Your Complete Publisher Specializing in Unabridged Works

It takes a certain amount of creativity to come up with stories from scratch. It takes even more to take a story and create a book. But where does creativity come from? More importantly, how do I create on demand a new story?

Let’s look at this from a different perspective . Can you force creativity? I mean, isn’t it supposed to come from some moment of insight ? Some flash of brilliance. Or does it require some artistic background ? Perhaps years of frustration until a breakthrough happens?

I must admit, I’m not sure where such creativity comes from. What I do know is I am not someone you could call creative . Nor am I romantic or any of those things ascribed to writers or those who participate in the writing process. What I am is a worker.

There, do you hear it? The Huh ? I know someone reading this went huh. I heard it just now. Someone asked you what does the fact I have spent most of my life working have to do with anything? Haven’t we all worked our whole lives?

Yes, we have. We have indeed. I tried to create upon demand . The more I tried to force it the less I got. Actually, all I got was angry. Until I applied the principles of troubleshooting to the question. The question being how do I create stories good enough to publish?

When you troubleshoot a problem in pipe-fitting or welding or anything the first thing you do is ask a question. Sometimes it’s how or why or what. Then you look the problem over to see where to begin. Whether you know it or not you ask yourself the question – where do I begin ?

From that question you begin. You search and try to see what works and what doesn’t. Then you ask more questions until a solution or three appear. Then you try the solutions of course. One of them will work. There is always a way to solve a problem. All you have to do is put in the work.

Which brings me full circle. No, I don’t believe you can force creativity , but you can help it along. How? With questions. I read a manuscript from an author and I ask a hundred questions. Does this piece belong here or will it work better somewhere else? Does it need to be a part of the story at all?

Questions fuel my need to create. When you ask yourself a question your mind will search until it finds an answer . At least one. As time goes on it presents even more. When an author has a great opening and a wonderful build up , but the end is crap you ask yourself, how can I make this a great ending ? What do I have to do to make the reader shake their heads in surprise or sadness or with some other emotion? Well, you get the drift.

Questions work for me in creating the stories as well. Let’s take Cheyenne from the Cheyenne Dances in Moonbeams series. Did she come about by some happy accident like I like to believe? When I break it down like I was troubleshooting the question the answer is obvious to me now. Of course, she wasn’t a happy accident. She was the answer to a question.

See, one night my brain was fried . I was trying to do too many things and I just needed a break. So, I went on Pinterest. Mind numbing fun. I like Pinterest. Like the way I can start on one idea and find myself somewhere else entirely before I’m done.

Which is exactly what happened that night . I don’t remember where I started but I finished with looking at survival shelters. As I looked, I began to think about who would live inside such things. A question, right? So as my mind sought an answer to the question an image appeared of a cross between a hippie and a cowboy. Continued to form until it conjured the image, I have of the Billings character.

Then my mind asked another question . It asked, “If this guy lived inside a national forest who would be on the lookout for him as a squatter ?” From there my mind created Cheyenne. It also created a one-off story that was supposed to be the only time we ever see these characters.

I wrote up the story. Shopped it around to some of my writers . They tore it apart. However, Allison saw some promise in the story. She wrote up another version and then Willie came onboard to provide the missing parts. All because I asked questions.

If you find yourself getting stuck on something, then ask questions. Let them flood out of you. Write them down and walk away. Your brain will continue trying to find the answers whether you are actively thinking about them or not. Often while you sleep. I wake up with more answers then when I try to find them before I go to bed. Just saying.

Anyways. Don’t try to create . Don’t try to produce . It’s too much pressure. Simply ask questions. From there answers will flow. Let me give you one last example before I leave. I was walking in a Meyers one night in the wee hours. Bonnie and I needed something.

Now, stores are different at night then during the day . There is an entirely different vibe in them. I wondered , another word for asked , what it would be like if it was a place full of vampires ? Then I wondered what would it be like if it was a romance ? The beginnings of an erotica story ? A western ? A sci-fi story ? Maybe something supernatural ?

I have several authors writing short stories in multiple genres as an answer to a simple question brought on by that night. The question? “A couple walks into a chain store at midnight. What happens next ?”

I wonder, what story would you tell? What genre would you choose?

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