Ideas

A story for me usually begins with a single "seed crystal" idea which is usually something very simple. Some examples of these ideas: A story about two women, one sweet and feminine and the other brash and tough and adventurous. A story about an older woman who is a leader, a role model and an educator in a male dominated world,. or story about a place which is quiet and peaceful and full of utterly conventional people living very 'normal' lives, and yet which is intrinsically fantastic and strange - A caravan park where they rent sites to UFOs, for instance.

Where do I get these ideas from? I have two major sources: The first is from books I read and the second is dreams. I have some very vivid and interesting dreams and often they provide material for my writing. I also find it useful to think about problems in my stories before I go to sleep and sometimes I'll dream up a solution. Movies provide an occasional useful idea and sometimes pictures or posters are the basis for something as well.

Sometimes an idea is so compelling that it just burns itself straight from my mind onto the keyboard. This is the classic "story which writes itself", and all writers love this gift from the Muse. Mostly, though, an idea needs to be developed and planned.

World Building

Fantasy and SF writers are lucky enough in that they get to write stories set somewhere other than the boring old Real World. In fact they have the unparalleled opportunity to create their own worlds. I hope everyone reading this will be inspired to go away and create a fantastic world of their own.

Far, far too much fantasy is set in a "Generic" fantasy world based on standard ideas. Be different! Instead of setting your next story on a clone of Middle Earth, try writing a story set in a place with a unique history, geography, climate, magic and set of races.

Even just changing one of these parameters can have sufficient flow on effects to give your worlds a different flavor. Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea trilogy, for instance, is set in a world much like Middle Earth in terms of magic and culture, but the geography is one of thousands of tiny little islands.

If you'd like to be truly daring, change all of them!

How about a story about say, an older female role model and educator set in a world with a history and culture of right wing libertarian anarchy? In this culture people don't believe in government and their practice is to defend their own little patch by themselves. They refuse to co-operate with armies or governments or tax men.

The geography could be a vast maze of canyons with inhospitable desert above but fertile watered ground down in the canyons. The people could live in caves or adobe cliff houses or villages. The climate might be hot and dry for most of the year, but with a monsoon season for three or four months where it rains practically all the time.

Magic might be something inborn, not able to be trained but rather wielded instinctively. It is limited to shape changing, telepathy or short range teleportation, but never more than one gift at a time, and it only occurs in men, never women. The race might be similar to humans but with wings, feathered, and able to glide short distance.
A fantasy set in this world should have a more original flavor than if it were set in a more generic world. Try it - build your own world with its own distinct parameters and imagine the kind of stories you might set there. Drawing a map can give you ideas too.

Character Development

Every story needs characters. Let's take this story I seem to be planning about the woman educator. We need to get to know her better in order to tell her story. We now know that she's not human, she's a kind of winged, feathered being - kind of like an angel who lives in a far off canyon world.

When you're dealing with the strange, a name really helps you to pin things down. Let's call the people Angeli, and their world, well, it doesn't need a name, but their country, the landscape of canyons can be called The Great Maze. What's most important is a name for the character.

Because I write a lot of stories, I go through a lot of names and it's difficult to be original. For non-earth names there's an RP site called The Cave which has a good name generator.

I've chosen a name for our winged heroine - Fraessi, an Angeli woman of the Great Maze. Since we're writing about a libertarian anarchy the individual family unit will be the most important structure. It seems likely that it will either be male dominated - a patriarchy, or female dominated - a matriarchy. Either one could provide an interesting basis for conflict. Let's say it's a patriarchy.

Fraessi then, can be the daughter of Graelin, of the Clan of Ethakin in the village of Pirikor. Do you see the power of names? Already she feels much more like a real person.

We also have to think about her history, what her ambitions are, and what people and forces are going to stand in her way. Much of this, however, will have to be woven into the plot of the story, and I'll consider plotting and plot development next month.