I once had a college art professor tell me that my ability to conceptually build stories through imagery and words would become easier through more life experience. Now, reflecting on that moment, I understand why Professor Fred Burton was right. Big ideas are enriched by the small, day-to-day, simple details of life.

For The Heir to the Unexpected, I invested time collecting a repository of momentary ‘subtleties of life’ and then infused them into my larger cohesive story. By using a cloud-based sync tool on my iPhone (I use Evernote), I have the ability to capture ideas quickly and assign multiple topical tag categories (i.e. characters, conflict, dialogue, eating, environment, travel, location, year/date/time,) to organize my thoughts. Then, when I get back to my desk, iPad, and MacBook, I have my thoughts of the day documented and waiting at my fingertips.

One such moment was a walk in New York City… and it happened to become the first sentence in my first chapter:

When it was early morning, you were confronted with a thousand smells and the common glare of solitude.

Now, this sentence is not only about sidewalk aromas and that introspective pre-caffeinated time of the morning, but it’s the start of the mood and the moment that my character is experiencing. More specifically, it’s hinting at the day-to-day routine work commute behavior we all fall into. In that brief moment, I collected a feeling that could connect the reader to a relateable instance.