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Episode 19: The Story Behind the Story
59 Plays15 days ago
Where do story ideas come from? In this listener-requested episode, we’re pulling back the curtain on the inspiration behind some of our books. From real-life relationships to striking mental images to titles that grew into entire novels, we’re exploring the surprising, sometimes winding journeys our stories took from Once Upon a Time to The End. Whether you’re looking for inspiration or just curious about the creative process of two storytellers, we hope you’ll come away with one simple truth: Inspiration is everywhere, and the human imagination has a remarkable way of turning ordinary moments into extraordinary stories.
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Transcript
Introduction to Inspiration in Writing
00:00:14
Paul Regnier
Hello and welcome to the show. I'm Paul Regner.
00:00:17
Lindsay Franklin
And I'm Lindsay Franklin.
00:00:19
Paul Regnier
And today's episode is the story behind the story. We are going to talk about things that inspire us to write the books that we write. It could be a flash of an image. It could be something that's very important in our life. There's a whole lot of things. And we we thought if we shared some of ours, we each put picked three books of our own. And we're going to kind of talk about some of the things that inspired the stories that we wrote. and how that might be helpful for you know all you writers out there to kind of key in on some of the things in your life that might prove to be a full novel.
The Story Peddler: Origins and Influences
00:00:54
Paul Regnier
So, Lindsay, you want to kick us off with this episode of one of your books and the story behind it?
00:01:02
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah, absolutely. We thought this episode was going to be really fun. It's actually a listener submitted idea. One of our listeners said that she really would love to hear about this from us.
00:01:13
Lindsay Franklin
So we're excited to to talk a little bit about our stories today.
00:01:15
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:01:18
Lindsay Franklin
And hopefully you all will find that helpful and there will be good takeaways and inspiration for you as well. So um I know in the past that I have talked about this story, which was my debut.
00:01:30
Lindsay Franklin
That is The Story Peddler. um our Our YouTube watchers get the like bonus content today because we're going to hold up our books. So if you want to see what our books look like, you pop over to YouTube and get the video feed.
00:01:38
Paul Regnier
ah
00:01:42
Lindsay Franklin
But um yes, this is my debut novel, The Story Peddler.
00:01:44
Paul Regnier
Look at that. Look at that shiny, pretty cover.
00:01:46
Lindsay Franklin
The shiny, yeah, my ring light reflects really obnoxiously and in these glossy covers, but um yes. So um I've talked a little bit about how the idea for the Story Peddler first came to me because I was at a writer's conference and there was an acquisitions editor who was talking about the acquisitions process and what that looks like on her end.
00:02:08
Lindsay Franklin
And she was telling us that she finds us Our position at conference is having to pitch to people like her, ah very relatable, because she essentially has to do that same thing ah with her bosses and all the executives at the table.
00:02:18
Paul Regnier
Thank you.
00:02:23
Lindsay Franklin
And it's very intimidating for her to have to go into that room and pitch stories she's really excited about and wants to acquire. She has to sell the idea to the executives who you know, write the checks and generate the contracts and whatnot.
00:02:37
Lindsay Franklin
So she said, that's what I do. I peddle stories, you know, at the end of the day, I'm just a story peddler. And so I like, and then she just moved on like it was nothing what she just said.
00:02:42
Paul Regnier
sensation
00:02:48
Lindsay Franklin
And I was like, that's such a cool thing that she a cool phrase that she just said. And because I'm a fantasy author, it immediately like came to me in this visual, like format where I was picturing, magic, you know,
Character Development and Personal Influences
00:03:03
Lindsay Franklin
coming out of, of somebody's hands while they're telling a story.
00:03:03
Paul Regnier
m
00:03:06
Lindsay Franklin
And then it coming together, all those magic strands coming together into a solid object that would crystallize into something. Cause the image of a peddler in my mind is somebody like traveling down the road with a cart of wares, you know, and selling things.
00:03:20
Paul Regnier
Yeah, yeah.
00:03:22
Lindsay Franklin
So that's why it went to like a physical object in my mind. And these little like crystalline figures, that's the story. And then selling that to somebody, um that was the image that came to mind.
00:03:33
Lindsay Franklin
So I left that workshop and went out into the Redwoods because this was at the Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference that this happened. um I went out into the trees with my laptop and started writing what is essentially...
00:03:46
Lindsay Franklin
Chapter one in the published version of that book. It's really similar to what I wrote kind of immediately after just off the top of my head after hearing that phrase. um So that whole concept, that whole series was built around that idea that was just somebody else's phrasing that that she used to describe her job. And
00:04:08
Paul Regnier
That's so cool.
00:04:08
Lindsay Franklin
and ah so
00:04:10
Paul Regnier
I picture you sitting in that meeting just like you're looking up to the sky, the story peddler, the story peddler.
00:04:15
Lindsay Franklin
ah
00:04:16
Paul Regnier
It's just like echoing in your head.
00:04:18
Lindsay Franklin
ah It was just like, wow. And like I actually had a moment where I looked around that room because it was full of, you know, writers listening to what she's saying. It's very interesting ah workshop, especially if you don't know about that side of publishing.
00:04:31
Lindsay Franklin
And I kind of already did because I had an agent and and had for years. So I knew what that looked like at pub board and all of that. Like I was already familiar. So I feel like I was probably half dialed in to the actual content of the workshop because i I knew most of what she was talking about.
00:04:46
Lindsay Franklin
But everybody's like really listening and keyed in on what she's ah saying. And I'm looking around going, guys, did you hear what she just said? That phrase is so cool.
00:04:56
Lindsay Franklin
Don't we all want to go write a fantasy story now?
00:04:59
Paul Regnier
No one else steal my idea.
00:04:59
Lindsay Franklin
Apparently not, but tiptoe into the into the trees.
00:05:02
Paul Regnier
I'm going to write it first.
00:05:04
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah. So that was one of those just serendipitous, could not have planned it if you know if I wanted to moments where that sparked.
