How I Came up with the Idea for: Storm Rider

Last week, I posted about some ways to have a great brainstorming session. Since then, I've been thinking a lot about my own stories and the various ways I've brainstormed for each. Which gave me an idea! Today is the first of a few posts in which I will share with you how I came up with the idea for a particular book or story. For this post, I'll share how I came up with the idea for my WIP, Storm Rider.

As some of you might have known, I like rain. Like, I really like rain. So when I closed the curtains of my window one summer night just as raindrops began to slide down my window, I immediately became very happy. I knew I was in for a great night's sleep.

But then it began to storm.

Now, don't get me wrong--I love storms. I love sitting at my desk on a stormy day, writing or reading as thunder claps and lightning strikes outside. It's my favorite.

But storms at night, however, are not my favorite, because I am a decently light sleeper. Thunder wakes me up easily, and because my bedroom is on a corner of our house, the two main walls of my room get hit with a lot of wind and make loud noises. (I'm totally used to those noises, but whenever I have people over and it's windy, they get kinda freaked out and ask me why my walls are making freakish howling noises.)

Anyway, I fell asleep to the peaceful sound of rain. But around 2 AM, thunder boomed so loud I swear it shook the whole freakin' house. I started awake so fast I think my heart might have seized up for a moment before it started rapid-fire beating. Seriously though, it was the loudest thunder I have ever heard!

Keep in mind here that yes, the thunder woke me up, but I was most definitely not fully awake. My body was reacting sharply to the freakiness of the thunder, but my mind was still half-asleep.

And that's when the idea hit me. This memory is slightly fuzzy due to the fact that I was by no means fully awake, but I remember sitting straight up and looking over at my window. The rain was streaked on it in such a way that the reflection of the nightlight in the hallway on it made it look like my window had been shattered. So naturally, my first thought was: a person could totally jump through that.

...Yeah, my room is on the second floor of our house, and my window is a straight drop to the ground. There is no possible way that a person could jump through the window and make it into my room.

And yet, in my half-conscious state, my brain was convinced that that was a possibility. Suddenly ideas began forming one after another, all of them slowly connecting until all of a sudden it just hit me. The characters appeared in my mind like lightning (haha, pun intended) and whether or not I knew it at the time, Storm Rider was born.

What if someone did jump through my window? What if he demanded something from me? What if he's not human? He could be part of some supernatural race that get their power from storms...Ooo, could I incorporate a storm chaser into this? Maybe there's a storm chaser girl...? Maybe she stole something from the supernatural race...

Seriously--one idea after another, just like that. I laid back down and closed my eyes, my heart still pounding from the thunder. As I quickly fell back to sleep, my fleeting thought was "man, I really hope I remember that when I wake up because this would be an awesome book."

And thankfully, I did remember it when I woke up. Parts of it, at least. I quickly jotted my basic ideas down on the notepad on my phone, and a few hours later I had the first little bit of Storm Rider written.

So yeah! All it took was a summer storm and a half-conscious state, and boom-- a story was born.

So here's the thing: you don't have to kill yourself over trying to come up with a new story idea. You don't need to stress yourself out to the point of tears, because inspiration will come. If you just breathe and open up your eyes, you'll find inspiration in the simplest of things. A pen cap. A line of trees in the middle of a field. A cabin tucked away in the woods. Anything, really. That's the beauty of being a writer! We see ideas in everything, because ideas exist in everything. All you have to do is see them.

If you liked hearing about Storm Rider, then I bet you'll just LOVE reading it! You can read the first bit of it I talked about here!

"The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him." Nahum 1:7