Where Do Your Ideas Come From?

I get this question all the time. People, based upon the messed up stories I write, assume I'm sort sort of psychopath on the verge of going on a kill-crazy rampage. I'm not. Trust me.

Long ago, I came to the conclusion that creativity is a social construct. There is no such thing as creativity. What people think of as creativity is the ability to express one's self after having consumed a shitload of culture... the culture that I consumed to have this awesome power of creativity was almost exclusively comprised of horror and science fiction.

As a young lad, I had parents that allowed me to watch whatever the hell I wanted to watch, as long as there wasn't a bunch of sexual stuff in it. No, boobs didn't count as sexual stuff. Boobs were just part of the female anatomy. I consumed horror movie after horror movie. As I got older, I read every horror book I could get my hands on, which actually wasn't all that much. When I was growing up, horror novels consisted of two people. Koontz and King. I didn't like Koontz, so I read a bunch of Stephen King and a bunch of books I found in my elementary school about movie monsters.

When I got older, and I began to review movies, with the hopes that I would "get rich quick," I began to watch everything, further expanding my horizons and tapping into the world at large. News and media and popular culture fuel my madness as well.

In the end, I became a knowledgeable human being with a fair amount of life experience, some good and some bad. This is the greatest thing you can do to be creative.

So let's take a look at some of the inspiration for some of my works.

Unmade: A Neo-Nihilist Vampire Tale: This was my earliest book. It was about a dude who may or may not have been a vampire. It was inspired by Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw." I wanted to write something that was ambivalent, and I wanted to gross people out. At the time, Twilight was popular, and as a movie reviewer and someone who recognizes crappy fiction when I see it, I wanted to create something that was a literary slap in the face to those abysmal books, and Unmade was born. It's a trifle immature, as I was at the time, but it's good. I look back on it now and wonder who exactly that person was.

This Rotten World: I love zombie movies. Always have, even since I was a little kid. I wrote a zombie screenplay first, wasn't happy with it, and then decided to write my own zombie epic. I wanted it to be like my favorite book, The Stand, so it was always planned to be long and epic. I had also just seen the beginning of The Walking Dead TV series, which I found to be a total cop out. We miss out on the world dying... and to me, that's the most interesting part of the whole zombie thing. This Rotten World was my response to that rotten storytelling they did in the first season of The Walking Dead. That's not storytelling... This Rotten World... now that's a story.

The Enemies of Our Ancestors: Initially, I was planning to write a story about some evil scarecrows. As I was thinking about their backstories, I stumbled across an image of an abandoned Native American village built into the side of a cliff. I decided to ditch my modern setting, and write about the story of how that village came abandoned. This is probably the most unique of my stories, and while I'm sure many of the twisted creatures in the story come from somewhere, I'm not quite sure where.

The Abbey: This one is built upon a very vivid nightmare I had in my twenties. In that nightmare, there was a creature with a face that never stopped moving, so I couldn't see its face. When it stopped moving, and I saw its face, every bone in my body broke, and I became a pile of broken bones and skin... it stuck with me, and I crafted the story of an old abbey filled with an ancient evil. Now, the end of that story is pure WTF material. I have no idea where it came from, but I love it as well.

As I finish writing my thoughts, I realize that something has happened. There are creative elements in my stories that I can't quite explain. Does that mean that somewhere inside me is a magical "creativity" gene? I'm not quite sure. I still feel as if that creativity was induced by the life around me, the things I was exposed to, but the connections are as mystifying as the idea of thought itself.

Anyway, here is my recipe for crafting a creative child:
Step 1: Don't shelter them from the world.
Step 2: Don't be that "We don't watch TV or listen to contemporary music" family. This stifles creativity and makes your child a social freak.
Step 3: Take them places with lots of history, exposing them to the idea that everything has a story and allowing them to fill in the blanks.
Step 4: Drown them in creative works, books, movies, music, art. The more they experience, the more they will want to create.
Step 5: Don't limit them. Never say they can't do something. Encourage them to try and fail, and when they fail, give them a hint or two about what they could have done better.
Step 6: Scare the hell out of them every now and then. A terrified child is a well-rounded child. One that knows about fear, as well as your more typical emotions, is better able to understand the human condition, thus preventing a bunch of stories and art about invulnerable hero archetypes. We have enough of those, and the people that follow that stuff need to know that they are fragile, not special, and capable of dying at any time. If we all accepted our own mortality, the world would be a better place. You're going to die. Your child is going to die. The sooner they realize that, the sooner they'll want to leave their mark.
Step 7: Don't forget to feed, water, and clothe your child.

To Write a Series or a Standalone?

For many of us writers, trying to decide what to write is the hardest decision we face. A story pops up into your head, maybe you plan it out or maybe you just roll the idea around in your head. In the end, you have to decide what the end goal of that story is... and frequently, it comes down to this: "Is there enough here for a series, and is a series the best way to present this concept?"