00:05:14
Lindsay Franklin
And that was different for me because that was almost a piece of world building. you know, a piece of the magic system that came first.
00:05:18
Paul Regnier
Hmm. Hmm.
00:05:20
Lindsay Franklin
And that's not usually how it works for me. I usually have a character who kind of comes to me first and and i will start building a story around that character. But um this was this was not that this was world building.
00:05:33
Lindsay Franklin
And that's where where that started. And I don't know exactly ah why Tanwin, the main character, came to me the way that she did, except my daughter was about five years old at the time.
00:05:45
Lindsay Franklin
And I know that I wanted to very intentionally write a main character who was not like me because i had written two other manuscripts that my agent and I had tried to pitch.
00:05:52
Paul Regnier
Hmm.
00:05:57
Lindsay Franklin
And, you know, we had had good feedback, but rejections on both of those. And I felt like both of those main characters were a lot more like direct reflections of my personality.
00:06:09
Lindsay Franklin
And I really wanted to like do something different for the protagonist. So I really tried to incorporate some of my daughter and her very like quirky personality and her, you know, the pieces of her, especially cause we're pretty similar, but the pieces of her, especially that are, are really different from me.
00:06:26
Lindsay Franklin
Um, I made a concerted effort to incorporate those into Tanwen's personality. So she she came to me pretty early on in the process, but the story was not initially built around her like as
Sibling Bonds in Fantasy
00:06:40
Lindsay Franklin
the starting point. So that was that was different for me. i was not used to that, but...
00:06:45
Paul Regnier
Yeah, that's a perfect lead in for me because I didn't even know that about your daughter. Because what I was going to say with my first book, which is, i will show it here.
00:06:56
Paul Regnier
This is a book I released last year. It's called The Agency of Magic and Mythical Creatures. And this is a middle grade fantasy book. um And it it has a twin brother and sister um that are the main characters. And it's like a portal fantasy. you know They get sucked in a fantasy world and got to figure out how to survive and you know navigate this crazy new place with magic and creatures and dragons and stuff.
00:07:20
Paul Regnier
um But a lot of that inspiration came from my kids. I have a son and a daughter. And the the thing that inspired me about them is they they actually, like for the most part, get along really well, which I love because you know that's not everyone's experience.
00:07:34
Lindsay Franklin
Aw. Yeah.
00:07:37
Paul Regnier
um And a lot of people, like you know they have contentious relationships with siblings or family or whatever it is. So I i always thought, like as ah as a dad, I just was always so grateful and thankful that they actually, i'm like, I can't believe they get along.
00:07:53
Paul Regnier
you know They like to joke around, play video games with each other, different things. And I just always thought that was so special. And so that was a big inspiration for for this book, for the main characters. I just thought like, okay, I'm gonna have a brother and sister and they're twins. So they're both like 12, which is kind of like that middle grade, like sweet spot. um But my thought was like, that's often an age where you start to drift apart from you know your siblings.
00:08:22
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm.
00:08:24
Paul Regnier
you know You're kind of becoming this young adult and um you kind of just want to hang out with your friends and you know you don't want to be teased like, oh, you're hanging out with your sister, like loser or whatever.
00:08:34
Paul Regnier
you know So I kind of wanted to like have a counter to that, like, hey, you know what? It's actually kind of cool. Because I think it's cool that my own kids can do that, again, because you know that's not always the case, unfortunately. Sometimes it's very difficult. um So yeah, that was a big inspiration for that. and i thought like And then I applied the growing closer together through an adventure aspect that we often have in fantasy.
00:09:00
Paul Regnier
um or even anything that's like combat related because it's such an intense experience. You are often drawn kind of close to you know all all your fellow adventurers and whatnot. So yeah, that was a big inspiration for that one.
00:09:15
Lindsay Franklin
That's awesome. I love that so much. My younger son and my daughter are close like that, and we're super close growing up. And I love, you're right, that's not everybody's experience.
00:09:26
Lindsay Franklin
And it's cool when we can address kind of some of those relational difficulties and things in our our fiction, but I also, because that's so relatable for for a lot of people, you know, have sibling struggles or parent struggles or whatever it is, but but I also love to have positive representation of of family relationships or or just anything, friendship relationships, platonic friendships, you know so some things that are are sometimes not addressed enough, I feel, in fiction not shown enough in fiction.
00:09:26
Paul Regnier
Yep.
00:09:44
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:09:49
Paul Regnier
Mm.
00:09:55
Paul Regnier
yeah
00:09:56
Lindsay Franklin
I think that's really cool. And my next with my next series, whatever it's going to be, or my next book, I really want to have a very strong, positive representation of motherhood in that in that story, because I saw something, it was like a um quite viral post on Instagram, I think the other day where, and this is so legit.
Representing Motherhood in Fantasy
00:10:19
Lindsay Franklin
So this is not me critiquing the post at all, because I agree where it it said something like fantasy hates mothers or something like that.
00:10:25
Paul Regnier
Oh, because the mother always dies or something to start it off.
00:10:25
Lindsay Franklin
And think She's either she's dead, she's gone, she's evil or, you know, like, right.
00:10:32
Paul Regnier
or Evil stepmother, right?
00:10:35
Lindsay Franklin
Or if she's the protagonist and she's not yet a mother, then it's like her kind of fantasy, ah like her hero role or whatever role she's playing in that story ends because she becomes a mom.
00:10:47
Lindsay Franklin
You know, it's like done. OK, her story is done.
00:10:49
Paul Regnier
Oh, right.
00:10:49
Lindsay Franklin
And now she's she's not that person anymore. And so um that really made me think.
00:10:53
Paul Regnier
The adventure is over. Yeah, that is weird.
00:10:55
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah, exactly.
00:10:56
Paul Regnier
Yeah, you're right.
00:10:56
Lindsay Franklin
yeah.
00:10:57
Paul Regnier
You're right.
