Gwen Dandridge - Fantasy Writer, Art Dabbler, Dog Owner and Avid Reader
  • About Me
  • Events
  • My Books
    • The Dragons' Chosen
    • The Stone Lions >
      • Stone Lions Reviews
      • Alhambra Graphics >
        • Symmetry Summary
        • Symmetry Motions
      • Symmetry Quizzes >
        • Symmetry Quiz one
        • Symmetry Quiz two
      • Symmetries by Chapter >
        • Vertical Symmetries
        • Horizontal Symmetries
        • Double Reflection Symmetry
        • Translation
        • Rotation
        • Glide Reflection
        • Glide with a Vertical Mirror
    • The Jinn's Jest
  • Art
    • Ceramics
  • Maddie
  • Food (or yes, I bake)
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • CenCal SCBWI 2016

Where Do Ideas Come From?

5/17/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
My books always start with my asking the question, “what if."

  • What if I wrote a book about symmetry and the Alhambra for kids. What could I do to make it interesting and readable.
  • What if a medieval princess had a fairy godmother who was from the women’s liberation movement.
  • What if the girl locked in the tower was not a gentle princess but a rowdy hooligan.
  • What if demons appeared in Berkeley. Why would they appear and to whom.
Once I ask these questions then the characters and plot flow from there. My understanding of my characters and the story develop as I write. I put my characters into a situation and see how they react. And as I write, I know them better so their story deepens and evolves.

When I started my Alhambra book, I was there. Once I returned home, I read books and books about Islamic history, art and medieval culture. I joined the Mideast-Medieval Islamic History forum. I requested books from the library loan program (Owen Jones’ book on the Alhambra). I corresponded with an Alhambra scholar in Spain. I went to museums to look at artifacts from that time. I read current books on harem life from women who had lived in them (Fatima Mernissi—Dreams of Trespass).

There are many ways to come up with stories. So how do you get your idea? Do you ask "what if" or "what happened" or "how come" or something else entirely?



0 Comments

    Author

    I was born in the deep South, where many writers are grown along side the cotton and horses of that rich land, but I lived on Long Island most of my first years. 

    It was after I moved to Berkeley, dragging along three small children, that I started to think about creating something more... 

    For awhile I managed to subsume most of my afterwork creativity into dance. I flitted from Scandinavian to Irish, to English step dancing, to Morris dance and sword. Having a short (or sometimes long) fling with each until finally settling on Morris and English short sword (Rapper) as my favorites. 

    Archives

    March 2016
    June 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    February 2014
    December 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013

    Categories

    All
    Book Launch
    Line-editing
    Mistakes
    Writing Process

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.