Searching for Story Ideas --- My process

Just a note: I've already blogged more this year (This'll be the 16th blog post of the year) then I did all of 2013....WOW!

Anyway, back to the matter at hand....

Story idea can come from anywhere, but a primary source for me are the Battletech sourcebooks themselves. With the one just released, Historical: Wars of the Republic Era, I will be reading through it carefully, seeing if there's anything that jogs an idea. It may be a situation, an event, or a setting, but we'll see....

Story ideas are not a hard and fast process for me. Sometimes they come to me full-blown, while other times, they come to me in fragments that have to be pieced together for a full story. Sometimes, what works in my mind doesn't work on paper --- Negotiation, The Promise and  Thirteen was a lot like that, needing rewrite after rewrite to form the story into something that worked cleanly. On the other hand, the first drafts for the The Lance Killer, Color of Authority, and Evacuation were easier to put down on paper, and needed only a few adjustments to the final draft. The rest fall in the between, with various levels of ease.

I have a long list of story ideas, and just need to spend time filling them out. If I gleam an idea from Historical: Wars of the Republic Era, I'll blog about the process (without too much detail, or else you wouldn't read it once it hits Battlecorps!) From creation to completion, how a story is written.

Later!

Craig