00:10:57
Lindsay Franklin
yeah
00:10:57
Paul Regnier
There isn't a lot of that. Yeah, interesting.
00:10:58
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:59
Paul Regnier
Huh.
00:11:00
Lindsay Franklin
I agreed with that. so I was like, okay, we need, we do need that. And I've been aware fatherhood.
00:11:03
Paul Regnier
Or fatherhood. Now that you mentioned it, I don't see a lot of fatherhood necessarily.
00:11:05
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah. Yeah.
00:11:07
Paul Regnier
Hmm.
00:11:08
Lindsay Franklin
Sometimes there is that trope of like the dad going to save his kids, which I love that.
00:11:13
Paul Regnier
Yeah, that's true.
00:11:13
Lindsay Franklin
I love, I love that trope.
00:11:14
Paul Regnier
That's true.
00:11:15
Lindsay Franklin
That's a good one where it's like, go rescue the, you know, the children who are in peril, um which is a great one.
00:11:16
Paul Regnier
Yeah. Yeah.
00:11:21
Paul Regnier
Maybe there needs to be more mama bear, like ah
00:11:22
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah. yeah Yes. Yes.
00:11:26
Paul Regnier
fight for your kids.
00:11:26
Lindsay Franklin
Let's go. I love it. So that's my goal with my next book.
00:11:30
Paul Regnier
Okay.
00:11:30
Lindsay Franklin
I'm like, I don't know what it's going to look like yet, but there's going to be some kind of motherhood ah representation.
00:11:35
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:11:36
Lindsay Franklin
um And speaking of, yeah.
00:11:38
Paul Regnier
yeah Well, you know you know what you just made me think of, and I don't even know if this is the direction you're going, but I don't know.
00:11:39
Lindsay Franklin
well Yeah.
00:11:44
Paul Regnier
This popped into my head, and this was back in the 70s, I think, or maybe early 80s. um No, I guess it was 80s. So this might be a bad example.
00:11:55
Paul Regnier
Aliens. Did you ever see the movie Aliens?
00:11:57
Lindsay Franklin
Yes.
00:11:58
Paul Regnier
It's not for everyone. It's a little like the aliens are creepy is some gory stuff, I guess, but yeah it's a little scary.
00:12:00
Lindsay Franklin
A little scary. Yeah.
00:12:04
Paul Regnier
So not, not necessarily making a recommendation, but Ripley, the main character, Sigourney Weaver, they, the team of Marines finds this girl, this young little girl that's been surviving through just like she she's nimble.
00:12:19
Paul Regnier
She can get through these small crawl spaces. She's been surviving on this planet. That's like totally inhabited by these crazy, dangerous aliens. Right. Um, so, you know, it's one of these movies where like the people get picked off one by one and ends up being like Sigourney and the kid, but she's total, like she gets real mama bear with this little girl to try to protect her all the way through.
00:12:43
Paul Regnier
And they even, the aliens like take this girl at one point, she has to go into their hive, which no one wants to go into once you've seen these and yeah, get him
00:12:49
Lindsay Franklin
Get him. Get him.
00:12:52
Paul Regnier
And then she even has a confrontation with like the sort of the mother figure of the alien. Why am I talking this whole story?
00:12:58
Lindsay Franklin
m
00:12:59
Paul Regnier
I don't know why, but but the face-off was kind of cool because she's like, hey, back off because you're protecting your little alien eggs here and I'm protecting this little girl.
00:13:01
Lindsay Franklin
It's relevant. Yeah. Yeah.
00:13:09
Paul Regnier
So there's like this standoff moment and then the alien kind of the alien beats or goes back on the deal.
00:13:12
Lindsay Franklin
It's like a mom moment.
00:13:17
Paul Regnier
Like, hey, if you let me leave, it's all good, but the alien does something and Sigourney Weaver's like, all right, you asked for it and it's just fire, destroy, you're gone, you're all dead.
00:13:25
Lindsay Franklin
ah ah It's on. It's on. ah
00:13:29
Paul Regnier
But that, I don't know why the mama bear, I think that was really represented in a, such a cool, strong way.
00:13:32
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah.
00:13:36
Paul Regnier
And Sigourney Weaver is just a great actress too.
00:13:37
Lindsay Franklin
Love that. She is.
00:13:39
Paul Regnier
But like, that was a pretty cool version.
00:13:39
Lindsay Franklin
She is. she is
00:13:42
Paul Regnier
i don't know if that's exactly what you're thinking, but that's what it made me think of.
00:13:46
Lindsay Franklin
That's so cool. And I love like the mom standoff in a way because, you know, it's like alien mom with her creepy eggs.
00:13:49
Paul Regnier
Yeah. It was a total mom standoff.
00:13:53
Lindsay Franklin
And then there's Sigourney Weaver with with, you know, this kid she's trying to protect.
00:13:53
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:13:57
Lindsay Franklin
I love that. That's awesome.
00:13:58
Paul Regnier
Yeah. And her flamethrower.
00:14:00
Lindsay Franklin
You're right.
00:14:00
Paul Regnier
ah
00:14:01
Lindsay Franklin
ah Oh, I love it. That's super cool.
00:14:03
Paul Regnier
Sorry, I got off on a weird tangent there.
00:14:05
Lindsay Franklin
Oh. Hey, that's, we're talking about stories today. We are talking about stories. So it's, it is very relevant. I love that. um Okay.
00:14:15
Lindsay Franklin
Well, speaking of, um you know, maybe weird mom relationships. No, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna go there with this because I don't want to be like too spoilery with these books but um I do have some very interesting mother relationships in the rest of the Weaver trilogy we'll just we'll just leave it at that I do have some positive representation in there as well um it's just very like side character stuff so um but we have okay I'm gonna hold these up for our YouTubers we have book two in this series which is the Story Raider and then with the map finish see y'all can see that my ring light is not reflecting off of this one because it's Matt.
