How Novelists Get Their Ideas

It ain't easy coming up with a setting, plot and characters for a full length novel.  Sometimes when people say, 'that would make a good book' they are talking of something that is missing either a beginning, middle or an end.  Or that contains no conflict to drive the plot.  Maybe the setting is blah, the characters ordinary and the plot completely unoriginal or derivative.  You gotta do better than that.  You need a hero with some flaws, a villain with some good points, a setting that puts the reader right into the book, and a story, a good story.

Tomorrow on  Sheila Boneham, I discuss how I came to write World of Mirrors and some of the decisions, ideas and research that contributed to the novel.  Do take a look.   Here's  quick synopsis of World of Mirrors to pique your interest. 

A glamorous high-tech consultant has agreed to retrieve state-of-the art software in East Germany with a colleague and ex-lover who keeps her in the dark. As she navigates a landscape of sociopaths and unrehabilitated Stasi, Zara realizes she's in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong man and no exit strategy.