where did your story start...

My very first story grew out of a strong urge to bludgeon a particular person to death. I was unable to commit the murder, but the research for it led ultimately to my first story.

My first real story came about from a thought. What if you're a hockey player and you're gay and your lover is on the other team and he's a big defense man and you're a forward and it's his job to bodycheck you into the boards as hard as he can, every time you're on the ice together. Can you imagine being the lover of a dionne phaneuff type and having that destroy you every game?

It changed to a goalie and a forward, and it was a horribly badly written story and you can imagine how well it went over. But that was my first one. It dealt with betrayal, and I can honestly say that every single thing i have ever written since has had betrayal as a theme. Except for some of my FF's. but even there betrayal looms large.

Kate Thornton said:

My very first story grew out of a strong urge to bludgeon a particular person to death. I was unable to commit the murder, but the research for it led ultimately to my first story.

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It sort of worries me that you researched murdering and bludgeoning and only then decided to write a story. remind me never to piss you off.

I was at Stonehenge and I'd been telling the kids that the stones had been stood up again, starting 1890, after thousands of years of neglect. I don't know who posed the question, but someone said, "What if they got it all wrong".

So, over the weeks of our holiday, my mind turned the question over thoroughly and came up with The Gatekeeper.

Not very glamorous, but I was unemployed at the time. I was reading the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich and thought... Hey why not try to write a book. So I came up with my MC and tried her in 3 different books until she got the one she belonged in, my current WIP.

Kate Thornton said:

My very first story grew out of a strong urge to bludgeon a particular person to death. I was unable to commit the murder, but the research for it led ultimately to my first story.

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I think I'll just take a giant step back, now. X_X

My first real story (as in the first story I actually wrote down and really liked) was the result of unrequited feelings for a girl I had a crush on in high school... Wow, I get a sinking feeling in my stomach just thinking about all the ways I tried, or all the ways I wish I had tried... *sigh*... Gosh, I hate her; she was so cruel to me ... Anyway, that's where the first story with any real depth to it that I've ever written originated from.

I don't know about my first story...that was so long ago...The idea for my first novel - just finishing rewrites - sprung from the final illness and ultimately the death of our horse Mollie. I have never been so deeply changed by any event in my life and felt that her passing required a permanent monument. Should I be lucky enough to be published Shadowknight will be simply dedicated 'for Mollie'.

My first? Haven't got a clue. The first that was written down, I dictated to my dad. This was age five, before I could write myself. It was a fairy tale. Not sure where the inspiration came from.

Not sure; but I remember just starting my A-levels and having this strong urge to write fiction.

I don't even remember what my first story was about, though I do remember how it came about. Writing a short story was an option for an English assignment in 10th grade and I took it and ran with it. Had tried writing stories dozens upon dozens of times in elementary school, but never been able to make any real headway, and it being necessitated by the due date forced me to finish it.

My first notable story, though, I've erased from my memory. Oh, how I wasted that summer away with that novel. Wish I could remember what exactly inspired the idea behind my first story (and what it was about for that matter) but I have successfully forgotten the inspiration for my first novel. Sadly, I cannot wipe it completely from existence in my mind and, therefore, I remember the main plot points.

I've been writing for so long that I don't remember my very first story. I remember the important ones, though.

*The very first story that got me started on seriously wanting to write, at age eleven--I had seen a dog food commercial with my mother and laughed at it, but the character in it intrigued me and I started thinking up ideas for him and his friends (who I made up). Then, when I was bothering my dad one evening, he told me to go write a story to leave him alone. I filled up half a notebook with my first story in what would become a series based on that character...that helped spur my other storylines and I think it indicated early on that I was cut out more for serials than standalone stories.

As for my four main storylines:

*The Trench Rats--probably actually my earliest storyline though the least developed. Long ago I saw my mother sewing some colorful capes and Mickey Mouse-style hats and she said they had something to do with "Trench Rats." I learned that Trench Rats were soldiers who fought in trenches in WWI. So of course, that made me want to write a story about real rats who fought in trenches (though mine were in WWII, against dog Nazis), and they all wore color-coded capes like those my mother had been sewing.

*Lucifer, first novel in my "D Is For Damien" series--while playing around outside in the woods I looked up at the sky and imagined the main character and his siblings huddled in the grass praying to the stars. That morphed and turned into the opening of the novel, though the MC was changed to be his younger brother Damien instead. This spawned a horrifically long series of which only three novels have been written so far, and they need to be rewritten.

*Horus, related to my "Kemet" writing--I wrote the first version in childhood and it was truly horrid (featuring an Eighties soundtrack). My interest in ancient Egypt was sparked by the dog food commercial mentioned above. In the Nineties I decided to redo the entire thing from scratch. This was the only novel I plotted from beginning to end and finished in like two months. It needs to be redone again though.