00:14:30
Paul Regnier
o Okay.
00:14:46
Paul Regnier
With the matte finish. Beautiful.
00:14:51
Paul Regnier
It's no reflection. Nice.
00:14:54
Lindsay Franklin
This is kind of like a
00:14:54
Paul Regnier
ah
Titles Shaping Story Direction
00:14:55
Lindsay Franklin
new thing.
00:14:55
Lindsay Franklin
We're going to have Matt covers on these. but um And then I have book three in the series, which is The Story Hunter.
00:14:57
Paul Regnier
nice
00:15:01
Paul Regnier
Back to glossy.
00:15:02
Lindsay Franklin
Back to glossy. Sorry, don't have those in Matt yet, but they're coming. So these are kind of interesting because we're going to talk about my pantser side a little bit because we have We've definitely dived into the fact that Paul is more of the the pantser and I'm a little bit more of the the plotter, the the planner when it comes to things. However, the truth is there is definitely a little pantser who lives inside me and she takes over my brain at very key moments and stresses me out. um And one of those very key moments was when I pitched the story peddler to Steve Lobby, who was ultimately going to acquire it for Enclave.
00:15:39
Lindsay Franklin
i had written this story in such a way that it could be a standalone, like the ending wrapped up kind of the whole story, um if it if the publisher wanted to acquire it that way.
00:15:50
Lindsay Franklin
um Or we could kind of untie some of the the ends that I had tied up at the very end, and it could actually be expanded into a series. So if you ever read the story, Peddler, and it feels like this could be a complete story, except for a few things that happen at the end where it's like, oh no, what's going to happen with that?
00:15:59
Paul Regnier
Oh. Hmm.
00:16:07
Lindsay Franklin
That was on purpose. And it was written as a complete story originally. But Steve said, no, I want a trilogy. What are what are the other two books going to be about? but So I had to come up with a little paragraph description of what books two and three would be.
00:16:24
Lindsay Franklin
And I had not done any planning work on that yet. I had not plotted anything or figured anything out really. So it would be very interesting to find my proposal. and see what I said.
00:16:35
Lindsay Franklin
I'm pretty sure that the blurb for book two was quite different from what the story ended up being. um And I'm 100% sure that this whatever I pitched for book three is not at all what that story ended up being because I had no idea what ah what it was going to be about.
00:16:44
Paul Regnier
Hmm.
00:16:53
Lindsay Franklin
But ah it did get signed as a trilogy. So then I had to write those stories at some point. So um something else on that proposal that was missing, which is kind of key, is ah titles.
00:17:06
Lindsay Franklin
I didn't really have titles for books two or three. I had a working title for book two, which was terrible. And book three is just in the proposal as untitled.
00:17:18
Lindsay Franklin
And Steve made fun of me about that later. He was like, oh yeah, no, you had such a great idea. And I was trying to think, oh my gosh, what did i put in there? I couldn't remember anything. And he said, untitled. So, oh yeah, okay, you're right.
00:17:28
Paul Regnier
ah
00:17:30
Lindsay Franklin
ah So we actually ah brainstormed title ideas together after he had acquired the series. And he said, you know the story part is really what the magic of this world is built on.
00:17:43
Lindsay Franklin
There's like different art forms that are magic.
00:17:45
Paul Regnier
Yeah, true.
00:17:47
Lindsay Franklin
that's That's super key. So it was his idea to carry through story into all three of the titles. So we had the story peddler, but the next book should be the story something.
00:17:58
Lindsay Franklin
And then the third book, the story something else. So we brainstormed through and picked, ah picked two titles that I actually still really love both of these titles, but book two was going to be the story mage and book three was going to be the story thief.
00:18:01
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:18:12
Paul Regnier
moon
00:18:17
Lindsay Franklin
Okay. And this was before Story Thieves, which is an extremely popular middle grade series.
00:18:22
Paul Regnier
Oh, right. Middle grade. That's right.
00:18:24
Lindsay Franklin
Yep.
00:18:25
Paul Regnier
That's right.
00:18:25
Lindsay Franklin
That might have been out there, but I wasn't aware of it yet and neither was Steve. So it might have been like just kind of, you know, launching or becoming very popular.
00:18:30
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:18:34
Lindsay Franklin
Um, but as soon as I saw you know, story thieves out there, I was like, Oh no, we cannot do that.
00:18:34
Paul Regnier
Interesting.
00:18:40
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:18:41
Lindsay Franklin
That's going to get buried in SEO and everything.
00:18:41
Paul Regnier
Right.
00:18:44
Lindsay Franklin
Like you just can't, you can't do that.
00:18:44
Paul Regnier
Yeah. Yeah.
00:18:46
Lindsay Franklin
Um, so, but choosing those titles actually heavily influenced where those stories ended up going because, you know, we, we selected those words and I started thinking, you know, what is a story mage?
00:19:00
Lindsay Franklin
Very similar to how The first book was imagined based on this idea of a story peddler. So then if I think about a story mage, to me, that's somebody who is more more than a storyteller.
00:19:06
Paul Regnier
Hmm.
00:19:12
Lindsay Franklin
It's like they're using story magic in a different kind of way than somebody who's a story peddler would be where they're trying to create a product to sell.
00:19:16
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:19:20
Lindsay Franklin
And somebody who's a story mage is using story as magic. And so that got my wheels turning. And ultimately, i wrote half of that story.
00:19:31
Lindsay Franklin
And it ended up being set a lot on a ship. Most of that story takes place on a ship and they're traveling around the world and going places and doing things and trying to find stuff. And it had this much more piratey feel to me, even though the mage stuff is still really happening in the background, especially in the villain's point of view.
00:19:44
Paul Regnier
Hmm.
00:19:50
Lindsay Franklin
But I sent Steve like an SOS email and I'm so sorry. I know that we've already like announced places that this is going to be called the story mage, but I don't think it fits anymore.
