So many authors talk about how their successful story
ideas came to them in a dream, or how their main characters had been talking to
them in their heads for years before they put pen to paper. I had been waiting
for years for such natural inspiration, but the only voice in my head was my
own, expressing doubt and negative self-talk.
I finally decided that I would just chase down the idea,
rather than waiting for the idea to find me. When I started this particular
book I really only had a very high level concept – one scene, actually. My
starting point was a simple interest in not writing a traditional story with
black and white characters, good vs. evil, predictable romances. I wanted to
show shades of gray – a heroine who fell for the bad guy because even though he
was evil, maybe he had a good reason for it.
I had also given thought as to what genre of fiction I
wanted to write. Through the Love Between the Sheets blog, I read a lot of
romance. However, before working on this blog with my sisters, I had never read
any romance. I am a sci-fi/fantasy geek at my core. At a very early age I got
hooked on authors such as Piers Anthony, Raymond Feist and Terry Brooks. Very
recently, my passion in this genre was re-kindled by Larry Correia’s Monster Hunters International series and
my true inspiration, Jim Butcher’s Dresden
Files series.
Fantasy is really and truly where my soul and passion
lie. I finally decided that if I was going to write a good book, it had to be
within a genre that I felt passionate about. So I settled on urban fantasy.
Don’t get me wrong – I am planning to include a steamy romance – but the story
is bigger than just the relationship between two people.
So once I had settled on the genre and had a scene in
mind, I started doing some research. I downloaded two books written by K.M.
Weiland – Outlining Your Novel: Map Your
Way to Success and Structuring Your
Novel: Essential Keys for Writing an Outstanding Story. I’m sure that many
authors just start with a blank page and begin writing. One thing you need to
know about me is that I am a planner – I need structure. It was too
intimidating for me to start directionless, with just a blank sheet of paper
staring at me. What if I got halfway through and realized the story didn’t
work? I needed to know where this story was going to start, end and everything
in between – at least at a conceptual level. So I chose to start with an
outline.
Outlining
Your Novel was a very helpful place to begin. I didn’t follow
Weiland’s instructions exactly, but I did follow them closely enough in the
beginning to give me the confidence to find my own way when I reached about
halfway through the book. I bought myself a college-rule spiral notebook, found
a nice gel ink pen, and started scribbling. I do agree that handwriting your
ideas is a much better way to brainstorm. It avoids that temptation to edit and
delete ideas.
With my very high level concept in mind, I started
writing “what if” statements. This is essentially a brainstorming exercise to
let all of the ideas flow, regardless of how crazy they might be. “What if my
character wasn’t human?” “What if my protagonist had amnesia?” And so on. It
helped me explore ideas I may not have considered otherwise.
So don’t wait for that blast of inspiration to slap you
in the face, or that recurring dream to reveal all, or for characters in your
head to whisper the entire story in your ear. If you have experienced any of
those things, I am incredibly jealous of you! But if you haven’t, don’t be
afraid to hunt down that idea and wrestle it to the ground. Sometimes great
ideas just don’t come easy, and you need to work a little bit for them.
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