Ideas – Atomic Slingshot Press

Area 51, Projects and Too Many Ideas

As a writer, I am often asked where do I get my ideas from. As you may have read in previous blog posts, I have discussed how I get ideas multiple times, and I won’t be repeating them.

However, to sum up, I pick a few basic ideas, then ask a thousand question about them to form a solid idea and story.

I have it so that I can pull up an idea out of almost anything. In the last week, I have been asked if I wanted to submit a short story with a speedy turnaround. The story would be centered around the Area 51 meme going around.

I’m partway through the short story that I am writing it for the anthology. It’s going well, but that’s not the important part. The important part is that I was able to form a story in a short amount of time. Luckily for me, I’m able to keep it small and compact.

For me, the issue is not that I no story ideas on the go, but that I have too many. For right now, I’m going to give a short recap of some of the story ideas. Some of them are only ideas, while others I am waiting for a cover.

Published Works

Felix the Swift

A trilogy set in my Agersolum universe. It’s about a thief who becomes a master mage and seeks to save all of Magic. The first book can be found here.

Tokyo Tempest

A trilogy where a high school kid has to somehow survive in Tokyo after Yellowstone blows up. The first book can be found here.

O’Neal Trilogy

A trilogy set in my Beyond Terra Continuum universe. Where a high schooler is forced into the world of espionage. The first book can be found here.

Works in Progress

Those three trilogies aren’t complete yet. They have other books on the go and will be published when they can. Some of my other trilogies:

Jovian Marines

Set in my Beyond Terra Continuum universe where the Jovian Marines are left for dead on an enemy-occupied planet. So far a trilogy is planned.

Mech Warrior

Mech Warrior is a working title for a trilogy. Set in my Beyond Terra Continuum universe where it is a mix of lost in space and Mech Warrior.

VR Game

This story I had been puzzling with for a while before I decided to start writing. I wanted a stand-alone novel, but it is going to be a trilogy. Trapped in a VR game where a players death would mean their real death.

Cornucopolus

Set in a world where gods, demons, demi-gods, and angels walk among the people. The heir to a dead clan must find a way to get revenge for the death of his people. All while risking slavery, and death.

The Game

Set in my Beyond Terra Continuum universe. It can be called the origin story of the story-verse. Alien beings kidnap a million people to fight to the death in a game for nefarious means. I want it to be a trilogy; however, it will end up much longer.

Eloc the Warrior

Set in my Agersolum world about a young serf being thrust into the army to fight for a noble lord he had never met. This will be a trilogy.

Mal Kil, the Pirate

Another set in my A\gersolum world about the heir to a noble house. He is betrayed by his older brother and cast out into the world one step ahead of his brother’s assassins.

These are only small samples of the ideas and the plot of the story. I’m hoping to get through some of the first trilogies to get to the later ones. Cause they are all calling my name and want attention. Some of them are getting pretty shrill.

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Dealing with my Idea Cancer

As the title of this post may suggest, I have a problem. It’s a bad problem for an author to have in many ways.

As you may know, I have a set list of projects that I wish to get done this year. Many of which are first drafted and ready to be edited. My major problem in that regard is that I need to get more editing done and move some of those first drafted stories down the production line.

But that is only one problem that I have. Above my desk is a two-foot by four-foot cork board filled with cards of the different novels and worlds that I am working on.

Here is an image of the cork board:

Each column is a story world, each card is a novel or short story. You can see the number of different stories that I want to write. It is a little overwhelming at times. The problem is that this week I have added three more cards onto the board. That is three more stories that I want to tell.

As my wife says, “There is no cure for idea cancer.”

The novel ideas that form in my head multiple like rabbits, grow like dandelions or mutate like cancer. It is a difficult thing to deal with Idea Cancer. Each novel idea wants attention, and its story told. However, I only have so much time in the day.

What do you do when you discover you have idea cancer?

The first thing is not to ignore the idea. Damning the ideas is not a good thing. It leads to an idea drought that will hurt an author more.

The best thing I do is to recognize that I’m not going to change projects. (Unless it has been years without being complete, but that is a different problem.) The project that I’m working on needs to be completed. Getting distracted by a new idea is not the way to do it.

I take a few minutes and write down the idea. I don’t elaborate, but write notes. I will stick the idea someplace to keep track of it and remind myself of the idea for later.

The idea is not to let it distract me too much.

Right now the idea I had is a story where the players of a VRMMO get stuck in the video game. It is like an earworm. No matter how long I shout, “Get out of my head foul beast!” It won’t go away.