00:20:00
Lindsay Franklin
And I was freaking out and, We renamed it to the story Raider because that had a more piratey feel um to it and kind of reflected that a little bit better.
00:20:01
Paul Regnier
Hmm.
00:20:05
Paul Regnier
Right. Mm-hmm.
00:20:11
Lindsay Franklin
um But even so, that original title really did influence what that story ended up becoming. And um the same thing with The third book, after we scrapped The Story Thief, which I so loved that title.
00:20:24
Lindsay Franklin
And I love it.
00:20:24
Paul Regnier
Yeah, it's a fun title.
00:20:27
Lindsay Franklin
I love it so much. And it actually influenced, if you've read the Weaver trilogy, um the character of Diggy was her her specific power that she has was totally built on the idea of being a story thief.
00:20:40
Lindsay Franklin
um So again, even though that title didn't carry through to be the actual title of book three, her character started to kind of come to me as what she ended up being because of the idea of a story thief.
00:20:40
Paul Regnier
Hmm.
00:20:53
Lindsay Franklin
And ultimately, we renamed it Story Hunter, and I built the whole plot really around that. hunting for story strands and and this this whole thing. So it that is a very strange ah instance for me of a story being very much built on the title, which is something that's, yes, and that's, I mean, I'm not right where you pick a title that really reflects the the story.
00:21:10
Paul Regnier
On the title. It's usually the other way around. Yeah, that's interesting.
00:21:18
Lindsay Franklin
And that's just how this series was
Transforming Sci-Fi to Fantasy
00:21:21
Lindsay Franklin
for me. The titles were super, super important. So kind of odd.
00:21:23
Paul Regnier
Wow. I do love the story mage. I feel like story mage should be a new class in D&D or something like that.
00:21:27
Lindsay Franklin
yeah
00:21:32
Lindsay Franklin
Oh, I love it.
00:21:33
Paul Regnier
That would be fun. i could come up with a lot of fun, magical abilities with that.
00:21:34
Lindsay Franklin
o
00:21:37
Paul Regnier
Oh,
00:21:37
Lindsay Franklin
Gosh, I'm kind of thinking maybe I should write like a novella, like a companion novella for this series that is called The Story Made.
00:21:42
Paul Regnier
Yeah, the story mage. You should do it.
00:21:45
Lindsay Franklin
love ah fine
00:21:46
Paul Regnier
That's just too cool a title about to... ah ah oh
00:21:49
Lindsay Franklin
ah i love it
00:21:52
Paul Regnier
Well, cool. um All right. So for my second book, let me lift this cover up here. This is Bard Tidings. This is another fantasy book where the main characters are bard, obviously.
00:22:05
Paul Regnier
um And so this one, and I think I mentioned this on a previous episode, this one actually started out as a science fiction idea.
00:22:05
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm.
00:22:14
Paul Regnier
um I had this idea and I called it like my accidental Iron Man idea where this guy finds this suit from like another planet and it's like,
00:22:25
Paul Regnier
like super high tech, uh, AI powered suit. So he puts it on and the AI basically teaches him how to use the suit kind of like a mentor. and, and I had written several different versions of it and I just, I couldn't get it to work.
00:22:41
Paul Regnier
It wasn't quite, I just, the feel wasn't there. It just felt like, ah, this is clunky.
00:22:43
Lindsay Franklin
Thank you.
00:22:45
Paul Regnier
This isn't quite, I'm not getting the energy I want. um And then I found an old scrap of paper that I had written because I always write ideas on scraps of paper and post-its or whatever. And this one had talked about like, it was just a quick little note I jotted down and said, you know there's a bard and he's in a castle and he has to play as entertainment for this tyrant king and he hates it and he wants to get out of there and his best friend's a jester and they They both just want to figure out how to get out of the castle. So that was kind of just the tiniest little bit that I had on the scrap. And I'm like, wait a second, what if I combine that idea with my science fiction idea instead of a high-tech suit?
00:23:25
Paul Regnier
like suit ah What if it was like an enchanted chainmail where like an ancient warrior was trapped inside and he could talk with the person wearing it like mentally, you know, kind of telepathically and be like the mentor and and help this bard that's not really a fighter become a fighter and like, no, do this.
00:23:36
Lindsay Franklin
So cool.
00:23:43
Paul Regnier
You want to do this? And so anyways, that was ah that's where it all kind of, I mean, it was it was a little bit of a clunky process. I will say that. But um it did remind you of like so me of something you said, like because you had to write these descriptions for your Weaver trilogy.
00:24:01
Paul Regnier
And it's like, even though you didn't use the descriptions you initially wrote, I think that probably helped you zero in on what you actually wanted to write.
00:24:01
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm.
00:24:10
Paul Regnier
And I feel like that's the process sometimes. We have to come up with all these different ideas like, yeah, yeah, that one's OK. That one's OK. It's not really like you know the idea that's like blowing my mind.
00:24:21
Paul Regnier
I want to keep working. So you kind of have to work through a lot of that stuff. And I do that quite a bit. I have like all these ideas, and I have to keep like tweaking them and figuring out different avenues to take them until it's like a st story.
00:24:34
Paul Regnier
OK, that's a solid story. like I feel good about this. But yeah, I think sometimes going through that process of just kind of weeding through all these like okay ideas to find the one great path, um that's a good way to go.
00:24:45
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah.
00:24:48
Paul Regnier
and So not to get discouraged, I guess, by those initial things like, ah, I just can't make it work, forget it I'm gonna scrap the whole thing, you know hold onto it, you know maybe it'll work out later.
00:24:57
Lindsay Franklin
Uh-huh. Yeah, I love that. And I, so the first time you ever said that that story started off sci-fi, that blew my mind because Bard Tidings has such a fantasy feel to it.
00:25:10
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:25:10
Lindsay Franklin
You know, like the finished version of this is very like, it's fantasy. And so I was like, what?
00:25:14
Paul Regnier
Yeah, totally.
