The Written Word

(This is written specifically for my friends/family who have joined me in this project.  Thought I would share my mind flow so that those of you who are on board, or have been asked to share in the idea by contributing a character can get a clear picture of what my intention is as the lead in the project and what that may mean that I need from you.)

I had a great story line I wanted to follow late last September.  It was kinda cool, I thought.  To give you an idea of the way my mind was thinking the title came to me first:  Brina, The Harvest Witch.  Basking in the success of Mona's pirate story, this was to be short, along the line of Casper the friendly ghost, written to share with the kids in the family around Halloween. But I come up with ideas about the time something should be finished, in other words, about a week before Halloween.  So I thought Thanksgiving still fits in with harvesting, maybe we will broaden the story line, make it a little more than a short story.


Thus is would become a story around a young girl in November.   Failing that, December.  So I enlisted my writer's group, and expanded the base to pull / pool information.  Character studies.  My character descriptions started coming in, not like a galloping horse, certainly.  More like a trickling faucet.  In fact, I received responses from people that were not members of the writers group.  Then I sat back and patiently (patiently? -- oh my goodness, Patience would love this!) waited.  The base was once again expanded.


This time the expansion came not only with good ideas, but great instruction, too.  We learned that Google Docs includes a share tab, we could write on the same document back and forth.  At the same time.  No more writing things out, waiting for an available time to have someone else review the storyline and write their character's part, work through the conversation, get together again. Yada yada yada.


What was the purpose of asking various people to provide characters?  My thinking is this:  I have a certain slant on how my character is portrayed, the way he converses.  I didn't want the supporting cast to have the same slant.  Dawn writes differently than I do.  Yo creates people who are very different than mine.  And Paysh?  Well, those of us who have had the pleasure of being part of the initial group learned that she has a fierce mind, a terrific imagination and a very unique way of projecting her ideas.  Why not allow the creator of the character actually write the part?  The ideas that run through these peoples minds can be very different than mine.


So, the short story becomes a novel; the idea morphs into a viable storyline.  Suddenly I have to have a foundation to carry the characters, the ideas, the plot.  The P L O T ???  My Brina may be a minor character in this story; she may be called something different.  But I will tell you there is actually a plot, and a lot of great ideas.


I have a lot of work to do to flesh out the idea, to give these people the general tenor of the story and provide something worth participating in.  As a conclusion, if those of you who created my base of characters want to stop with that as their contribution, I understand and thank you for the assistance you have given me.  For the ones who are anxiously waiting to become active participants in the development please, oh please just give me a wave and we will work it from here.