Create a Focused Idea

Ideas For Starting a Novel

I daydreamed the other day about a girl who was standing over a guy. He laid face-down in the mud. 

The girl was probably eighteen to twenty years old, a little taller than average, and she had dark hair and green eyes. She held a bow pointed at a giant troll or ogre or something that was coming at them. I thought it was a cool scene, like she was protecting the guy for some reason.  

I decided she needed some sort of charm or something, so I thought up an eagle with garnet eyes. She kept the bow pointed at the giant for a long time until he came in range, then her necklace began rocking and her hair dazzled and a wind came up around her. 

That reminded me too much of an anime, so I decided to rewind my daydream and make the eagle cry a liquid drop of the garnet. The garnet blood landed on the shaft before the girl released her arrow. It sank into the giant’s single eye, and when the garnet touched the monster, he cried in a hideous roar.

I Found a Way to Begin Writing My Novel

I lost my daydream at that point because my roommate came in to ask something. I’ve been daydreaming like this a lot while trying to get ideas for my story, but I really like this one. 

I came up with this idea yesterday, but I keep coming back to the same story. I wonder why the girl is there or who the guy is and why he looks like he might be dead, in later thoughts, I made his clothes torn by some sort of claw, but I don’t know what would have caused that… maybe a monster of some kind. 

I want to make that a pivotal scene in my story, but I don’t really know where to begin. I took my roommate’s advice and began writing about a single person, so I wrote about Natalie (the girl in the daydream. Don’t ask why Natalie, I don’t know. I read down the names of people on a cd insert until I saw it. It sounds like the name of a girl who would be cute. :p)

PS: This is not intended to be part of the actual book; this is just to help me get an idea of Natalie’s character and where she lives and where she comes from. I should probably write more about Natalie, but I wasn’t sure how to do it without a story.

For the sake of organization, I moved the story to its own section here: My Novel

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First Day

My First Attempt at Writing the Novel

I began writing writing my story right away after seeing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows.

I knew I wanted to write about something epic and magical, but I didn’t know what. There’s a lot I don’t know about creating a new world, or even a new place or life. I keep thinking I should take a class on writing, but I don’t know. I may eventually. I want to start writing while I’m still interested in writing a story. Unfortunately, it’s not going as well as I’d hoped.

I’ve been at this all morning, and I’m still having a little trouble deciding how to begin. I borrowed and watched the first Harry Potter. It wasn’t as helpful as I’d hoped. It gave some back-story about Harry that I didn’t know before, but compared to the Deathly Hallows one, it wasn’t near as good or as exciting of a story. 

Amanda tells me I should keep watching, so I will, but in the meantime, I’ve been trying to come up with a story to tell. I hadn’t realized how much trouble it would be to get started. I spent an hour trying to come up with a story and my roommate finally told me, “just start writing,” so I did. Here’s what I got from about 45 min of typing.

Book Idea

Kenji sat meditating over his books. Tonight would be a long night. The moon festival was about to begin, and everyone knew that meant all sorts of spirits and beings long forgotten in many circles would come to claim their sacrifice or begin tearing the world to pieces. It had been hundreds of years since the bandana knights had needed to draw their swords on a foe.

The Bandana knights were revered among the clans in the Sanida Mountains, but they were feared just as much. A group of men who gave up everything, including their sight, to battle evil forces were capable of anything. Kenji knew as much and had seen the results of restlessness among their ranks.

The old room suddenly smelled of mold to the old man, and he stood, albeit calmly, to remove himself from the stench. The room he was in boasted of a dozen shelving units completely concealing the walls from sight with scrolls and ancient tomes. Few men were allowed to set foot among these hallowed histories and magic words, but to Kenji, this room was home.

A thud from behind drew Kenji’s attention to the door. His hands instinctively smoothed his crimson and gold robes as his eyes ensured no private information lay open to see. He moved to the door and examined the visitor through the sight at the top of the door. A young man with well-developed muscles stood at the door with his chest bared. The boy’s head had been shaved and his empty eye-sockets covered with a bandana as was traditional among his order. Kenji stroked his beard in wonder and pulled back to open the door and exit.

My Thoughts After Writing 

I’ll be honest, it almost felt like I had to force the story to get anything out of it, and I really have no idea where I’m going with it. It’s hard to get started because if you try to plan things out, it seems like the story won't sound exciting; but if you just write, then there’s nothing to help you get from one point to the next. 

My roommate just came in as I was writing this and basically said, “Writing a novel is a big job, but writing about one person is small, so try just writing about one character, then another then another, then try putting them in a world and see what happens.” 

I guess it makes sense. I don’t know how well it’s going to work to write about a person if I don’t even know what story to write, but I’ll give it a try. This is the beginning of being an author. ^_^

Before then, dinner and some Halo Reach. I’ll post more after I’ve written about the characters.

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