Post by fluke on Nov 21, 2012 16:15:29 GMT -5
In another thread, Joel P brought up how we often get to writing, things are going well, and then SQUIRREL! I thought this would be a good place to discuss our own squirrel ideas.
An example of that is "The Strong Survive." I didn't have a title. I just knew that Granish met Karina and did something heroic. I knew it needed to be written, so without an outline or even a full concept, I got started. I was a couple of scenes in and floundering because declaring a story to be cool doesn't make it so. I knew how the Sachalin society worked, and Karina played the outsider gypsy to ask questions well, but it had no teeth. Of all things, I started reading an Iron Man comic, and the villain, The Mandarin, made a statement, "the strong survive, the stronger rule." Boom. That perfectly summed up Sachalin society. I had my title. I had direction (in a society that worships strength, what happens to those deemed weak?), I even had a sequel title and direction! At that point, I started my snowflake.
Another example of an idea from a squirrel has to do with my current WIP, "Once Called." It's part three of what started as a stand-alone story, "New Life." Glyn Shull read NL and said it screamed for a sequel. I started toying with the idea of where would Derke (NL's main character) go next? Well, since NL was a survival story (how will Derke make it through this alive?), I couldn't do that again. Derke had hit rock bottom in some ways, so I decided to chip away at his security and dig below the bottom in "This Body of Death." I decided it should be more mysterious than NL, so worked out my snowflake from that concept. And squirrels pulled it here and there, but only on the edges. The main flow of the story was strengthened by those squirreled details.
I had barely finished TBoD when the inspiration for part three struck, and that is "Once Called." Like the others, I snowflaked, but it's still growing in ways that I don't expect. When it started, the main theme was purpose and calling, and that is still a major theme, but the minor plot of Derke's attraction to Syantere' has grown and grown. I honestly never expected the romantic subplot to be so much fun to write!
Likewise, I had barely written the concept for OC when inspiration for the third Granish story struck. That will be called "The Strongest Suffer," and it's next in the hopper. And that means "To Cleanse the Leper," "My Brother's Keeper," and "My Enemy, My Ally" get to wait.
An example of that is "The Strong Survive." I didn't have a title. I just knew that Granish met Karina and did something heroic. I knew it needed to be written, so without an outline or even a full concept, I got started. I was a couple of scenes in and floundering because declaring a story to be cool doesn't make it so. I knew how the Sachalin society worked, and Karina played the outsider gypsy to ask questions well, but it had no teeth. Of all things, I started reading an Iron Man comic, and the villain, The Mandarin, made a statement, "the strong survive, the stronger rule." Boom. That perfectly summed up Sachalin society. I had my title. I had direction (in a society that worships strength, what happens to those deemed weak?), I even had a sequel title and direction! At that point, I started my snowflake.
Another example of an idea from a squirrel has to do with my current WIP, "Once Called." It's part three of what started as a stand-alone story, "New Life." Glyn Shull read NL and said it screamed for a sequel. I started toying with the idea of where would Derke (NL's main character) go next? Well, since NL was a survival story (how will Derke make it through this alive?), I couldn't do that again. Derke had hit rock bottom in some ways, so I decided to chip away at his security and dig below the bottom in "This Body of Death." I decided it should be more mysterious than NL, so worked out my snowflake from that concept. And squirrels pulled it here and there, but only on the edges. The main flow of the story was strengthened by those squirreled details.
I had barely finished TBoD when the inspiration for part three struck, and that is "Once Called." Like the others, I snowflaked, but it's still growing in ways that I don't expect. When it started, the main theme was purpose and calling, and that is still a major theme, but the minor plot of Derke's attraction to Syantere' has grown and grown. I honestly never expected the romantic subplot to be so much fun to write!
Likewise, I had barely written the concept for OC when inspiration for the third Granish story struck. That will be called "The Strongest Suffer," and it's next in the hopper. And that means "To Cleanse the Leper," "My Brother's Keeper," and "My Enemy, My Ally" get to wait.