00:25:16
Lindsay Franklin
That used to be sci-fi. But i I teach sometimes that, like when I'm teaching story structure and that sort of thing, that If you have a really solid story, if you've got like like the meat of the story, like the bones are really good, um it it always bears...
00:25:34
Lindsay Franklin
thinking and just, you know, just a little thought experiment. What would this look like in a different genre? Like, does it work in a different genre?
00:25:41
Paul Regnier
um yeah
00:25:43
Lindsay Franklin
And, you know, that can help you kind of clarify that even if you end up writing in the same genre that you, you know, set out to with that particular story, um sometimes that can really help you identify what makes it a uniquely fantasy idea what makes it a uniquely sci-fi idea, which will help you in your marketing and like how you present that to your audience to make sure that you communicate those things that if you're a sci-fi reader, you are going to love this for these reasons, because there's stuff that's really specific to sci-fi.
00:25:59
Paul Regnier
mm-hmm
00:26:15
Lindsay Franklin
um on you know that particular idea. Or you might find that this idea that you could not make work as sci-fi or as a you know historical or something like that you know actually works so much better in this other context.
00:26:21
Paul Regnier
Yeah. Yeah.
00:26:28
Lindsay Franklin
And if you've got a really solid because the arc is the same. No matter what genre we're writing, the there's so much of the skeleton of story that is universal and translates no matter what the genre is.
00:26:40
Lindsay Franklin
So if it's a solid story, there's a lot that's going to work across genres.
00:26:41
Paul Regnier
yeah
00:26:44
Lindsay Franklin
And it really just bears a few minutes of thought about, you know, am I telling this story in the right genre or could it actually benefit? Are there pieces of it that could really sing in a different Um, a different genre if I kind of step outside the box.
00:26:59
Lindsay Franklin
So I love that you did that with this one, because it just really that like made the story and made everything come together and work.
00:27:05
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:27:06
Lindsay Franklin
So that's just so cool.
00:27:07
Paul Regnier
It did. And, it and, and like, it also flowed instantly, like where, where I was like slogging through the sci-fi and and I wrote like, I think four, three or four different versions where I got about like 5,000 words, 10,000 words in, and I would just stop and like, no, it's, it's not working.
00:27:19
Lindsay Franklin
Wow.
00:27:22
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm.
00:27:26
Paul Regnier
It's off.
00:27:26
Lindsay Franklin
It's not this.
00:27:27
Paul Regnier
But then as soon as it switched to fantasy, it just, boom, I was in, I was flowing and it flowed all the way through.
00:27:27
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah, I don't know.
00:27:33
Paul Regnier
so I'm like, okay, it was supposed to be a fantasy the whole time.
00:27:36
Lindsay Franklin
I love that.
00:27:36
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:27:37
Lindsay Franklin
That's such a good indicator when it just works and you're not having to fight it anymore.
00:27:39
Paul Regnier
Yep. Yes.
00:27:41
Lindsay Franklin
It's like, okay, that's what this story wants to be.
00:27:42
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:27:44
Lindsay Franklin
i love that.
00:27:44
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:27:45
Lindsay Franklin
Love it. Oh, that's so
Sisterhood in the Rivenly Sphere Duology
00:27:47
Lindsay Franklin
great. um Okay. So my next one, I'm going to, I keep cheating because I'm talking about multiple books in, you know, like one go, but very unlike my process with the Weaver trilogy where it was one complete story and then I almost pitched the other two on spec it felt like and then had to actually write them on deadline which is ah but um scary um but the Rivenly sphere which is my duology um was the opposite really where I in some ways where I had the overarching story very much in mind, like the the big pieces of it, kind of what was going on and, you know, who the antagonists were and, you know, all of that stuff I had worked out before I had written kind of like one page of book one.
00:28:05
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:28:37
Lindsay Franklin
You know, it was like these were in my in my head and I had to spend a lot of time thinking about it because this was one where I had so many different ideas and things that I wanted to talk about and most of them, I might've edited some of those out.
00:28:51
Lindsay Franklin
I can't remember now, but most of them, I had all these disparate pieces and I i knew intuitively that it was one story. was like, these I know that these all go together in in one place.
00:29:03
Lindsay Franklin
I just don't know how. And so I had to spend, oh my gosh, it was such, that's why I identify with the term puzzler rather than plotter or pantser.
00:29:06
Paul Regnier
It's a big puzzle.
00:29:14
Lindsay Franklin
Puzzler is really like the one that hits for me because that's what it feels like. And I'll have all these pieces and I just sit there looking at it sometimes for years and just trying to figure out how do they all go together or are there pieces of this that I need to throw out because it belongs somewhere else you know it's a separate story
00:29:29
Paul Regnier
Hey, that sounds like the that sounds like the writing craft book you should write one day.
00:29:34
Lindsay Franklin
Ah, the puzzler.
00:29:35
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:29:36
Lindsay Franklin
i love that.
00:29:37
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:29:37
Lindsay Franklin
Ooh, uh-oh.
00:29:39
Paul Regnier
ah
00:29:40
Lindsay Franklin
That's now two ideas of things that I have to write that that we've had just like while we're we're recording this, I've got a companion novella for the Weaver Trilogy and now a writing craft book. Oh no, I'm going to be busy.
00:29:52
Lindsay Franklin
um Yes. So ah with the Ribbon Lee Spear, i I took a lot of time to figure out how it was going to all work together. i had originally set out to write a fairy tale retelling because that i I so, and I still get jealous of this, not a bad way, but just like I'm a little envious when I see my friends who have these beautiful retellings where they're able to pitch their stories in this like one succinct sentence that is so
00:30:23
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah. attainable and easy for the reader or whoever they're talking to to know
00:30:25
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:30:40
Paul Regnier
Tinder, yeah.
00:30:41
Lindsay Franklin
And it was great book. And you know immediately if that's going to be a story for you, right? It's such a strong, succinct pitch because we know Cinderella and we know Android and we you know can put them together.
