I get lots of story ideas. They occur to me while I’m daydreaming in the shower or sitting on the bus. But few of them ever make it onto the page. They just don’t fire my imagination. The stories I actually write tend to start life as little more than a character sketch and a vague notion of setting, and the rest falls into place as I write. To take a story from my collection as an example, when I started writing “Flotsam” all I had was the name of the main character (Toby Milan) and an image of a container ship converted to house climate refugees. The remainder of the story flowed from there.

I’m not one of those writers who meticulously plan their stories in advance – although having said that, I did produce a three thousand word outline for the novel I’m working on at the moment, but that’s very much the exception to the rule.

I have a file in my office, full of ideas for great stories I’d like to write someday but can’t. The raw idea isn’t enough, and inspiration is a slippery thing. You can’t plan it, and it often hits you in the most unexpected ways. You can’t force it – at least, I can’t. I’m in awe of writers who sit down and say things like: “Today I will write a story about alienation”. I can’t do that. My stories start with something small, like a first line or a character’s name, and build from there. When I start writing, I often don’t know what the finished story’s going to be about. I have to hack away at it to discover its shape. Sometimes the theme that emerges will be one I’ve touched on before, other times it will be something entirely new.