Where do stories come from?

There you are, just minding your own business when you hear something, or see something, and that triggers a thought. That thought triggers another thought, and before you know it, your mind is so far away from the original thought that it just seems weird. Plain weird.

So there I am, peeling the vegetables for dinner and it occured to me that it was cold out. I needed a scarf. A blue one, to go with my second favourite coat, the one I use when it is freezing and walking the dog through muddy countryside. So whilst that scarf might have been a very nice shade of blue, it takes three heart beats to move from warmth to quantum hyper drives in the Bindari System, or some such place (Actually it’s now the Du’Sol system but let’s not split hairs). And why would I be in the Bindari system? Well, that’s the last line of defense before the new alien threat arrives. Also, because the scarf is a barrier against cold, this story has to take place on a warm planet. WARM.

Oh course, at this point I am not sure what the threat might be, but a bright blue scarf won’t fix it. Unless the alien is a bright blue ribbon of energy and it’s looking for its mate. Ribbons mating? And there you have it.

And in case you are interested, that plot, albeit relatively ill defined, exists in my head and is waiting for an outlet. It will be told when I finish the Towers books.

Anyway, back to peeling the carrots.

Ideas are not always in one coherent whole, either. The brain collects random ideas, a character, a ship, an emotion, and then, at some point, they join together. Pulled into one body like the heart of a black hole, and no other idea can escape.

I know I have mentioned this before, but in A Touch of Truth, the gravitational pull started with a writing workshop prompt. We had to come up with the perfect attention grabbing first line. We had a total of nine words, the length of a hypothetical average line.

This opening is vital. It sets the scene, draws in the reader, and gets them interested. Mine was this: Blood, blood everywhere.

One line. Three words. For a moment, I thought I would write about the crime thriller I wanted. Except for one minor problem. The characters, or rather one character in particular, who was not really amenable to working in a modern setting. 

“Boo!” she said. As introductions go, I’ve had worse. “My name’s Lucinda, you’ll write about me, and by the way, I want an airship captain.”

Right.

“And don’t forget the blood. Start there.” Then she waves her hands at me. Dismissive creature, and suggests that’s enough to get on with.

So I have blood, an airship captain (because she wants a woman in uniform), and a demanding main character. What next?

“I live in a tower,” she answered. “Where I do magic.”

And so the Touch series was born.

Kinda.