What’s behind a story?

I wrote a rather odd little number for Colin Barnes City of Hell Chronicles, Volume one. I thought it might be interesting to use this particular story to share a little of the varied lightning bolts that pulse life into the dead meat of a story, as it’s something I see asked often (though of far better and better known writers than myself). Ideas are strange animals, you see, and how they come together can be even stranger.

When we were given our brief, a pdf outlining the world, the creature...