Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

On By jccasselsIn Writing4 Comments

When I was in college, I let my friend Kathie read early versions of Bo and Blade’s story. Without fail, when she finished reading my most recent pages she would look up at me and ask, “Where do you get this stuff?”

That’s a question I’ve been asked a lot as a writer. Ideas and inspiration come from so many sources, it’s hard to narrow them all down. Some are an amalgam of several completely unrelated bits and pieces, others I can trace with pinpoint accuracy to their inspiration.

Here are a few lines from SOVRAN’S PAWN along with the images and places that inspired them —

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“…Bo absently studied the domes and spires of Cormoran’s skyline. “

University of Tampa/Cultural Arts District – photo by Matthew Paulson

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“Because with the sun behind you like it is, your dress is virtually transparent.”

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“…Bo…followed the hostess as she rounded the corner to the east side of the terrace overlooking the glistening bay. Colorful boats danced across the waves. The view was breathtaking. “

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“Brilliant sunlight spilled through the massive wall of large-paned windows that lined the gallery. Behind his sunshades, Blade’s eyes flicked over the parade of Marin ancestors whose portraits lined the opposite wall. “

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“He stepped out onto the sidewalk from the mass-transit station, leaving the cloying odor of exhaust fumes mixed with stale urine behind him. “

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These are just a few of the images and places that have inspired scenes, settings, and even story lines.  Movies, television, magazine articles, paintings, music videos, off-handed comments from friends and family all have made their way into my subconscious and my writing.

There are several more I could post today, but there are some things I just don’t want to share.

Where do you get YOUR ideas?

Saturday Snippet: Red Carpet Risk 1

On By jccasselsIn Black Wing Chronicles, SFFS12 Comments

Welcome to Science Fiction Fantasy Saturday. Snippets of ten sentences or less are yours for the reading!

Today’s snippet comes from Book Two of The Black Wing Chronicles ~ Thinking of going with REQUIEM FOR THE BROKEN WING to make it sound less fluffy.

This week’s snippet is from one of the first scenes written for this book which may not make it to the final draft. After the hovercycle accident is determined to be sabotage, Blade is assigned an IC security detail for the premiere of his latest holofeature, The Watchtower. He’s also got extra security that the IC isn’t aware of in the form of his Joy Babe — none other than Bo Barron herself. Despite the danger to Bo, she’s joined him on Cormoran so she can watch his back. If she’s recognized, she’ll be arrested and executed on the spot. She’s taking position and waiting for Blade to run the media gauntlet down the red carpet.

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Bo found her way to the VIP entrance and took up a position that gave her a clear view of both the crowd and the new arrivals. She shifted her weight so she could more quickly reach the compact palm blaster strapped to her thigh. That tiny energy weapon in its shielded holster was a huge risk. It was illegal for Joy Babes to carry energy weapons of any kind. If someone took another shot at Blade, she wanted to be ready. She would deal with the consequences later.

Blade’s cruiser pulled up to the gate and stopped. Bo took a deeper step into the shadows. Her amber eyes flicked over the crowd and the surrounding buildings.

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That’s the snippet for the week. Thank you for stopping by. Please take the time to visit the other wonderful authors taking part in Science Fiction/Fantasy Saturday!

Have You Played the Letter Game?

On By jccasselsIn Writing3 Comments

Have you ever heard of “The Letter Game?”

It’s very easy to play and a lot of fun. Anyone can play, writer or novice. Any number can play as well. It involves an exchange of letters or emails. The first player establishes his or her character, their situation, why they’re writing letters or emails and the identity of the person or persons with whom they are corresponding. Each player is responsible for developing their character and telling their part of the story. Plot, conflict, setting, and characters can all be developed this way.

The Letter Game has been used as a form of collaborative fiction or as writing exercises. Some books have even found publication after being written this way. In fact, that’s how I came across this game – I read one of the books!

