When looking for inspiration for a new book, beyond characters and place, there is another thing that can prove inspiring regarding the complexity of life-- newspaper articles. Where I avoid reading negative fiction or watching such films, I do read a lot of non-fiction in both books and articles regarding what is going on in our world. This article was one that attracted my interest.
When I wrote Her Dark Angel, the hero had been forced to go undercover to help breakup a crime syndicate. Only at the moment the sting is being set up does he find someone else may be calling the shots. From then on, he's dealing with an unseen enemy. My book was fiction. The story above is supposition. A lot of fiction comes out of what has happened somewhere sometime-- or could have.
When I am creating a story, I use dreams and basically pull up everything into my thinking. Everything I read has the potential to be used. What would work? What story in the museum might be expanded or changed and work with my plot? I play with various possibilities. The essence in writing is that everything in fiction is also part of real life-- just not all in the same place or possibly put together.
Fiction writing is fascinating due to the complexity of human personalities and interactions. If you read that article, you see a whole range of possible ways those dynamics could be used in a story without using any of the facts. Instead you take the energy. A romance will use those dynamics and take the reader through an emotional experience that will reward not depress (like non-fiction can so often do).
