Behind the scenes

I write stories. I mean, A LOT. Before class, after class, (during class? well only if it's boring. :P) in the car, in bed, with cats, with a mouse, in a house-- whoops! Slipped into Seuss. Sorry about that chief.

I don't just write one continuous story. Oh no! That way I'd be able to finish it! Well we can't have that. I'm sure there's some deep psychological reason for that, but imma move on.

How does one write a story, or many stories?

Starting with inspiration, let us take Wizard101 for example. I am inspired by Wizard101 to write The Adventures of Tristan Shadow. Not only am I inspired by Wizard101, but also I am drawing on the Edwardian and Victorian eras for inspiration as well. Take for example I wanted to have a scene where someone was singing a popular song. So I started researching popular Victorian diddies, and came up with "I do like to be beside the seaside" which was an actual music hall song, and it fit the mood of my scene.

After drawing upon several sources of inspiration, and usually having a conversation in my head that goes something like: Wouldn't it be cool to have a Wizard101 story that was a little film noir, a little Indiana Jones, and a lot of mystery?! Yes, yes it would. With awesome-ly named characters. Always. I start dreaming up plots. What's gonna happen to these characters? What's going to make this interesting? I mostly play with plots in my head right before going to sleep at night, and right before waking up in the morning. Then I can actually see the characters in my mind's eye, running around and working out the kinks in my story.

Then I write.

I like to write by hand. I write down all that comes into my head, refining my general ideas as I go along. This is really where the magic happens. Then usually I leave it. Days, weeks, sometimes months go by and I won't touch the thing. Then I read it again, a new idea comes into my head and I continue writing the story.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Of course this whole "leave it for weeks at a time" scheme is really not recommended if you are trying to get your work published. This is mostly an exercise, to practice writing and to free your brain from cluttering story ideas.

Well there you go. My normal writing practice in a nutshell. And for being so good and getting to the end of this post you get a special surprise. You get a character preview for The Adventures of Tristan Shadow. Somethings have already been altered (Strider is now Storm and not Fire) but there are still some juicy tidbits in there if you are following the story so far.

(clicky clicky for bigger)

I need to get back to writing this story actually. Must free brain from half-baked plot ideas for darn spy stories.

~Heather