The book was SORCERY AND CECILIA by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. I was captivated by the idea of telling a story in that fashion. I’ve since played the game several times, with friends who were writers and friends who were complete novices, but possessed of excellent imaginations. One of those books has formed the basis for a SF adventure I’ve got simmering on the back burner, UNDERNEATH DEAD STAR. If the title sounds familiar, it’s also the title of a Blade Devon holofeature.

Yes, I do like things all neat, tidy and intertwined.

The great thing about using The Letter Game to tell a story and exercise your writing skills is that the setting and elements are virtually unlimited. DEAD STAR is set on a deep-space outpost on an asteroid near a star that is in its death throes at the edge of the known galaxy. SORCERY AND CECILIA is set in Regency England in an alternate reality in which magic is not uncommon.

Think of all the possibilities!

One of the most frustrating things for writers is the solitary nature of writing. The Letter Game provides a wonderful opportunity to interact with others within our own medium – kind of like a literary jam session, if you will.

In fact, this gives me an idea that I need to pitch to some of my sf writer friends who have suggested we all find a way to collaborate…

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Have you ever tried a collaborative storytelling game?

Imaginary Friends Gone Wild

On By jccasselsIn Writing10 Comments

I received a great compliment yesterday. I was informed that one of my characters has greatly upset the son of a friend by commenting that his girlfriend was cute and asking if she were legal.

It’s a long story, and you can find the short (flash fiction) version here, but I love creating characters, especially rascally males with lopsided grins and a mischievous twinkle in their eyes. Maybe it comes from having three older brothers, eight male cousins, and more than a decade between my sister and me.

This particular character, Raul the Pool Boy, has taken on a life of his own with friends on Facebook, a real job, and an apartment in the Haunted Hospital. When Raul first joined Facebook, my friends were informed of the fact that Raul was a work of fiction and simply an exercise for me in developing characters. They entered into the game with high spirits and great amusement. Over the past three years, many of them have forgotten his beginnings. Some more have even forgotten that he’s fictional. He even has friends of his own! From time to time, I have to remind them. That’s what happened with my friend and her son.

I toy with my characters, getting to know them outside of a formal story, figuring out how they will respond to a given situation. You could say I live with them a while. I haven’t bothered with the cute little writing exercises designed to get to know your characters in more than twenty years. Even then, I found those exercises to be more of a waste of my time than helpful. I really do treat my characters more like imaginary friends than anything else. I guess I’ve never really grown up.

In the early days of my writing, I worked with real-life, non-imaginary friends. Each of us took a character, created it, developed it, and then let them interact with each other and our world, getting to know them by just living with them. Other friends have participated over the years. Yes, it’s very much like role playing games, only we’re making up the rules as we go. For me, this approach has been instrumental in developing the worlds and the characters of the stories that populate my imagination.

Today, that game continues still. Friends have gotten into the spirit of the play adding Raul’s irrepressible mother and his long-suffering sisters to his circle of friends. The friend whose son was upset had to be reminded only last week that Raul was fictional. She didn’t believe me at first, then confessed that she’d believed him to be an undercover DEA agent. Don’t know why. I’ve never made any claims to that. But it makes a good story. I may use that.

My husband is by turns amused by it all and resigned to his lot as the spouse of a writer. He’s actually had this conversation with his own friends:

FR: Who’s this Raul guy that keeps commenting on your wife’s posts on Facebook
DH: He’s the pool boy.
FR: When did you get a pool?
DH: We didn’t.
FR: You don’t have a pool?
DH: No.
FR: But you have a pool boy?
DH: Yes. He lives in the hospital.
FR: Ummmm…

Who says being married to a writer is boring?

Make no mistake, Raul will have a starring role in a contemporary novel in the near future. In the mean time, you can find him hanging out on Facebook and flirting shamelessly when he’s not working.

How do you play with your imaginary friends?

Saturday Snippet: Destiny and Fate

On By jccasselsIn Black Wing Chronicles, SFFS16 Comments

Welcome to Science Fiction Fantasy Saturday. Snippets of ten sentences or less are yours for the reading!

