As I created Lura, I kept the story in mind. I even wrote my own creation story and could more or less visualize its geologic history.

So then comes plot. They say writing a plot for a novel is easier than for a short story. Heh. I don’t think the person that said that had high fantasy in mind. They say selling a novel is easier than selling a short story, too. But I digress.

The first thing to do was to figure out the beginning and the ending. I tried to play off the characters, their histories, and the world itself. I thought about how I’d like the characters to develop. I tried to make every character ’round’. (Bad, but simple example: If your main character is the ‘ultimate badass’, what kind of experiences could lead to that? After all, s/he probably wasn’t born one.) Thinking about all of those things should reveal some kind of theme, too. That theme should be the focus of the story, which should hopefully reveal some idea for a story arc. Read the rest of this entry »