When I was a student, a blank page and a writing assignment was a breath of fresh air.  I could write an essay, story, or anything and it didn’t matter the topic.  Go figure that when I became a teacher, writing would be hands-down, my favorite subject to teach and I incorporated it into all areas.

What I always found amusing was that, regardless of the theme, about five minutes into the assignment little arms would shoot up with the same lament.  “I don’t know what to write about.”  Not a problem I encounter too frequently, but one that many do whether you are a writer or not.

In college, a professor in one of my creative writing classes recommended keeping a writing file and filling it with strange or interesting stories you encounter.  Now keep in mind this was back in the day, so he was referring to the newspaper.  However, the same idea still applies today even though more and more people are reading their news online instead on in the paper.

This is a helpful hint which I modify.  Before you decide to base a story on a real-life event, it is something you need to consider carefully.  First off, is the obvious reason-originality.  A unique plot line has a better chance of getting picked up than one which has been front page center for months. 

Secondly and more importantly, you need to remember that attached to this sensational story is an actual victim.  If the shoe were on your foot, would you want someone writing a piece, fiction or not, about an incident that dramatically altered the life of a relative or a close friend or worse, caused a death? 

This is where the modification part enters the picture.  You can’t read the newspaper or go online without finding the weird, strange, inspirational, or just plain sick.  It’s inevitable.  What I do is take note and file it away, avoiding the demented ones.  I primarily write cozies so there isn’t a great deal of explicit violence in my work.  Cozies focus more on solving the puzzle than on the gory details.  I won’t necessarily base an entire story on a particular incident.  However, a seed is sometime planted after reading an article.

For example, a few years ago I encountered a piece about an actor whose wife had drowned in a pool, a very tragic accident.  In my mind, this became the impetuous for my book Murderous Descent.  Only the antagonist became a down-and-out thespian and corpse was the third wife who had died under suspicious circumstances leading my amateur sleuth to start sniffing around and uncovering all sorts of skeletons.

Keeping a write file can also be helpful for research purposes.  If you’re a mystery or crime writer, the news can be a fountain of information on police procedures and motives for example.  There is also a wonderful Howdunit Series which has a collection of reference books including Private Eyes, Murder One, and Amateur Detectives.  These books as well as the others in the series can be an essential addition to your reference arsenal.

It doesn’t matter what genre you favor.  Readers like details and it is your job to make sure that they are intriguing and above all accurate.  Research these days is as simple as a couple of clicks of the mouse, but having reliable reference materials at your fingertips is beneficial as well.  I still write with my weathered thesaurus and dictionary next to me.

I always answered my students’ lament with a list of possible topics.  Usually, the blank stare would turn into a smile and the pencil would begin to move.  Putting together a write file is your go-to list of possible topics.  They’re there if you need them, but most of the time you won’t.  Usually, the problem most writers encounter is not having enough time to devote to all of the things they want to write, but if the blank page is staring you in the face, you’ll have a way to combat it.