Where Do Your Stories Come From?

Hi gang!
Kids ask me all the time, "How did you come up with the story about the miner-49er ghost for SAVING MINER'S GULCH?"

I like to think God plays a big part in my idea creation department. I mean, He is the ultimate Creator, after all. When an idea tickles my brain, I think about how to turn it into a story. How would my readers like to see it? Is it going to be a funny story, or something serious? What will be at stake? Will the characters have to solve a mystery, be in a position of life or death, have to save someone? As I unravel these questions more thoughts come to me. Who are my characters? What is important to them? What's in their hearts?

I sketch out a plot, kind of like an artist who sketches a picture before she applies paint. I get a sense of how to begin, the conflicts my characters will face and the climax where the character fights through the ultimate problem. I also know how it will end. Then I begin.

When the first draft is written, I put it aside for a few weeks before I start the editing process, which can take nearly as long as the writing of the first draft! That's how I do it.

So, back to the miner-49er ghost, Jack Boyd. The idea of sending two boys off to find buried treasure and save a mining town came to me in a most unusual way. My husband's great-grandfather wrote stories about lost treasures in the Southwest many, many years ago. We found one of these old books with his signature inside. Imagine that! My sons now have a book that their great-great-grandfather wrote and signed. After reading about the legends of lost treasures, my sons wanted to go searching for gold right away. So did I!

And that got me thinking...
What if two boys stumbled into an ancient mystery of a lost gold mine, and what if they met the ghost who still haunted the mine? It sounds like a story to me!

K. T. Hernandez