One of the most useful questions to a writer is the question, “what if”. What if the world was green, or vampires were real, or you could travel through time. The whole of fiction is based on asking how things would work if the way the world works was different.
Whenever I get a bit stuck in what I’m planning I stop and think about what could happen if I changed something up. Often those changes are irrelevant to where my story is going, in fact the more ridiculous the better. This works just to get the words flowing and then I can get back to where I was in the story. It’s amazing how doing something else can spark ideas that get you through your stuck moment. Your subconscious mind is amazing, just you need to distract your conscious mind at times to get it to work! And sometimes those silly ideas also lead to a good story.
My next story to be published is one that’s full of what ifs.
- What if Sleeping Beauty was set in Wales? That seems to me to be a place where a town could easily be lost for a hundred years.
- What if we tell the story from the Prince’s point of view? In which case we have just the traditional ending of the story.
- What if while the town slept the Romans invaded? It’s always struck me that a hundred years is a long time to sleep, and lots will have changed. So I’ve set it in a time where the world is a completely different place when they wake from when they sleep.
I hope you enjoy this different look at the story we all know and love.
Awakening Iorwen
Marcus, the Tribunus lactivus of Cambria and leader of the Second Augustan Legion, is touring the westernmost reaches of his authority when he finds a path. A path his guide claims didn’t exist. A path that calls to him to find its end. A path that leads to a hillfort lost to history.
This Sleeping Beauty re-telling is set against the consolidation of Roman rule in Wales.
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I got a kick out of What if the Romans invaded? It is fun to play around with story variables and to sometimes turn all expectations on their heads.
Absolutely! That’s the joy of writing (& reading)