*Manitou Island--I know I must talk about this one enough to make anybody sick. My best friend and I had fun running around on Mackinac Island and seeing the displays in the Haunted Theater. A few are based on Ojibwa mythology but I didn't know that at the time. We were intrigued enough to start our own story about them when we got home, though. We never finished it and she later moved away and we lost touch after she lost interest in writing. I wrote some short stories about the Island but that was it for some years. Then in 2001 I wanted to see if I could write and finish a Web serial with one chapter a week. I did...and then wrote a sequel. And now I'm writing the second sequel, and there will be another after it. I love the Island too much to let go. As such this is the storyline that consumes most of my time. I'm glad to remember what sparked it. I still visit the island every year.

My very first story ever? I can't remember that far back. All I remember of it was it was a Conan-style piece of fanfic (long before that term even existed) and it was primarily a battle with cloven skulls and blood and guts and stuff and I turned it in to my HS English class.

My first story came from reading too many Sweet Valley High novels, combined with the usual seventh-grade angst, and this awesome new TV show called "Beverly Hills 90210." It was badly written, badly plotted, and full of so many cliches and ripped-off characters (I even had my own Brandon/Brenda combo) it might have made a good parody had it survived.

But that was my first, as awful as it was.

The very first story was too long ago to remember (my mother tells me I was making up stories as soon as I was able to talk). The impetus for my first novel came from a D&D game.

One of the PCs was a phoenix who had a dwarf helper called "Fencepost" (what else can you call a char with an IQ of 3 and a constitution of 18?) whose big job it was was to carry oil for the phoenix to ignite and pour it on whoever his master commanded. During the course of the adventure combating trolls (I think it was--one of them critters who can only be killed by burning), the melee got intense and for about 9-12 combat rounds, Fencepost was pouring oil on the king of the trolls before the phoenix finally worked his way over there. So when the phoenix said his move was to light the oil, the DM announced that the king, many minions and Fencepost all went up in flames. After all, Fencepost was too stupid to spread oil that long without getting any on himself. Couldn't be argued.

So that lead me to wonder--what kind of person could be best buds with a phoenix and NOT ever risk being toasted like that. From that grew my first novel, To Controll the Pentacle, which will remain forever blissfully tucked away in its binder, thanks.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kate Thornton
My very first story grew out of a strong urge to bludgeon a particular person to death. I was unable to commit the murder, but the research for it led ultimately to my first story.

Nivarion said:

hey, i think we are in similar situations! since i imagined my step mom in many of the villan roles that the heroes killed.

ah the 12 year old mind can be such a violent place eh?

in the end we parted, not friends, but i live with my mom now and am not going to visit any more... good god i know she is going to come to my graduation, i just know it...

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I was 47...

I've been writing stories since I was a kid.
The first serious effort grew out of a term paper I'd written for a Soviet History course at University set during the Russian Revolution and the Civil War. I think it's in its 6th draft and, when I've finished my third book, I may well revisit it and see if it's worth writing properly.

My very first (that I can remember writing down) I think came from a group of fus at school planning revenge on teachers we despised. It was a horror story where some kids called up an evil demon and it rampaged around the place, killing people off in truly contrived and gory ways. I remember one person being eaten by a possessed demonic tape recorder. It was utter garbage but actually, if I remember rightly, one of the teachers found out about it and actually contributed some ideas to get rid of his colleagues.

As for the one I'm doing now, it's kind of a culmination of lots of other WIPs. A lot of the characters from previous attempts at novels have found a home in this one, but the idea from this came from watching a BBC Four dramatisation of Saki stories called 'Who Killed Mrs DeRopp?' I had the idea of someone on a long train journey telling a story and that story forming the basis of the novel, with just a few scenes on the train and comments from the narrator and his audience interjected here and there. Of course, the actual book now has absolutely no relation to that at all, but that's where it started.

I was watching some crime show or another and I wondered what it would be like to hear about a woman who committed these horrid crimes. Kidnapping, torture, and the eventual death, all female vics. I've run into problems bcs women don't generally behave in that manner but it's become an interesting book. It didn't end the way I intended it to when I started it but I've found that happens a lot when I write.

My first story was about no snow on Christmas. I wrote it around Christmas, when I still had a single digit to my years on this planet. Beyond that can't-be-coincidental timing, I have no idea what my inspiration was.

I tend to concoct elaborate conspiracies. For my WIP, I've drawn on news, politics, foreign affairs, crime organizations, etc., to develop the world in which my MC is now mired. I've been saving clippings for over a decade.

My first ever was probably part of an English test or something.

By age 12 I'd got so bored at having to write a short story every 4 months for some test or another I started writing a series instead, each one following on from the previous and yet standing alone and completing the requirements for the test (set title/theme/character/location etc.).
It started with the title 'The rescue' and was about a dog that saved a family from burning to death inside a caravan and became about how the, now homeless, family moved on and lived their lives and other heroic deeds of the dog (who for some reason never got a name).

Those little stories you get as page fillers in newspapers always inspire me. You know - hamster saved after 10 days under floorboards, lottery millionaire found suffocated under own pile of mink coats. It's great short story material (and making your own up is also fun).