum! Indeed, I went home and wrote the first pages – easy peasy.
Then the real work began. More stealing needed! First I stole some conversations I’d had with a second friend, these were usually over martinis – and this gave my character dimension. Unfortunately there also had to be a plot and other characters, and all the rest. The small details that actually make up the story. Happily I have a lot to steal from. I stole from my own life (in advertising), from my wife’s life, from all of my former girlfriend’s (not only in physical description, but events as well), from other characters in other books (you guess which ones), etc. etc...