@LynnHBlackburn

When I first started writing, I would hear people talk about brainstorming and I have to tell you . . . it bothered me.

A lot.

I was intrigued by the idea of getting together with a group of friends and throwing ideas around, but I was afraid it might be cheating. How could it still be *my* story if I’d gotten a lot of help from other people?

I can’t tell you how relieved I was to discover that . . .

1. Brainstorming is not cheating.
2. Brainstorming is awesome.

There is something special that happens when a group of writers gather around a table or pile onto couches in a living room, laptops at the ready. The author starts with, “Okay, here’s what I’ve got . . .” and ends with “and I have no idea what happens next.”

After a few questions and clarifications, the ideas start flowing. Someone says, “Oh, oh, oh, what if . . . ” and then someone else says, “Or you could . . . ” and sometimes what comes out of those sessions are stories that are 100% the author’s, but that could never have come to life without the input of trusted friends.

In my case, I can still picture a handful of friends sitting around a table as I laid out the very rough skeleton of an idea for a new series about a law enforcement dive team. I’d been thinking about this series for almost two years and it was finally time to move past nebulous generalities and nail down specifics.

I had rough concepts for three different stories. I had named three couples, but they needed to become real. They needed strengths and weaknesses and quirks. I tossed out some of my ideas and my friends ran with them. By the time we were done, I had a few paragraphs for each story—a solid foundation. But more importantly, my characters were more diverse, more nuanced, more intriguing, than they had been when we started.

The first book in that series, Beneath the Surface, released in March 2018. This back cover copy isn’t far off from what we came up with that afternoon:

After a harrowing experience with an obsessed patient, oncology nurse practitioner Leigh Weston needed a change. She thought she’d left her troubles behind when she moved home to Carrington, North Carolina and took a job in the emergency department of the local hospital. But when someone tampers with her brakes, she fears the past has chased her into the present. She reaches out to her high school friend turned homicide investigator, Ryan Parker, for help.

Ryan finds satisfaction in his career, but his favorite way to use his skills is as a volunteer underwater investigator with the Carrington County Sheriff’s Office dive team. When the body of a wealthy businessman is discovered in Lake Porter, the investigation uncovers a possible serial killer—one with a terrifying connection to Leigh Weston and deadly implications for them all.

When I sat down for that brainstorming session I knew the heroine, Leigh Weston, was adopted. What I didn’t know was that she’d been adopted from China. Once that idea had been thrown out there (I’m 99% sure by none other BRMCWC’s own Edie Melson), I just knew that her brother had been adopted from Bolivia.

But here’s the craziest part of this story…even though I know there were many others, that is the only thing I specifically remember that was someone’s idea other than my own!

When the brainstorming is over and you are again alone with your imagination, your subconscious takes all those new possibilities and swirls them around with ideas that were already there. They merge into something that is completely unique. Something no one but you could have come up with.

And when the final story is revealed, it’s still yours.

It’s just better than it would have been if you’d done it all on your own.

I’m forever grateful to the people who have shared their creativity with me. How about you? Do you go it alone or do you talk it out? Do you have a great brainstorming success story to share? Share it with us in the comments.

Grace and peace,

Lynn H. Blackburn loves writing suspense because her childhood fantasy was to become a spy—but her grown-up reality is that she’s a huge chicken and would have been caught on her first mission. She prefers to live vicariously through her characters and loves putting them into all kinds of terrifying situations—while she’s sitting at home safe and sound in her pajamas!

Her Dive Team Investigations series kicked off in 2018 with Beneath the Surface and In Too Deep (A SIBA Okra pick and Selah Award Finalist). The 3^rdbook in the series, One Final Breath, releases in September 2019. She is also the author of Hidden Legacyand Covert Justice,which won the 2016 Carol Award for Short Novel and the 2016 Selah Award for Mystery and Suspense. Lynn lives in South Carolina with her true love and their three children. You can follow her real life happily ever after at WWW.LYNNHBLACKBURN.COM and on FACEBOOK, TWITTER, PINTEREST, and INSTAGRAM.nd their three children. You can follow her real life happily ever after at www.LynnHBlackburn.com and on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.