I have written some of the world building for the story, and I’m happy with what I have created so far. It’s a Siren, calling out to me from the waves. I will resist this and not change projects. I have a list of stories I wish to get to and I will.

Now, this is not to downplay those with Real Cancer. Cancer is a horrible disease, and I wish the best to any that get it. The imagery on the issue is a strong metaphor that seems to work. And it’s bloody funny.

If you like what you are reading and wish to support me in my endeavours, please sign up to my newsletter, visit my Amazon Author Page and purchase one of my books. Or buy me a coffee. Your help and support are much appreciated.

Dealing with Runaway Ideas

As a novelist and a creative, I deal with ideas. They are my creative lifeblood. I live on new ideas and new stories.

One of the projects that I’m working on are a few short stories for some anthologies that I heard about through the grapevine. So I’ve been writing the short stories in between my other larger novels.

The problem that has shown its face is that the story I’m writing was designed to be a 10k word story. However, I’m 4k into it, and I am nowhere near where the story needs to be for the word count.

Judging by where the story is and basing its length based on that, it wants to be a 50k to 60k novel. I’m sure the editor in charge of the anthology would be more than willing to stamp ‘rejected’ on my application. I may even get a rejected letter back.

This is not a problem only faced by novelists. It is felt by painters, illustrators, graphic artists, podcasters and more. When a simple project was the intent, yet as the project ticks by on its way to completion, the project snowballs.

It grows and expands, takes a life on its own. The image becomes more substantial, more detailed, and takes more time.

With my short story, it is intended for a specific anthology which is looking for a particular style of short story within a specific genre. I’m attempting to write it based on his guidelines. The story wanting to be 60k words isn’t in the guidelines.

What to do about it?

The simple solution, if I didn’t have a full writing dock, is to write the 60k words. Come up with a new short story for the anthology. Maybe using the same story world, and the same characters.

If I can justify squeezing it into my schedule, maybe I will. If not, I may push it to next year.

For the other creatives, what do they do? It comes along the lines of either buckling down and finishing the project or tossing it aside.

Each creative must decide what to do about each Runaway project on their own. Their decision will take into account their own circumstances.

Story Ideas: When to Abandon?

At some point in the process of melding a story into gold, you may have to abandon the story. The gold, turns into a mirage, fools good, banga dung. There are two main reason’s why authors abandon a story.

Wait… I Saw This Movie Before

During the process of asking questions and figuring out how the story, you may run into the situation that you have realized that you have “seen this movie before.” When it happened to me the first time, I had to sit back and stare in disbelief. I wondered if I was really suited for the writing life. This is the mirage, the fools gold.

Intentional

However, it is not a bad thing if you took the movie as an inspiration. When you were coming up with the base few ideas to develop the story idea from, and one of them was a character, place, scene or thing-a-whatsit, then having that show through the developed idea is not a bad thing as it was intentional.

If that is the case, it is not the time to panic. The solution, -simply stated, but not simply to implement- is to think of some twists and differences that were nowhere near the movie that you took the inspiration from. The idea is that finding something that is the opposite of what you wanted to do. It is adding another base idea. If it is done well, it’ll give the story the uniqueness that you are looking for.

Unintentional

If the story resembles a movie where you didn’t intend to have any type of resemblance, then you may have a more significant problem. Your subconscious has been writing the story. This may or may not be a big deal. The first course of action is not to do anything drastic. Put the lights ad hammers down. No need to burn the notebooks. It will be fine. The next thing to do is to put your story idea away and ignore it for a few months. Work on something else.

After the while has passed, go back to it and read your notes and the idea. Does it still resemble the movie that you have seen? How bad of a resemblance? As per the first part of the blog series, all stories are built out of other stories. The similarity may be to a level that it may be okay to leave. In which case, keep going.

If it is at a moderate level, then you may be able to add an opposite idea to diversify the story idea. However, if it is at a major scale, the level where it is evident that anyone may see the resemblance, then this is a major problem. At this case, it may be time to pull out the lighter and to kill it with fire.

Well not that far, but it is time to put the notes away into a dead story file and to move on. Use some individual components of the story idea and use them, but on the whole, the story isn’t worth pursuing.

SQUIRREL

The other reason why a story gets abandoned is not the fault of the story, but the creator. This is what I call a squirrelled story. This is when the author finds a new story to work on before he is done with the first story. This happens to many authors in the course of there writing careers.

