February 19, 2015

All Aboard the Writer Train

Every writer does something slightly different when it comes to how they gather their inspiration for their books, whether that inspiration is for clothing, setting, character descriptions, playlists, and so forth. A recent popular method, however, is the Pinterest board. I follow a few authors on Pinterest, and some of them do create inspiration boards.

Marissa Meyer has boards for The Lunar Chronicles, Heartless, and her upcoming superhero trilogy.

Kiera Cass has one for each of first three books in the Selection series: The Selection, The Elite, The One.

And Sara Raasch has a GIANT board for Snow Like Ashes.

I think it's cool that authors make their inspiration boards public so readers can check them out. I do understand why some may keep them private, though, because I do. None of my story inspiration boards are visible for everyone to see. I've let a certain few friends have access to certain ones, but they're mostly private and not something I'm ready to share yet.
I have two for my Hamlet retelling that I wrote during NaNoWriMo 2013. One's for the original retelling and one is for the ideas I'm developing for the new retelling.
I have a board for my book inspired by my orientation group and first year here at college.
And I have one for my fantasy series that needed a lot of world-building. It's my largest Pinterest board by far. I have clothes, hairstyles, "fancasts," settings, and other plot elements in it.

So let's talk. Are you on Pinterest? Do you keep inspiration boards? If not, how do you collect inspiration for your stories?

3 comments:

  1. I'm not on Pinterest, but I feel like I should be. As it is, I usually just see things that look/sound interesting and I'm like "Oh, hey, I should use that in a story." If I'm able, I'll sometimes take a picture or make a note on my phone. It's not a very effective strategy, if you were wondering.

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  2. Definitely. I have all my story-specific boards private, but also have a public picture prompts board to store anything that I might look to for inspiration.

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  3. I am definitely on pinterest and I definitely keep inspiration boards. I'm like you tho. I keep all those private while I'm getting those ideas out. If I ever get a book published I'll definitely release it so the readers can see, but for now I don't want anything given away.

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