Today’s snippet comes from Book Two of The Black Wing Chronicles~ how does THE BROKEN WING sound?

This week’s snippet is the next few sentences that follow last weeks’ snippet in which Blade is still recovering from the hovercycle crash and he’s still on Kah Lahtrec. Tahar, the strange spiritual guru of the Lahtrecki people is still caring for him.

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Tahar poked the fire again, sending another shower of sparks skyward. “You pursue a fate which will only end in your death, and hers. Without you, she has no chance of meeting her destiny. Without her, you have no chance of meeting yours. Your lives are entwined. That, you know. It is why you protect her from your father. Your future lies with her.”

Blade gaped at the old man. “What do you know about my father?”

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That’s the snippet for the week. Thank you for stopping by. Please take the time to visit the other wonderful authors taking part in Science Fiction/Fantasy Saturday!

Layers Upon Layers

On By jccasselsIn Update, WritingLeave a comment

In my last post From Bones to Hair: Building a Story, I talked about how I build a story layer by layer, building on each draft and adding more details and “fleshing” it out.

I also enjoy drawing. I’m not very good at it, but when I was a child, I chose to devote my energy to learning how to write rather than draw. My aunt was an artist who kept me supplied in Walter Foster books, charcoals and pencils from an early age. It wasn’t until I was expecting my second child that I took a formal drawing class at the local community college to learn better technique.

By that time, I’d been a professional writer for more than ten years and had decided to take time off from writing to be a full-time mom. In that class, I found that drawing is much like building a story.

Recently, I was looking at videos on You Tube, and I came across this one. It illustrates how layering and tweaking and not being afraid to make mistakes is vital to the construct of artistic works. I’m sure if I kept looking, I’d find another video that illustrates the same layering technique for music. This time-lapse video offers a fascinating look at how to build a lifelike drawing. The results are impressive.

From Bones to Hair: Building a Story

On By jccasselsIn Black Wing Chronicles, Update, Writing2 Comments

When I write a new story, I approach it like constructing a building or a living organism. First you lay the foundation (premise), then you build the framework, which I envision as the bones. At this stage, I have the main plot points down and the major scenes are in their place to push the rising and falling action to the climax and the denoument. Some scenes are fully realized, others are brief narratives that describe the action and the purpose of the scene. Anything goes at this point. Anything, no matter how bizarre or disjointed is allowed. That’s the first draft.

The second draft is where the meat and connective tissue are added. In the second draft, I focus on transitional scenes and place the actions and dialog that foreshadow coming events. I beef up and write the scenes that are simple narratives and I look for plot holes and dropped plot lines. Simple scenes that were mostly dialog get blocking and characters start moving around the space. Scenes that do not serve to advance the plot in any way are cut, but saved for reference or re-purposing.

The third draft gets skin. The “skin” hides the technique. Scene and sequel should flow seamlessly. Transitions are smoothed. Passive voice is removed. Grammar is analyzed for consistency. Character reactions are analyzed and tweaked for appropriate response. Stilted dialog is reworked to sound more natural. Characters’ mannerisms and subtle gestures are tweaked. Setting and descriptions take center stage.

The fourth draft is the hair, makeup and clothing. In the fourth draft, typos, overused words and phrases come out. The fourth draft is where the little details are added to ensure that readers are emotionally involved in the story. Everything that doesn’t create immediacy or place the reader in the middle of the action comes out or gets reworked. This is the devilish draft because it takes  so long to complete and the results are not readily apparent to anyone but me. The devil is in the details and the fourth draft is all about the nit-picky details. Upon completion, this is the draft that goes to the beta readers for a final look.

A fifth draft goes to the editors for a figurative photoshopping, and becomes the final draft that makes it to publication.