They are working diligently on a story when they get a brainwave on another story. They then up there current work on hold to chase after the squirrel. This is not good productivity wise as there will always be another squirrel.

I know, as I have seven unfinished novels that I have been working on throughout a few years that I need to finish. That is a major part of my goals for this year. I need to finish those stories.

The best way to deal with these squirrels is to not ignore the ideas, however, don’t chase them either. Write down the idea into a notepad and file it away. Go back to them once the current novel is complete. Finding story ideas is a learned skill that needs the practice necessary to keep at a functioning level. If you ignore the ideas, you risk losing that skill. If you chase ever story idea that you come across, then nothing will ever get finished.

That’s it for this series, next month will be a whole new series. Stay tuned for more next Sunday.

Story Ideas: How to Achieve Gold

You have the basis of a story idea, and now you’re wondering what to do next. Having a thousand good ideas are great and all, but unless you can figure out how to flesh them out into a story, then they are the equivalent to mental masturbation. Luckily you, dear reader, you have come to the right place. Not for the masturbation part, but the ‘flesh out my ideas part.’

In this week’s blog post, I will go over some strategies on what you can do to turn your basic story idea into something that can form a novel or three. To start off the post, I will discuss some different types of ideas that you may have and questions to ask. Please note that these are generalizations and it is okay to deviate as you see fit.

The Basic Idea

Each basic idea, or melding of ideas as I discussed in last weeks post, starts off a different set of questions. The ideas come in all shapes and sizes, from small cute things to massive gargantuan, all-encompassing-ideas. This is an essential point to understand as no two ideas are the same and can’t be looked at the same way.

Genre

No matter the story idea, the first I do after the basic idea is selected is assign it a genre. Genres are unimportant, yet one of the most critical aspects to any story. I will go over this later in more detail, but for now, genres allow for the easy conveying of information in a story without having to write a college thesis on it.

Basic Idea Type: Character

I have written a few books based on a cool character that I could not get out of my mind. With characters, I start my questions with them. They will be things like age, hair colour, weight and then moving onto more important aspects. Upbringing, past experiences, political leanings, etc. In short, I will create the character– when creating story ideas based on a single person, it is easier if you have a full character in mind. But honestly, those items have little importance to a story idea.

Once that is done, I will start to piece together small parts of the world. Please note: this is not world building. Not yet. Story idea creation will often meld into world-building, but at this stage, it is not essential to go into those details. Right now, it is important to flesh out what the story will be. If it is a military sci-fi and the character is a Captain of the Royal Guards, then who is he the guard of? What nation? What war? Has the war started? Who are they fighting?

That last question is important, once you get to the subject of the antagonist, unless it is man vs nature, there should be a bad guy. Who is the nemesis causing the Captain all the sleepless nights? He or she should be well thought out following one of my rules that the antagonist should be as well thought out as the protagonist and he should be the hero in his own story. That will be a subject of a future blog post, but it is an important post. Unless you want a bond villain, from the enemies POV, he should have some type of justification for his actions.

Once the villain is selected, then the conflict can come out. Conflict equals story. If you need to fill three books of ninety thousand words, then it should be complicated and well thought out, yet easy to summarize down to a single sentence to answer the annoying question of what the story is about.

Basic Idea Type: Thing-a-whatsit

Sometimes, you may have an idea of a cool thing. A beater sword. A mech warrior. A magic system. Whatever. Like any story idea it will start first with setting the genre, but this type has a different importance to selecting a genre. If you have an idea about a really cool laser rifle and you want to write based around that, then knowing the genre changes things. If it is a sci-fi, there is little that you need to explain for the essential functions. There are enough tropes in the sci-fi genre that will make it easy to tell.

However, what if the laser rifle was in a fantasy setting? How would it work? Magic? Some type of crystals? Imagine the possibilities.

Taking the idea of the laser rifle in a fantasy setting, the next step is to flesh things out and expand. I recommend selecting a cool main character to use the rifle. However, you can go to the world and start to piece it together. Who is fighting who? Are they fighting? Who is the enemy? What type of conflict is it? It can be a man vs man, but it doesn’t have to be. You could use the fantasy laser rifle idea and write a man vs animals and monsters just as easy.

Basic Idea Type: Scenes

I have written a story where the first idea that I had was a single cool scene. To start, after I selected a genre, I fleshed things out. I did some world building and created the conflict. Then I picked the character and kept building.

In Short

Did you notice the similarities between creating stories using a basic story idea method? They all are based around creating a character to write about in a specific genre with a conflict to propel the story.

