I had a short story in mind but realized another story within the same world, yet dealing with a different cast, finally started to make sense. I also didn't want to force the characters of another story in the same series for the sake of meeting a themed submission guideline. That routine has hardly worked for me except in this year, when I crafted an article just for a journal and it was accepted!
Mind you, this is 2017 and I've been trying to write professionally since 1996 with my first publication in 1999-2000!
Since this break in the semester, not only has the novel continued rolling around in my head as it should, but a solution came to a short story within the cat epic fantasy series! I've been on-again-off-again with a particular title within the collection and I realized it proved difficult to write another title because I needed the events of the title I'm STRUGGLING WITH NOW to happen!
EUREKA! Can you believe this? And now, that difficult story is almost writing itself! I'm still jotting down notes, swathes of exposition and setups. The story deals with one of my magic using characters who I believed for years to be a villain, or at best, an antihero. I couldn't be further from the truth! He's not only a nice and generous person, he's lovably sardonic and sarcastic! His sardonic personality was already fixed when he was originally 'conceived' but that was with a villainous character. With this more pleasant personality, my shero/heroine won't seem like such a masochist when she falls for him.
EUREKA! Can you believe this? And now, that difficult story is almost writing itself! I'm still jotting down notes, swathes of exposition and setups. The story deals with one of my magic using characters who I believed for years to be a villain, or at best, an antihero. I couldn't be further from the truth! He's not only a nice and generous person, he's lovably sardonic and sarcastic! His sardonic personality was already fixed when he was originally 'conceived' but that was with a villainous character. With this more pleasant personality, my shero/heroine won't seem like such a masochist when she falls for him.
There have also been changes to his back story as well. Actually, I kept his origins but in the nascent conception, I had him move far from those trainings and how he was raised. I also had him a stranger to most of that background. Now I understand he couldn't possibly be who he is while disavowing his origins. He just wouldn't be that person!
His back story also solves my reasons for the antagonistic relationship he has with another fellow magic user too! It's all making sense now. After HOW long? Sheesh... Well, 'til next time!