00:30:47
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:30:53
Lindsay Franklin
And my stories are just not that. And I'm so like, I get sad because I'm just like, I don't know how to explain this to you in in one sentence.
00:30:57
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:31:02
Lindsay Franklin
And it's it's hard. So I thought, I'm going to write a fairy tale retelling and ill I'll put my own spin on it. and It'll be super fun. And I ended up with magic library that has every story that was ever written rather than retelling one specific classic.
00:31:16
Lindsay Franklin
I have a bunch of classics in this story, but it it is what it is. And my brain is what my brain is. And I just have to kind of roll with it, I think.
00:31:22
Paul Regnier
ah
00:31:24
Lindsay Franklin
But um I had that element with the magic library. i had um the idea of sisters. I was really heavily missing my own sister.
00:31:34
Lindsay Franklin
I hadn't seen her in person in so long because of a variety of of factors and she lives in a different state and she lives very rurally.
00:31:41
Paul Regnier
Hmm.
00:31:42
Lindsay Franklin
And then there was the pandemic and I just had not seen her in years. And so I was missing her and she was so instrumental in the early, years of my writing journey before I was like officially in publishing and I was just writing.
00:31:46
Paul Regnier
Hmm.
00:31:57
Lindsay Franklin
She was my alpha reader. i would send her chapters like, I mean, hot off the press.
00:31:59
Paul Regnier
Hmm.
00:32:03
Lindsay Franklin
I would sit there and write a chapter and I didn't even read it back.
00:32:04
Paul Regnier
nothing
00:32:07
Lindsay Franklin
I would just email it to her. And she she is a musician and an actor. And so she would like read these aloud to her husband and she like performs when she reads.
00:32:17
Lindsay Franklin
She'd be a great audio book narrator.
00:32:18
Paul Regnier
Oh, wow. Hmm.
00:32:19
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah, she's she's awesome. um But she would read these aloud to her husband. And so they became my first two fans. And, um you know, because he got really locked into this story that I was telling and was like super invested and wanted, you know, give us more chapters and all of that.
00:32:36
Lindsay Franklin
And their encouragement is really what spurred me on to think about publishing um at all, because that wasn't really what I set out to do.
00:32:42
Paul Regnier
and
00:32:44
Lindsay Franklin
Initially, I was just writing for fun. And because they were so locked in on it and really like wanting, if I left them on a cliffhanger, They were like upset with me and I would get, you know, texts from my sister.
00:32:57
Lindsay Franklin
Okay, where is the next chapter? Like I, I need to know what happens.
00:32:59
Paul Regnier
yeah
00:33:01
Lindsay Franklin
um So, you know, I wanted to, I wanted to write about sisters in this book, especially because Emlyn, so going to hold this up again for our YouTubers.
00:33:07
Paul Regnier
Hmm.
00:33:10
Paul Regnier
Hmm.
00:33:12
Lindsay Franklin
The book one is called The Unraveling of Emlyn Dulane. And Emlyn Dulane is a character that I was writing in that that story that I was just writing for fun.
00:33:23
Lindsay Franklin
And this was not her story, but it was she was still her. And um you know she was this character who had been kind of fully formed and living in my head for 20 years.
00:33:33
Lindsay Franklin
And she's she's the one who was in that initial story I was writing for fun. So my sister and my brother-in-law knew Emlyn and um you know loved her original story, which was terrible. And I'm very glad it it was not published. But um when I sat down to kind of write this and maybe give Emlyn a new story to exist in, that's why I kept going back to thinking of my sister and because she was so a part of Emlyn's early journey as well as mine. So that was
00:34:04
Lindsay Franklin
absolutely crucial in building the plot and figuring out where I was going to go with this series, like on a character level and like the internal story. There's a lot going on with the classics and the magic library and all of that stuff.
00:34:18
Lindsay Franklin
But the internal story is very much about sisterhood and what that what that means and that kind of longing for one's sisterhood.
00:34:23
Paul Regnier
me
00:34:28
Lindsay Franklin
whether biological or not. And so um that is that was a big piece of inspiration. And I have to show, again, for the YouTubers out there. So this is book two.
00:34:40
Lindsay Franklin
And we have, it.
00:34:41
Paul Regnier
It's so vibrant. I love the colors.
00:34:43
Lindsay Franklin
It's my first blue cover for a novel. I was so excited.
00:34:45
Paul Regnier
Yeah. Yeah.
00:34:46
Lindsay Franklin
But if you look really closely, um at the there's a story sphere on the cover here. And inside the sphere is this little blonde girl.
00:34:53
Paul Regnier
Hmm.
00:34:56
Lindsay Franklin
And that is Camille Dulane. So that's Emlyn's sister. And my sister, it's very important to me that this little girl was blonde because ah my hair was always so dark as a kid.
00:35:00
Paul Regnier
Hmm. Hmm.
00:35:08
Lindsay Franklin
It was nearly black. Now it's you know lighter because it's all silver and gray. But my sister is blonde. And so um and that's just, you know, she she got those recessive genes, I guess, in the family.
00:35:20
Lindsay Franklin
But um I needed to have that little blonde girl in the story sphere because that's like that's the homage to my sister whose name is Janessa.
00:35:24
Paul Regnier
so
00:35:29
Paul Regnier
ah
00:35:29
Lindsay Franklin
But yeah.
00:35:29
Paul Regnier
Did you dedicate the book to her?
00:35:31
Lindsay Franklin
I dedicated book one to her. I sure did.
00:35:33
Paul Regnier
Okay. Oh, that's really cool.
00:35:34
Lindsay Franklin
Yep. Yeah.
00:35:36
Paul Regnier
Oh, that's neat.
00:35:36
Lindsay Franklin
And that was a surprise for her where she didn't know I was going to do that. So yeah.