I don’t know if all writers work this way, but this technique has worked for me because it allows me to write cyclically. Once I have the main points in, I can jump around in the story as details for plot threads solidify in my mind, returning to key points to make sure there is a coherent flow from one to another.

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The first draft of THE BROKEN WING is complete and revisions have already begun on the second draft. Still no concrete date set for its release.

Saturday Snippet: The Holy Man and a Bad Man

On By jccasselsIn Black Wing Chronicles, SFFS15 Comments

Welcome to Science Fiction Fantasy Saturday. Snippets of ten sentences or less are yours for the reading!

Today’s snippet comes from Book Two of The Black Wing Chronicles~  liking the title THE BROKEN WING, how about you?

This week’s snippet is the next few sentences that follow last week’s snippet in which Blade is still recovering from the hovercycle crash and he’s still on Kah Lahtrec. Tahar, the strange spiritual guru of the Lahtrecki people is still caring for him.

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Blade reached for another piece of wood and tossed it onto the fire. A ribbon of sparks spiraled skyward riding on the tendrils of smoke and disappearing into starlit sky.

“You do not see how we could possibly love and accept you.”

Blade’s jaw tightened until he felt a muscle twitch. “If you knew… if you knew the things I’ve done… what I’m capable of…”

“If all men were judged by what they are capable of, everyone would be in prison,” Tahar said.

Blade met Tahar’s eyes squarely. “I’m a bad man, Tahar.”

Tahar smiled. “The difference between a good man and a bad man is that a good man knows he is bad and has the desire to be better.”

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That’s the snippet for the week. Thank you for stopping by. Please take the time to visit the other wonderful authors taking part in Science Fiction/Fantasy Saturday!

Origins of The Broken Wing

On By jccasselsIn Black Wing Chronicles, WritingLeave a comment

With the discussion of a title for Book Two of THE BLACK WING CHRONICLES, several people have asked about the origins of THE BROKEN WING as a possible title. No, it doesn’t refer to Blade’s injuries from the hovercycle race, nor does it refer to Bo’s dislocated shoulder, although both are convenient symbols that just sort of fit.

THE BROKEN WING comes from a passage in SOVRAN’S PAWN. A character quotes from an ancient epic poem from Bo’s people titled Requiem for the Broken Wing.

“When dark clouds gather, when the wind howls through the Bluestone Valley and whispers through the trees atop the Gallis Highlands, when the light of hope is fading, on the rising thunder will come the Black Wing, screaming through the darkness like the avenging hand of the Maker. There will The Barron make his last stand.”

Her ancestors, immortalized in the epic poem known as Requiem for the Broken Wing, had faced a no-win situation and fought fiercely to the last man. Like them, she intended to give a good accounting of herself before drawing her last breath.

The idea for the poem was inspired by stories from our own human history. Stories of courage in the face of certain defeat — of men and women who held impossible battle lines knowing that they had no chance of survival — Thermopylae, the Alamo, Bastogne to name a few.

The “Broken Wing” of the poem refers to the force she commands, the much contested and feared Black Wing, and its decimation following The Barron into that ill-fated last stand so many centuries earlier. It’s no accident that the last book in this series is titled BARRON’S LAST STAND.

As you may know, The Black Wing is Mondhuoun’s precision combat wing. Bo, as The Barron, is its commander. Control of The Black Wing is at the heart of the conflict of this series, so it only makes sense that the titles for the subsequent books come from this epic poem in one fashion or another.

The story arc of THE BLACK WING CHRONICLES isn’t just about Bo’s quest to clear her name, it’s about the sacrifices made by a young ruler to keep her people from becoming embroiled in a war against the Commonwealth that they can’t win. In the process, she faces betrayal at the hands of those she trusts.

So at the risk of giving away too much of what you can expect to find in Book Two, THE BROKEN WING isn’t about happy endings or learning to fly again as much as it is about facing an impossible situation with courage and determination. In that respect, I think the title fits.

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What are some stories of courage in the face of no-win, impossible situations that have inspired you?