Emi asked Robin Stevens:

Hello! I love and admire your books so much and I just wanted to ask, where - or rather how - do you get those excellent ideas for the plots? I try to write, too, but I usually come up with something rather dull... I hope your answer won't be the same as Agatha Christie's - ‘I always go to Harrods’, or ‘Try Marks and Spencer.’ ;) Thanks!

Robin Stevens Hello! Thank you so much!

I think that it's such a hard thing to explain, and I've always had a lot of sympathy with authors who make up silly answers like 'go buy it in the shops'! I always say that I get my ideas from everywhere - the books I read, the TV shows I watch, the places I go and the people I meet. For my latest book, I got part of the idea from Code Name Verity and The Night Watch, part from a weird little thing that happened to me on tour last year, part from the way my dog behaves when people walk by my house and part from some people I know! So I can't ever really tell someone where or how to get an idea, because ideas are so personal. But I can say that if your ideas are boring you, they'll bore readers, so try to draw inspiration from things in your life you do find exciting!

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