Once you have the basic building block, build it up piece by piece making sure to keep the idea that the protagonist and antagonist need to be fleshed out and worth reading about.

Story Ideas: How to Create something Unique

As I talked about in the previous post, I made the assertion that all ideas have been done before and the same plots exist in many different movies and books. I used the example of the Avatar Movie and how the basic plots of it are the same as the story of Pocahontas and Dances with Wolves.

But that is not the important part of those movies. What makes those stories work so well is not how they are all the same, but how they are all different. Each of the authors took the same basic concept and went in a different direction.

Some of the areas that were different were the settings, from the American West to the New World to the planet of Pandora. They also took similar, but different methods of who the protagonist is and who the bad guys are.

Those are how each of the stories is interesting and not a carbon copy of the others.

How do the authors think up ideas?

First, I don’t know how the individual authors came up with their ideas. However, I am sure they didn’t intentionally take the Pocahontas idea and set it in the future. From talking to many different authors, most of them don’t deliberately seek to write a story written by others. They all want to write something initially theirs.

Second, each author has a different way of coming up with his basic story ideas. If you ask a thousand authors, you will come up with a thousand different ways of coming up with story ideas. Hell, each story idea that I come up with comes a different way.

Different ways to generate ideas.

Many authors read newspapers looking for stories. Sometimes finding a news article about an event will trigger an idea for a story. Others go to bars or coffee shops. Eavesdropping on a conversation will come up with a story. I have come up with a story idea through reading books, historical events, news, local events, and many others. I have come up with stories from many different activities and places.

The idea is to not set your mind in stone about how to get the basic story idea. Also not to discard a primary story idea cause it is unoriginal. I proved in the previous post that no basic idea is original. Take the basic idea as they come. Write it down, it may be made out of pure gold.

There is a caveat, the best story ideas are where the author takes two or more unoriginal story ideas and melds them together uniquely and originally. Like Pokemon and the Lost Roman Legion.

Just the Beginning

What many beginning authors forget are the ideas that they ‘stole’ are only the first step. Like Jim Butcher taking Pokemon and the Lost Roman Legion to use in a story. To come up with an original story, it is the next step that is important. When a basic story idea is selected, there is still the rest of the story to be developed.

Once you have your basic ideas, it is time to start asking questions. Some authors do a mind map at this point, or they write out a questionnaire. Each author has a different method to flesh out their idea. For me, I do a questionnaire.

I write the idea down and start asking questions. I have a book that I am currently writing about a MechWarrior. By asking questions like how were the mechs built? Where are they? What type of society has mechs?

By asking those questions to be answered, you get more questions. After those questions get answered- you get the point.

This is where the uniqueness of the story comes out. This is where the author melds and mixes ideas together to create gold. This is the stage that the reader sees and claims that the author is a genius.

In the next week’s post, I will go over specific strategies on different ways for you to take your writing to the next level.

Story Ideas: Original or Rip-Offs

Like the blog posts that I wrote in January, the posts that I write in February will be about a single theme.

This month’s theme will be centered on writing and the ideas necessary to writing a good book.

My Basic Thoughts

A lot of wannabe writers want to write a novel but are paralyzed from starting a book as they haven’t “found the correct idea yet.” I have heard wannabe novelists claiming that they have to “ponder and muse over an idea for a year” before they are satisfied that it is “original enough to write.”

I call bullocks to all of that.

The Hard Truth

Every plot has been told before. If you look back at different stories told, you will see similarities. Not just easy, simple similarities, but large story encompassing stories. The “Avatar” movie is a prime example of this.

From the website businessinsider.com, (https://www.businessinsider.com/movies-with-the-same-plot-2013-4#10-gran-torino-and-up-10) it lists a series of different movies that have the same plot as each other. Yet each movie is different than the next. This is what is written in the section about Avatar.

Plot: A man joins up with natives to learn their culture and exploit them. He ends up falling in love with their way of life—and one of their women—and leads them to victory over those trying to take advantage of their resources.

This is the plot of not only “Avatar” but of “Pocahontas,” “Dances With Wolves,” and “Fern Gully”

From IMDB about Avatar.

A paraplegic marine dispatched to the moon Pandora on a unique mission becomes torn between following his orders and protecting the world he feels is his home.

Replace paraplegic marine with English sailor and the moon Pandora to Virginia and you have the plot of Pocahontas. Even the biblical story of Moses has the same plot.

Does that mean that one author stole the story from the one before? That it “ripped it off?”

How One of the Great Authors got one Great Idea.

