Elizabeth Essex: In Praise of Pinterest

One of the things I am asked most often as an author is, “Where do you get your inspiration for your stories?”

And my answer is always the same: everywhere.

I get them from other books that I’ve read, and photos that I have seen. From the music that I listen to, the stories that I hear, and experiences that I’ve had. I remember all these things. But I am a visual thinker. I think of my collected experiences as a series of live pictures—like

an endless personal movie running constantly in my head. And so, for inspiration, I like to surround myself with pictures of the things that help me visualize my story.

My current book, SCANDAL IN THE NIGHT, is a story of love lost and found, set in pre-Raj India, and in the mid-19th century English countryside. To help visualize and write the story, I sought out photos that augmented or supported the images that the story had created in my head. And the place where I could most easily find them and collect them was Pinterest.

Pinterest gives it’s users the ability to search through a vast store of varied visual images, on a variety of different topics of interest, at one centralized  “web location.” And better yet, it lets users manipulate, move and store the images in ways that are useful to the user.

On my Pinterest page, I made a “closed” board—think of a virtual bulletin board—where I could collect and pin those images. In fact, I made a board for each of my novels. I searched for and collected the images that inspired me—the images that helped me with descriptions in a particular scene, gave me a sense of the colors in my hero and heroine’s world, and let me go ‘shopping’ for their clothes. On each ‘pin’ I was also able to write down the associations I had for each picture, of where I thought it fit in my story.

And when I had them all collected together, I opened the board and made it accessible to everyone else, so now you can see what I saw while I was writing. I have six boards up at present—one for each of my books. And more boards are in progress, being made as I write.:)

Have a look for yourself, and see what you think (click here).

You can also visit boards of other members of the PlottingPrincesses.

Elizabeth Essex is the award-winning author of the critically-acclaimed Reckless Brides historical romances. Romance so good it’s scandalous...

Buy links for SCANDAL IN THE NIGHT:

Amazon | B & N | iTunes

What do you think of Pinterest? Do you like to see photographs that authors have chosen to represent the images in their heads, or would you prefer to keep your own mental images of the book instead? Or perhaps make Pinterest boards of your own for the stories you've enjoyed reading? Tell us what you think.