I’ve been asked by people how I come up with some of my story ideas, the characters and the things they do in the story and sometimes, why they do the things they do.  As they say, the magic is in the words, and the goal is getting the reader to lose themselves in your make believe world and enjoy themselves as the story unfolds, their emotions swinging back and forth depending on what is happening.  They might hate some of the characters in your story and love others, which I happen to think means you are doing a good job as an author.

It all comes down to the basic ingredients of what I believe belong in an exciting science fiction or fantasy story.  First, you need conflict.  There has to be something going on, possibly something bad.  The main character of the story is usually the hero or heroine and they often find themselves in a bleak situation that they must overcome in order to save the day.

Boring doesn’t cut it, either.  That means your story has to have drama in it, and it needs to advance the storyline or help to develop your characters.  Keep in mind that you have to have both good and bad characters in a story, and sometimes a character is both.  Therefore, crazy things usually have to happen, but no so far out that it is considered ridiculous.  That’s why fiction is so much fun to write.

Sometimes I like to shock the reader, then go back and provide an explanation for what happened, while at the moment it is unfolding, the reader is trying to figure it out.  That can provide a bit of mystery and suspense to the story.

Sometimes I like to clue the reader in to something that is going to happen, where they see it coming.  It might seem like the author is giving the surprise away, but sometimes that actually drives the story, because the characters will provide drama along the way, while perhaps the other side is doing all they can to thwart it.  That can provide twists and turns in the story, making it more fun to read.

So, you write out your plot, put in some conflict, develop some characters and some drama and away you go.  Along the way, you find your characters in a situation that you didn’t plan for.  That’s because you have managed to develop your characters to the point that you know how they should or would react to a known situation and therefore, suddenly you as the author have to make some adjustments.

I don’t let these adjustments frustrate me.  I actually enjoy them, because it allows me to make the story seem more enjoyable and believable.  Just be careful to not get sidetracked from your storyline.

This means that during your story, the characters may do some things you might not have originally intended for them to do.  Suppose they take a cruise?  Usually an author can draw upon their own experiences to help them out, but what if you’ve never been on a cruise?  What then?

I was originally deterred from writing fiction stories because I felt like I had to be an expert at what I was writing about or the reader would see through it and laugh at the obvious lack of knowledge.  Over the years I’ve realized that isn’t true.  It’s true that you can write a more accurate piece of work on something that you are knowledgeable about, but these days you have the internet at your disposal.  Want to write a scene about sailing a boat?  Get on a website and watch a video or read a how-to guide on how it’s done.  It’ll make your story that much more believable.

That brings up another point.  As an individual, I have my own beliefs, values and viewpoints, just like everyone else.  When it comes to writing a story, you can’t always stick with those beliefs, values and viewpoints, because they just don’t fit what you’re writing about.

A good example would be murder.  I’m not a killer, but hey, stories have to have bad things happen.  You might off a character in the story and one of your characters might actually be plotting murder.  That can be disturbing to write about from their point of view, but I happen to think that’s one of the challenges of writing fiction.  If you want to make your story believable, you sometimes have to put on the hat of the villain, which can sometimes be a sadistic killer, thief, an all- around bad guy or something somewhere in between.

The same is true with things the characters do.  I have a ton of hobbies, including flying.  Obviously, I am better prepared to write a story that includes aviation, but in doing so I have to ensure that I don’t use too much technical jargon that would only be understood by pilots, therefore allowing the average reader to follow along.  On the flip side, I don’t want to dumb it down so much that those into aviation don’t enjoy the experience.  What I usually go for is something in between, where I try and educate the reader on flying.  That means introducing some basic terminology early on in the story, then later, get more and more in depth with the jargon, assuming that the reader has picked up on it.

Just because I like flying doesn’t mean that I have to include it in my stories.  Some stories I have written are heavy into aviation and others don’t even mention it at all.  My next story might be based on sailing or something else I have never done, and I look at that as a writing challenge.