Balancing Real Life and Fictional Worlds

Sorry for the break in posting. I’ve been busy working to make ends meet with my real job and fallen off the writing bandwagon a little. Now that I’m being productive in the real world, I’m ready to jump back into the fictional worlds in my head. 

I’ve been toying with two story ideas that I think could make interesting tales. Both are set in more of a modern fantasy genre with heavy elements of the real world, which means the characters, settings, and conflicts are going to have to be something readers can relate to. 

“Skipper”

The most advanced idea (I’ve gotten about 35,000 words written) tackles the trope of time-travel/reincarnation where the main character dies at the beginning of the story and is sent back to their younger self with a chance at doing things over. This is the same macro-plot I used in the A New Past trilogy. However, this idea takes a different twist where the main character doesn’t go back to their younger self, but rather to a family member in the previous generation. So, instead of reincarnating in themselves, they are born as their uncle, or father, or grandfather, etc. 

This obviously creates a possibility of them creating a paradox, which can be a form of conflict. If they change things, maybe they won’t even be born, so the stakes are high. However, there are a few other twists I’ve got in mind that may make it more interesting.

”Small Powers”

The second idea is based on a random thought about superheroes and special powers. In all of the comic book tropes, some event happens that transforms the character into a super-powered hero or villain. My random thought was what powers would look like if they were more naturally emergent. What if they were little powers that could not do all that much on their own? 

I think this has the potential to make the characters much more relatable and interesting. Obviously, if they are in our contemporary world, they will have enough paranoia to not reveal their powers unless they want to risk the government swooping in to study them, or recruit them for some secret cabal. At the same time, they will feel isolated since they can’t share what is happening to them. I’ve written about 25,000 words on this story, so it is developing as well.

Long forms

Both of these tales are running long for me. Each are roughly a third or a quarter of the length I would like the final novels to be (roughly 120,000 words or less). I’m worried I’m not editing enough as I go, but decided after grinding through Technomancer in four months at 117,000 words, that I would let my muse take me where she will.

Follow me on Amazon, GoodReads, or Facebook to get information about upcoming book releases.