Inspiration Strikes

Where do story ideas come from? Every aspiring author has probably pondered this question and wished for an easy answer. One of the world's most famous authors, Stephen King, says:

“Let’s get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up” (37).

Wouldn't it be neat if it was more of a story idea faucet that could be turned on when needed? Alas, that's not how brains or stories work.

This is in fact how my brain works...

As a kid, I used to look for answers to all of life's major questions in my hair strands placed precariously on the shower walls. There was always a way to make out a "YES" or "NO"... sort of. Will my parents stay together came back a very clear "NO." It wasn't until my thirties that I found out about magical thinking being common in those with OCD. Sometimes, things click, but that's a different kind of story for a different day.

When the Kids Comics Unite Anthology first started out, there was a survey asking what kinds of stories we were thinking of creating. Personally, I hadn't a clue. How did other people already have ideas for stories when we didn't even have a theme? What if I got hooked on a story idea that didn't fit the theme and had to change course? So, I avoided thinking about new stories until we got the theme brief.

Then we got the theme brief and I waited for inspiration to strike. It didn't hit immediately. I waited for inspiration, then I panicked. I begged my husband and kids to help me brainstorm. Finally, I was looking through some photos I'd taken of the kids at a park. There it was. I found my inspiration.

See, my Autistic kiddo is pretty cool. Randomly, throughout his life, he's made comments about being a god. We drove over the Bridge of the Gods in the Columbia Gorge and he confidently claimed he wasn't scared of the height because he's a god and gods don't get scared on the Bridge of the Gods. This picture brought back some of those memories and I thought... what if?

What if the kid protagonist was really a god, like a Greek god, and what if his worshippers were a grumble of pugs? The "what ifs" took hold and the story, FELIX THE GOG, started to develop well beyond the 8-page limit for the anthology. Short-story writing is a unique skill, and creating one in comic format is even more niche. As someone who likes to research and dive into tutorials to make sure I'm tackling a project in the "right" way, I came up short on specific resources for this endeavor. Short-story comics exist, however, many are designed as 1-4 panel punchline style or meant to be serialized to tell a much longer story in small bits. Felix, the god of joy, with his backstory getting trapped as a human kid and his entire world could easily turn into a much longer story but I needed to come up with a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end that included a character arc that fit in 8 pages or less.

Editing and critique groups were helpful and necessary! I knew, that to do Felix's story justice, it would have to be a full 8 pages, especially to get the page turn anticipation and pay-offs I visualized. However, with so many amazing creators submitting their own stories, if the total number pages submitted went beyond the book's total page count limit, there was a chance Felix's story would not make the final book.

The only way to guarantee I would have a story included in the final anthology was to submit a 2-page story as well. I spent months trying to think of a 2-page story that fit the theme brief. I came up with a 6-page story idea with possibility of being trimmed to 4-pages. It was based on my eldest kid's biggest fear. One night at a family dinner, his cousins told him WIFI was a limited resource and was running out. This was the inspiration for a story about a WIFI goblin. Unfortunately, it was not a 2-page story idea either!

About a week before submissions were due, I saw the message in my hair on the shower wall. Luckily, it was a 2-page story idea with a beginning, middle, and end with a little bit of a character arc too. I needed that week to clean up my FELIX THE GOG submission, but I was also really worried about not having a guaranteed spot in the anthology.

I spent the week creating my 2-page story, and brief amounts throwing together place holders for my 8-pager. Turns out, only 3 people submitted back-up stories, and we were under the total page count cut-off so my 8-page story was accepted! I didn't actually need to spend all of that time and energy on my 2-pager. It was a great skill to practice though and now I can say I've done it.

Additionally, it's a story I'm pretty proud of creating that includes local references to real places. Since it is a story about a blind girl, I would love to actually create a tactile version of the comic and share it with the local school for the blind. Printing something like that is going to be expensive, so maybe it's good it's only 2 pages! Crazy that the inspiration came from two strands of my hair looking like the outline of a girl and a dog.

I've spent this year trying to find inspiration for new stories. I think it's finally time to prioritize working on my graphic novel stories. Especially since KIDLITGN is having their annual pitch event! VEXED AND HEXED has gone through a transformative process and since the characters have changed, I thought it was time to change the story's name as well - the story is now called FORGET-ME-NOT. It's what the title always should have been, but I overthought it and changed it.

Fingers crossed, that a year of transformation has created a pitch that someone is interested in!