The Muse Returns
The other night, I had the most vivid dream. The dream was a scene right out of a story — a sci-fi/fantasy story (a story with mythical creatures set on an alien planet, to be specific) with some crazy world building.
The scene centered on two characters, male and female, having an interaction that changes both of their lives completely and irrevocably. The guy was a bit of a scoundrel (but with a good heart underneath) and the girl was sassy.
The scene grabbed hold of my imagination and wouldn’t let go until I wrote it down, which I did yesterday. That’s the first thing I’ve written since the holidays, so it felt good.
Sadly, the scene does not stand on its own. It seems that there is more to come in this duo’s story. But if I’m going to continue it, I’m going to have to do some serious world building. It might work as a short story, but part of me wonders if this is more a novel idea. I guess it would depend on what kind of plot developed for the hero and heroine.
My one concern is that the mythical creatures that this story/universe would center around is a type that already has at least one book series written about it. Well, there are actualy tons of novels written about this type of mythical creature, but there is one in particular that takes this type of creature into a more sci-fi twist. I wouldn’t want to come off as being derivative.
Then again, there are only so many ideas/creatures/plots out there in the world. Everything is derivative of something. In my opinion, it’s the trappings that you put on the story elements that give the story its unique personality and its own twist, that feeling of freshness. I can think of three mystery series right now that all deal with cats, and each one has a totally unique feel (thought Midnight Louie rules!). And I don’t even have to get started naming all the vampire books that are out there.
I may start playing around with this idea more seriously while I’m on vacation. I always find that vacations are a great time for writing. I get so much work done then… something about being in a new place, I suppose. Or not being at work!
In other news, when I went over to Every Day Fiction to read today’s story, I saw that “A Million Faces” is back on the top ten stories of all time list. Isn’t that wild? Talk about out of the blue… I wonder what happened. It’s the last one on the list, so I’m sure it won’t stay up there very long, but it gave me a happy to see it there again. I think this is the third time that it’s been up there. “The Care and Feeding of Your Sleeping Kinght” is number 1 on the top stories list for the past 30 days, too, which is also cool.
Hope everyone has a lovely and productive day!
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You’re taking those lists by STORM! Awesome.
So glad to hear about your rockin’ dream and subsequent story. Just do it. Make it your own and no one will care if it’s the same as something else.
I know you can do that.
There. You see. I told you.
Thanks, guys!
heh, it’s funny, slots 6 through 10 on that Top 10 list are all neck and neck. Any of them could get bumped up or down at any time, and it wouldn’t take much to make a big jump from 10 to 6.
[...] have been having the craziest dreams the past few months. I wrote about a month ago about a vivid dream I had that was a scene from a novel — it happened again last [...]