One of the big mainstream authors currently writing is Jim Butcher. He is famous for his Dresden Files series. He wrote a series called Codex Alera.

From the Wikipedia page for Codex Alera.

The inspiration for the series came from a bet Butcher was challenged to by a member of the Del Rey Online Writer’s Workshop. The challenger bet that Butcher could not write a good story based on a lame idea, and he countered that he could do it using two lame ideas of the challenger’s choosing. The “lame” ideas given were “Lost Roman Legion”, and “Pokémon.”

Here is the link to the interview.

My Thoughts in Detail

Ideas are a dime a dozen. Like the trading card blister packs that kids buy at the comic book store. Some of the ideas are good, some are bad. However, it is subjective and all depends on what the kid has in her deck already. To some without anything to use yet, any card is good, while others that have been collecting for longer, they are looking for specific cards.

However, that metaphor doesn’t go far enough. It is like collecting cards for “Magic the Gathering.” Despite buying a blister pack and getting ‘lame’ cards, a good player can use those lame cards to his advantage. They can beat players with better cards just as easy as those without.

It is the same with story ideas. A good author will use whatever story idea the have to it’s greatest effect. Like the story of the Lost Roman Legion and Pokemon, using simple ideas that aren’t connected or poorly connected to form a story will produce fresh stories. These stories at their cores will be rehashes from previous stories, but they will be told in a fresh way that will delight readers and audiences.

In the next few weeks, I will go over some strategies that I use to develop my stories.

Nate’s Ramblings

So today’s blog is brought to you by forgetfulness. You see, this is not the blog post that I had intended to write today. I had planned to write something completely different. I had even written it down… on a tiny piece of paper that I have misplaced.

I have heard tales of prominent authors, ones that have large deals with the big 5, who go into periods of dread and despair when they finish a book. They have no more ideas on a new novel. What to write? The well is dry.

I don’t have that problem. I get so many that I have to beat the ideas away with a large stick. A large one wrapped with nails and the broken tears of innocents. You see, as a creative, I get many ideas. I have blogged about it before. Many times. I have many, they come at me frequently and often.

When you get ideas, the best thing that you can do is to write them down. But tiny piece of scrap papers is not the way to go. You misplace it, and it is gone. Then when you finally get time to write the excellent note down, you can’t. Cause the idea is gone. Like the sands of time.

But what do you do? My solution is to use a bigger notebook. Have a couple. Label the notebooks for what you want to talk about. Like that story idea that you want to write, but you have other projects on the go. Give that idea a notebook. Just a small 80 page one. Put it where you can find it easily. Then put the notes and the brainwaves in there where you need it.

You see, I am not that organized of a person. I make significant efforts to be, but I am not. I am learning, however. I find that spending the extra time being organized first, as you do the work saves a lot of time from doing it later.

I hope that you have enjoyed this rambling blogs and I find that note for what I want to talk about. I am thinking a series of blogs about the same topic.

Until next time.

Wow. Where did the time go?

So things have changed for me and my family. But first I would like to apologize for the months of radio silence. I didn’t intend on it, but it happened.

You see, we have moved. Down south, on an island. Near the ocean. My family and I have moved from the cold north of central BC to Vancouver Island. To Nanaimo to be exact. Why you may ask?

Blame my wife. She applied and got accepted into VIU and is now a university student. Her instagram account and her wonderful art can be seen at the link below.

https://www.instagram.com/gracepedde/?hl=en

My kids are going to elementary school. Here is a pic of them on picture day. I have to get them ready all by myself. That was the best that I could do…

Me, I am still writing. I am currently prepping for NaNoWriMo this year. If you are doing it, add me as a buddy. My name is N A Pedde. Just mention that you saw my blog.

Here is another pic. This one is my book board.

Each card is a novel or novella or a short story that I am working on. Each column is the different series that I am working on. The line on the right are all of my story ideas.

There you go. In a nutshell. Well, not really. There is more to tell. But that will have to wait on a future blog post.

Hopefully it won’t be as long as this one was.

Until next time.

Story Ideas: How to use an idea and turn it into something your own.

Youtube sucks.

More importantly, it is a time suck. I get stuck on it and I watch videos. I lose track of time and then nothing gets done. But sometimes I find inspiration in the piles of videos. So I came across this:

I am a fan of the show. I own a couple seasons, but I haven’t found the time to finish watching all of them. I do watch some of the battle scenes on Youtube as they tend to be well done and are fairly close to historically accurate for TV/ Movies.

