Finding Story Ideas

Writing is all about the revising. Any writer will tell you that. Writers spend way more time revising than writing. Or at least I do--and from conversations with other people I know I'm not alone.

But sometimes you have to write something new. If you didn't how would you have something to revise?

And this week, when I finished a set of revisions on my latest WIP I knew it was time to step back and do something else. I had several other projects in various stages of revision, but I wanted something new. I needed to get those creative juices flowing.

Now the trend in YA seems to be paranormal and dystopian. Lots of fantastic books are being written and sold and read in those genres. So I decided, if that's what's working for everyone, I think I'll write a historical fiction. (I'm a rebel that way)

But since one can't simply head to the idea store to get a new story idea, I had to look someplace else.

So I looked to family history.

And there's one story that always intrigued me. My great-great-great-uncle got married, had three children and then got divorced. The children ended up in an orphanage and were apparently adopted out. No more is known - including ages or gender of children.

That gave me the germ of an idea.

What would it be like to be an orphan at the end of the 19th century?

But I wanted my story to be YA, so my protagonist was not likely to be a young child waiting for adoption.

But what if she were an older sister who was working as a maid in one of the fancy New York mansions in the late 1800s and her siblings are sent west on the Orphan Train. And she wants desperately to find them.

She'll do anything to find them, including offering herself as a mail order bride, so she can get out west.

Now I have a story idea.

And the creative juices are flowing.

How do you get your new story ideas? Where do you pluck them from?