            I myself have had this dilemma many times. Any story I can come up with invariably grows legs in my mind. What may start out as a simple story about a Native American saving his tribe from destruction can easily turn into a fully fleshed out world with multiple societies and a cast of hundreds, each character offering up an opportunity for more storytelling. To date, I have never had a story end at a point where I truly felt the story was over. It's not because I'm bad at crafting an ending. It's more of a result of the fact that, short of killing all of your characters off, life goes on. Though the book is over, the characters in my stories, who have become almost real in my own mind, continue their lives even after the monster is dead. Knowing when to continue and when to stop is one of the hardest aspects of writing, especially when you grow to love your characters.

            It is at this time, that the author must ask themselves, "Is there another story here?" Do readers want to see these characters pick up the pieces and dive into another situation that is probably going to be very similar to the one they just navigated. But most of all, they must ask themselves, "Do I want to be trapped under the weight of my own creation."

            Ask George R.R. Martin if he isn't a little bit sick of being the Game of Thrones guy. Ask the now-dead Robert Jordan if maybe he wished he had ended his story just a little sooner than he did. A series is a prospect of never-ending joy and income... but you have to have an end to it. If you don't have any idea where the story is going or how it's going to end, then it's best to treat every story as a standalone novel, with the potential for expansion if you really desire it.

            Let's take a look at why someone would choose to write a series. First off, and this is no small reason, there is the income potential. While a standalone novel takes time and needs love and exposure to grow, a series sort of builds on itself. Fans of the first book are likely to buy the second book, and perhaps even heckle the author until they produce the next installment. So, the longer your series goes, the more money you get out of it. With a standalone novel, you get what you get up front, and hope that the book finds its audience, which it well might if you catch some good word of mouth, seek out reviews, and constantly whore your novel like it's the next coming of the Bible. Of course, that approach takes a lot of time and effort away from what you probably want to be doing, which is writing more stories.

            The second reason to gum up the world with a series is one that I hear often. "Publishers are more likely to be interested in a series." I have no idea where this idea came from, but it couldn't be further from the truth. Publishers are interested in good stories that are well-written, whether it's a part of a series really has no bearing on if they are going to like it or not. Exhibit A: My own series of zombie novels, "This Rotten World." While it was written well and definitely enjoyable to read, the book sort of left off on a cliffhanger-ish type of ending, meaning that it had an ending that didn't conform to a traditional plot structure. Despite the fact that it was good, publishers took a pass on it because of this fact. (Later on, I published part two and realized that if I had sandwiched part one with part two that I would have exactly what a publisher wanted as far as a potential series might go. But it was too late; I had already self-published, and there are not very many publishers out there who are worth a damn who even consider publishing work that has already been self-published.) Though it was good, thought it was a series, they still passed on it because they didn't judge it as a good story.

            The only other reason to write a series is because your stories are so convoluted and involved that it's simply not feasible to put it all into one gigantic tome. To this I say, "Get over yourself." Learn to edit and cut out all that extra crap that you think is so cool, but which readers actually find boring. I'm looking at you "dream sequence" people and you people that feel like you must spend a whole page describing outfits and heraldry. If, after you've stepped back from your own butchery of your story, you find that it is still much too large for a single book, then by all means, start a series, but make sure you know where it's going to end. Do not go into a series without a clear-cut ending. I can count the number of series that I've read that have concluded in a satisfactory fashion on one hand. Why? Because the authors made it up as they went. You must have an end-goal to be working towards, and then get there in a reasonable amount of time. Also, just a personal pet-peeve, if you kill someone, make sure they are dead. Don't bring back characters later and ask us to believe that they magically survived an explosion that destroyed a whole building but not the character in question. Don't lead your audience on in the name of the dollar. Besides, if you do this there's a chance you might die and never finish your story, as so many authors before have... which is what I like to call karmic justice. The number one commandment of writing is "Thou shalt not rip off your readers."

            For myself, I find that I am enjoying alternating between writing episodes in my zombie series and then writing standalone novels with series potential. Alternating allows me to write about new things so that I don't get tired of writing the same story over and over. It also allows me to take advantage of that burning moment when a new idea pops into my head. For those whose sole intent is to write a series, I often wonder if they are just doing the same thing over and over because they don't actually have any new ideas. 

            In addition, alternating novels allows you to give your series more thought between installments. Sometimes space is a great thing. Anyone that's been married for any stretch of time knows this. Giving yourself some space and breathing room from your series does a couple of things. It gives you perspective and allows you to mull over the story, trying on different endings and scenarios. The pressure of continuing the story is never there. When you go back to it, you'll feel fresh and invigorated, and you'll come up with a better product as a result.

            In the end, I suppose all I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't feel compelled to write a series, especially not if it's going to hurt your writing. Though elitists like to say, "It's not all about the money," for some of us it is. You have to live to write. With that realization in mind, in order to make a living off writing, you have to do what best complements your abilities, series or not. For me, that means I wrote zombie stuff, followed by original novels with series potential, and then back to more zombie stuff. There are also some screenplays mixed in there, but that is a story for another day. 

If you liked the article, considering checking out the newest book in my zombie series, This Rotten World.

Click the link to go there. It's free for amazon prime members: http://www.amazon.com/This-Rotten-World-Fall-Down-ebook/dp/B00Y5X8H62/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1432924759&sr=8-2&keywords=this+rotten+world