I'm not one of these people who plans out their book Chapter by chapter and has a detail breakdown before I begin. I start with an idea, a flash of inspiration, and let the keyboard race away with me.
I wrote this some time ago, I scribbled it down in a notebook while out and about with no idea where it was going or what was happening, I just had an image of the scene in my head and the only way to get it out was to commit it to paper.
Snow flakes swirled about in the biting
wind making it hard to see any distance at all up the valley through
the heavily laden fir trees.
Heavily armoured and up to his knees in
snow, Brodey was thankful for his thick fur cloak but even with it he
shivered and he prayed anyone noticing would think it was only from
the cold. His gloved hands twitched compulsively, gripping sword and
shield tight as he waited. Beside him his best friend and Commander
stood stock still, staring across the snow with rich hazel eyes
piercing the night. All that identified him as the Commander was a
dark plume rising from his helmet, other than that his fur cloak was
almost identical to Brodey's and his leather and chain-mail armour
could have belonged to any officer in the army but for the small
brooch pinned lovingly to it that was a present directly from the
Queen's hand. He was her chosen man, the officer in charge of her
guards, an honour he had only reluctantly taken when it was clear
there was no better man for the job. And here in the freezing
darkness with danger all around the Commander was smiling.
“Dacan,” Brodey could not help
himself. “You know we're all going to die tonight, don't you.”
The Commander looked briefly at his
friend before his eyes turned back to the trees and snow. “Of
course I do.”
“So what in all the layers of hell is
there to smile about?”
Dacan actually laughed. “Because when
all hope is lost and death is staring you in face, when you resign
yourself to the inevitable and stand strong against the bitter end,
if you're really lucky you might just see an angel.”
There was something in the way his
Commander spoke, something wistful. Brodey wondered if there was a
part of the plan he had missed. “If there's something you haven't
told me now is really the time.”
“No,” the smile was gone. “There's
nothing but a last stand left. The Queen will get safely to the city
with Recal and his detachment and we'll make sure of that by holding
the line here.”
“Good.” Brodey nodded and turned
back to watching the forest. “For a minute there I thought that
last knock to the head had lost you the last bit of sense you had
left.”
So what happens next?
Okay, I've actually turned this into a full story now with developed characters and (whisper it) a plot, but it could have gone anywhere.
Do Brodey and Dacan die in an act of heroism? Does an angel appear to rescue them? Do they somehow manage to defeat the enemy and return to the Queen? Are they abducted by aliens to become space warriors in a battle for the universe? Ahem, am I getting carried away?
Where would you take it?
Inspiration is not linear, it does not give you plot notes with beginning, middle and end. It gives a snapshot, a moment in time to be turned into something greater.
Getting inspiration is easy, turning it into a novel is hard work.
