A question I get from time to time: Where did you get the ideas for your books? Granular details about individual moments don’t tend to interest most readers, and that’s fine, since I generally can’t remember those details. 

I would love to tell you it’s easy, that I begin my day by cruising the internet and by the time I’m done, I’ve got seven or eight solid ideas. Or there’s a secret database that all mystery writers use and for a reasonable fee, you can get every idea you ever need. Sadly, neither of those are true. (The fee for the database is completely unreasonable.)

The truth is that, like most elements of writing, it’s a combination of inspiration and perspiration.  But once I get an idea for a book, I add it to the stockpile and wait to use it. That’s why I always have the next five Joe Davis books roughly planned. (VERY roughly planned.) As for where, specifically, the ideas come from, it’s something I only realize when I reflect on it (and thankfully, I have written enough books on which to reflect).

Broadly, my ideas tend to fall into two categories: Inside-Out or Outside-In. Inside-Out ideas begin with an element of the actual story–a scene idea, the jumping off point of the mystery, even a single line–and builds from there. Outside-In begins with a general idea–a character returning or a setting–abd looks for a mystery that could go with it. If you’re curious, I don’t really have a preference for one or the other, though I’ve noticed myself using one more than the other as time has gone along.

The examples of Inside-Out:

-DEATH IS A CLINGY EX: It started with an idea for Joe sitting in a coffee shop, waiting for his most recent ex-girlfriend. The story was built from there.

-DEATH LIVES ACROSS THE HALL: It actually started with me ranting to my former wife about a neighbor of ours who felt threatened by me. (A complete misconception, BTW, though I DID hate this woman.) During my rant, I said, “The funny part is that her health is top priority. If something happens to her, who do you think the first suspect will be?” And the mystery writer in me said, “Hey, there’s a story there.”

-DEATH IS SLEEPING WITH MY WIFE: It began with an idea for a scene. Joe is lying in bed with his girlfriend. He gets a call in the middle of the night from her husband, who yells and screams at him. The girlfriend neglected to mention the husband. The next logical step is that the husband turns up dead, and Joe is a suspect.

-DEATH STOLE MY RIDE: This one began with my friend, Michael Paul Levin, telling me a story about the time he unwittingly sold a getaway car to a gang of thieves. (He tells it better than I do.) The first words out of my mouth when he finished were, “Can I use that story?” So, in a sense, this book is an adaptation.

-DEATH AND THE SINGLE KILLER: This one began with two specific scene ideas that anchored the book. One was a scene from Deirdre’s origin story and one was a scene from the “modern” story. Both storylines were built from there.

The examples of OUTSIDE-IN

-DEATH AND THE FANBOY: I wanted to set a story at a comic book convention and use it as sort of a backdoor tribute to 60’s TV. I just had to figure out the mystery.

-DEATH IS A REAL KILLER: I wanted to bring back Deirdre from Death Wears a Big Hat and needed a mystery to go with it.

-DEATH, YOU JABRONI: I wanted to set a story in the world of professional wrestling. Having some access to independent wrestling and being a fan of Jim Cornette’s podcasts helped with that.

-DEATH STALKS THE RETIREMENT PARTY: I wanted to do a story that brought Joe back to his hometown of Porter’s Bay and involved his family.

-DEATH IS THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY: The story was designed to bring Lisa back and tell her story with Joe.

These are harder to categorize:

-DEATH WEARS A BIG HAT: This began as a short story I wrote years ago (not involving Joe and his friends). I was trying to adapt it into a book and keep the basics of the story. I’m not sure what category this falls into. 

One thing to keep in mind is that just because one has a book idea for a story, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it’s a good one. And if you’re committed to writing a series in which a new book appears every summer, it can be a pain in the derriere to discover an idea doesn’t have legs. 

Death Stole My Ride is my best example of that. I first envisioned it as a short story and started writing it as such. However, I was a couple pages into writing when I began to think this would work better as a book. So, I slotted it in as Book Five in the Joe Davis series. I was deep into the first draft when I realized it was going to work better as a short story. Unfortunately, I had the books were slotted such that I couldn’t swap out Ride for another story idea. (Or my touch of OCD simply wouldn’t allow me to do so). While I was able to complete the book and honestly feel it was better than it had any right to be, it’s not one of my favorites. A massive attempt on the part of the author to make chicken soup from chicken feces. 

On the other hand, Death and the Fanboy also began life as a short story that I felt would work better as a book. And it DID work in a longer form. (That’s less a comment on the quality of the book and more on the conversion of the idea from short story to book.) Sometimes, you just don’t know until you get into the writing.

In the end, there’s no easy way to come up with ideas for books. You just have to remain calm and stay open to what the world may provide. In which case, just hope that your imagination stays fertile and the world keeps providing.