The Arrival

Are many of you inspired to write stories from ideas in dreams? My current project BirthRight The Arrival was inspired by day-dreams but that doesn’t really count. I mean the unconscious crazy type dreams!

Don’t you wonder where they come from sometimes? Divine inspiration? Memories of a past life? A view to the future?

Last night was really warm (for winter) and as a result I had a variety of nutty dreams but can only remember one clearly (ish). It was myself as an older woman. With plenty of wrinkles and a face I barely recognized (and still long colored hair *lol*). I was wearing a long tutu inspired skirt with a beautiful fitted top in ruby. The funny part is that it didn’t bother me at all! I felt an odd sense of joy at seeing myself reach such an age. Looks like I’ll have lotsa fun for a long time yet *grin*.

I was just wondering if any of you have written stories that were inspired by dreams? Were they dreams you could explain away (like the time I’d watched a documentary on elephants and that night dreamt I was teaching an elephant to play pick-up-sticks in my family’s holiday home..). Or were they totally out-of-the-ball park, inspiring creations?

So for those not in the know.

A plot is an outline of your story and ‘pantsing’ is to write just of the top of your head. I have a friend who actually wrote a 200k word story in one night (one long, long night) just because the idea ‘came’ to her. And yes I was insanely jealous when she told me!

I prefer to have a plot. I like to nut out the idea of the story as much as possible so I can ‘see’ it playing on the movie screen in my mind. That said I also like pantsing a bit, I feel it gives a more natural touch to the story. More intuitive.

At the moment, aside from when I’m re-working my MS I’m planning book two Feel The Burn in as much as detail as possible. I have some pretty intense fight scenes in the story and I want them as believable and ‘practical’ as possible. Yet I know that I won’t stick to the plot.

In The Arrival I actually plotted out the paragraph topics for a while. It was very helpful in keeping me on track but the paragraphs I ended up with never matched the plotted ones. I feel they sound better, as though the plot was just a first concept. And as long as I hit all the major plot points the story stays on track!

What do you do? Do you have a preferred technique or is it still a WIP?

Dreams – divine inspiration?

Plotting and pantsing