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How do I develop stories? What is the process I go through to take an idea from concept to completion? Well, I’m glad you asked. I love stories. I adore the process of creating a book from a single idea . And make no mistake, every book came from a single idea. Rarely have those ideas come because I sat down and tried to create them. Instead, most of my book ideas come from the tiny moments.

For example, The Cheyenne Dances in Moonbeams series came from a Pinterest post . I was burning up time one day. Playing on Pinterest. A great place to play when you are bored. Anyways, for some reason I found myself looking at survival shelters . This led me to look at others and somewhere in the back of my head an idea formed. A small story about an older Vietnam vet who came home and entered the vast forests of our national parks in the Rocky Mountains.

Only this led me to think about who would look for such men. I mean it. There has to be people who specialize in finding those who hide inside our national parks and forests . This led me to create Cheyenne. Led me to write a short story which was horrible at best. However, it planted a seed in my mind and that the story could be turned into something much better than what I could do.

So, I farmed it out to Allison. Allison Grendel who took over as primary author. When we decided it needed some supernatural elements, I thought of Willy Folsom. Together we’ve created a series of books from a single idea.

I sat down one day to craft a series of stories and came up empty. My brain storming led me to zilch . So, when I stopped and went back to work, my mind did what it does best and produced a series of stories for me to develop.

The first came from some radio show I was listening to. They were talking about the twilight movies . It occurred to me all vampire movies and books are much the same. They vary little. Few deviated from the sexual creature that vampires are. How they ooze sex appeal and danger. How one falls for a mortal woman. Blah blah blah. I have read them all. Liked quite a few but they were all variations of the same theme. Nothing new in any of them. What set one apart from the other was the way the story was written. Some were good and some weren’t. Period.

It is the same way in science fiction, romance, westerns, etc. Variations on a theme. Somewhere in the back of my mind a rebellion began . I wanted a twist in the stories . Take the Lodge. A modern-day romance with a bit of sex in it. Of course, there is sex. Two adults stranded alone on an island for months. There will be sex. But there is so much more to the story. An older man with a younger woman. Well, that’s been done hasn’t it? A young woman filled with problems. Been there, done that. Hell, that’s half of the romance stories. However, it is told from a man’s point of view. Few romances do such things. It is told from the vantage of two messed up people. People who don’t want to love anyone. Each one selfish in their own needs. Until they can’t be. The story is good. It has twists and turns. It takes you on a romance adventure from a different viewpoint. And it ends well.

Where did the idea come from? It started as a point of view from an experience I had. One night at a bar a young girl came up to me to buy her a drink. I refused. Actually, I laughed really hard. When she got mad, she and her friends wanted to know why I was laughing. They were pretty girls. Why shouldn’t I buy them a drink?

I lost it. I hate such shit. Two girls shoving their boobs up in the air to get stupid men to buy them drinks and when they get their fill they leave. Users . I hate women like that. So, I told them if I wanted a whore, I’d buy one a drink.

This of course didn’t go over well. However, the concept stayed in my head and became the scene inside the market where the main character unloads on a young girl doing the same. The writing was wooden and didn’t go over so well but I sent it to another writer who took the idea and developed an entire book from it. A wondrous book. One I was proud to publish .

So many of my ideas come from such tiny moments. I have an anthology I am developing because one night I went into a Meyers superstore in Indiana. The place was sparsely populated. My mind wondered what would happen if I walked into a den of vampires running the store. Then it wondered what would happen if I took the idea of a couple entering a simple box store at night. What would happen if it was set as a romance, thriller, horror, sci-fi or western? I picked a half dozen genres and have sent it out to authors to create stories in the short story range based upon “a couple walks into a box store” . A wonderful idea.

Let your mind go. If it thinks in terms of sex. Let it. If it thinks in terms of thrillers, again, let it. No matter the genre let the little things create big stories for you. The smile of a young girl as she notices a young man. The way a stranger hunch’s away as he spots the young girl. The air around this girl as the sun gets brighter. Etc. Let your mind go. It will fill in the gaps of the story for you. Create new ones if you let it. Ask it what would happen if today you learned something traumatic, exciting, thrilling, horrible, deadly, scary, strange, miraculous. The mind will fill in the blanks.

Look out your window and what do you see? What stories are waiting for you? Take a walk, go to the market, the mall. Take a drive. Do something you have never done before and let your mind go. Whatever genre you think in, your mind will build a story for you. Let it . 

I’m Ross, Editor of The Pyrateheart Press and I’m out.