For those that aren’t familiar with the show, the story of the series is the one of Ragnar Lodbrok. Ragnar was a Norse Chieftain and then king in the 9th Century. He was the father of historical figures like Ivar the Boneless, Björn Ironside, Halfdan Ragnarsson, Hvitserk, Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye and Ubba. I am not going to go into too many details about the series, but I will kinda throw some spoilers in. But they aren’t really spoilers as it deals with historical facts and myths.

In history, Ragnar had raided his way across Northern Europe and had a bunch of sons. He had, however, pissed King Ælla of Northumbria. At one point, Ragnar was captured by the vengeful king. Who tortured him and threw him into a pit of snakes. Ragnar’s sons, all six of them, gathered a large army and then invaded Northumbria and Wessex, killing the king and taking large tracks of land.

In this scene, Odin, the Norse God, goes around to each of the Ragnar’s sons and tells them that their father is dead. Each son is doing something different. They are in different parts of the world, from the Mediterranean to working at the forge on a sword.

The scene is wonderful and works well in the TV series. They include the symbolism of the crows/ ravens and the wandering god in different parts of the show so that this scene is foreshadowed and is enjoyable.

I enjoyed the scene so much that I want to use it in my own writing.

But taking that scene is plagiarism. Right?

Wrong. Kinda. It’s complicated.

If I take the entire scene as is and use it in my novel word for word. As if that scene was written down into a book, then it would be plagiarism. But I am not going to do that.

First, I need to break down the scene into it’s different parts. To do that, I watch it a couple more times, on mute. With subtitles so I can see what they characters are saying. But they don’t say much.

The different parts.

The sons.

They are all established characters. No time is needed to establish anyone. You have met them before. They are well developed characters. So for me to use this scene, I must have the characters established and well developed. I don’t think that I need to be sons though. I am thinking more like blood-brothers. Or members of a type of knightly order. Something like that.

Time.

As the characters are established, this is not an opening scene. Which is why it works for this story. For my story, I am thinking that it can be either the first plot point or the second. I am leaning the first. Establish the characters and then force them to get together.

The Crows, or ravens.

This is something that I will be taking from the scene. Having the God character preceded by Raven’s is something that can carry over to my novel. It adds stability to the character and foreshadows events in the story.

The God.

In the scene, it is Odin who is telling the son’s about their dad. In my story, it doesn’t have to be a father-God. It can be any type of God that does it. He just has to wander around watching people. I can make him less sinister looking that Odin was. But the character was also established. If you look up the opening scene of the TV show, you see him taking souls with him from a battlefield. In my book, I will have to establish him as a character, even if he gets no lines and is only seen from a distance.

Those are the different parts of the scene. Some can be taken as is, some can be tweaked, making the scene feel similar, without the nasty issue of plagiarism. But where and how do I turn this idea, into a non-plagiarized story?

My Manuscripted Universes.

I have many books in the works, with the vast majority of them in the development stage. I do try and keep my world building down to a minimum. World building is a pain at times and I would rather do it as few times as possible.

I have three major fantasy story universes. Here is a problem, this story concept may not fit into any world that I have created at the moment. It may fit into one, the biggest one. ‘Agersolum’. But maybe not.

That means that if I want to seriously consider this story, then I will have to create or modify a world. But the idea is a good one.

Where to go from here?

That is the next question to ask.

You have found a kernel of an idea. A small flame. How to turn that single scene into a story.

First, I pick a world. You might not have that issue. If you do not, don’t worry about the world. You can do it after you flesh out the story a bit.

After I choose a world, I start asking questions.

In no particular order, these are some of the questions that I need to ask and answer to create this story.

Who does the God tell the Sons about?
Was he important in the world, and in the story?
Was he a POV character?
Was he a protagonist of some kind?
What did he do to deserve his fate?
Who did it to him?
Why did he die?
Could he have saved himself?
Did he sacrifice himself?
What did he do to get the attention of the God?
Who are the son’s?
Why are they important?
How is each son different from the next one?
How many son’s are there? (Ragnar had six. I don’t need to use six.)
Are they good fighters?
What are they up to?
How many are POV characters?
What are there reactions to the news?
What is the God, the God of?
What is his purpose?
What do the son’s do with the news?

As I answer the questions, they lead to more questions, which will also need answers.

For those that don’t have a story universe to write it in, now is the time to add in questions about the world. Draw a map, etc.

That way a story will slowly form out of a single simple idea that I saw at 2am on Youtube.

Until next time.