In case you missed it Saturday, my current WIP (and focus for this
month) is called A View that Lacks Stars. It's my NaNo from two years
ago and was inspired 1) by a child bride I meet and 2) ...some type
of story prompt on some website or another. I'm guessing the NaNo
forums, cuz during my PC service it was pretty much only that and
Facebook.
Anyway, this idea was of a serial killer taking a fancy to someone he
sees in a coffee shops and starts bringing girl small gifts from the
kills to start the wooing process. Cat's bring you dead birds, serial
killers bring you cufflinks with blood on the back of them.
But
as I've been instructed a few times via Writing
Excuses,
you never go with the original idea. Twist it, go beyond, and make it
your own.
Thus, the MMC in Stars isn't a serial killer. His dad instead is a
mercenary, okay, assassin, who has a habit of taking tokens from his
kills and adding them to a shrine for his dead wife. And what would
happen if kid then re-gifts these tokens to his crush and one of the
hundreds of them just happens to have belonged to her recently killed friend?
You have a story, that's what.
On a space station. Cuz I like space.
So A View that Lacks Stars came about due to a marriage of plot and
character inspiration. That's quite rare for me, it's usually a 'what
if' situation that does the job and then poking and prodding at it.
This is also the first novel I feel super invested in to move it
beyond the first draft and I totally blame my first inspiration for
that.
Twisting an idea is a great way to create a plot. And it's exciting that you're so excited by it. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteIt's always interesting to see how things develop, that's for sure.
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