00:35:39
Paul Regnier
I love it. That's awesome. um you know It's funny, you mentioned like the the the really succinct pitch that you give. and I was talking about Aliens earlier.
00:35:51
Paul Regnier
You know how they pitched Aliens initially to the production studio?
00:35:54
Lindsay Franklin
No.
00:35:55
Paul Regnier
they just Three words, Jaws in space.
00:35:58
Lindsay Franklin
Hey.
00:35:59
Paul Regnier
That's how they pitched it.
00:35:59
Lindsay Franklin
oh I mean, they are not wrong.
00:36:03
Paul Regnier
Right?
00:36:03
Lindsay Franklin
That's, yeah, let's go. oh and that's such a strong pitch.
00:36:04
Paul Regnier
Yeah, it is.
00:36:06
Lindsay Franklin
Come on.
00:36:07
Paul Regnier
I know.
00:36:07
Lindsay Franklin
See, why can't I write pitches like that?
00:36:08
Paul Regnier
Three words. I can't either.
00:36:10
Lindsay Franklin
That's, ah see, I'm so jealous.
00:36:11
Paul Regnier
I'm no good either. Yeah.
00:36:12
Lindsay Franklin
So jealous.
00:36:12
Paul Regnier
I, yeah, that's what they call like the, well, I, I don't know if that's, well, I often think about like that high concept idea where you can say it like very quickly and people get it right away.
00:36:24
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah, yeah.
00:36:25
Paul Regnier
Yeah. I've never quite been able to lock in on that.
00:36:28
Lindsay Franklin
Right? it's so like It's just such a like valuable thing. If you can do that, like we are our hat's off to you because that's it's amazing.
00:36:33
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:36:37
Paul Regnier
Right.
00:36:38
Lindsay Franklin
And I see writers who are able to do that.
00:36:38
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:36:41
Lindsay Franklin
Then the pitch is just succinct.
00:36:41
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:36:43
Lindsay Franklin
It's strong. You can grab it immediately. a reader will know if it is or is not for them because that's the other piece of it. The idea is not being as universally appealing as possible.
00:36:53
Lindsay Franklin
The idea is communicating what this story is as succinctly as possible so that people it's not for will go, no thank you.
00:36:57
Paul Regnier
yeah
00:37:02
Lindsay Franklin
Like my mom is probably going to hear Jaws in Space and go, no, thank you.
00:37:02
Paul Regnier
Right.
00:37:05
Paul Regnier
No, thank you.
00:37:05
Lindsay Franklin
Like that's not for her.
00:37:06
Paul Regnier
Right. Yeah.
00:37:06
Lindsay Franklin
Right. But my son is going to go sign me up, take my money.
00:37:09
Paul Regnier
Right.
00:37:10
Lindsay Franklin
Like, yeah, let's go.
00:37:10
Paul Regnier
Take, ah shut up and take my money.
00:37:12
Lindsay Franklin
Let's go. Uh-huh.
00:37:14
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:37:15
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah.
00:37:15
Paul Regnier
yeah All right. Well, let's see. This brings us to my last book here and I'm going to lift this up. This is Monster Therapist right there.
00:37:27
Paul Regnier
And for all the YouTube people watching, you can see that there is a ogre on a therapy couch speaking to his therapist, but it's all in a fantasy setting.
Creating Monster Therapist: Humor in Fantasy
00:37:38
Paul Regnier
So, ah yeah, so this one was, um this one was, and actually the cover represents the initial thought that sparked the whole idea.
00:37:42
Lindsay Franklin
Love that.
00:37:49
Paul Regnier
Because I just like randomly, all of a sudden I had this thought of like, oh, wouldn't it be funny if there was a therapist that was like counseling an ogre? you know like And he's talking about his anger issues as an ogre. like He's trying to overcome all these anger issues.
00:38:06
Paul Regnier
And I thought, that's funny. And then the rest of that story sort of spiraled out from that.
00:38:08
Lindsay Franklin
so good
00:38:12
Paul Regnier
But um but that's the thing.
00:38:13
Lindsay Franklin
so good
00:38:14
Paul Regnier
Sometimes it's just this little image. And I always think of i love the story of C.S. Lewis, and I'm not comparing myself with him because I know I'm not worthy. But but he when he wrote Narnia, the story goes that he all of a sudden one day had this vision of a fawn under a lamppost in the middle of like this snowy forest and he's carrying like an armload full of parcels.
00:38:32
Lindsay Franklin
So
00:38:39
Paul Regnier
And that was like the image that C.S. Lewis got in his head. And and that just like started to give him all these questions like, well, what's this fawn doing there? Why is there a lamppost in the middle of a forest?
00:38:47
Lindsay Franklin
good. Mm-hmm.
00:38:49
Paul Regnier
What's what's he carrying? What's in the parcels? like What's going on here? And then all of Narnia just spiraled out from just that one little mental image.
00:38:53
Lindsay Franklin
so good
00:38:57
Paul Regnier
And sometimes that's all it takes, right? If you get this cool thing, it's just enough to where your mind goes, huh, oh yeah That would be fun or interesting or whatever. um Yeah. So I always love that. like Even just like a simple image or scene can inspire like a full story.
00:39:17
Lindsay Franklin
That's so true. And sometimes for me, when I'm thinking of a new story, um even if it's not always where that particular story started, but there will be a few of those really, really strong visuals um that come to me.
00:39:30
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:39:31
Lindsay Franklin
And it's like, okay, I know exactly what that scene looks like. Now, what's going on in that scene? And how did we get there?
00:39:38
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:39:39
Lindsay Franklin
And that actually like helps me plot the book.
00:39:41
Paul Regnier
Yeah, the questions.
00:39:41
Lindsay Franklin
And uh-huh.
00:39:42
Paul Regnier
The questions take it outward.
00:39:43
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah.
00:39:44
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:39:44
Lindsay Franklin
Yep. I've had that where like the ending of a book, um the story raider was like that. I knew exactly what the last scene was going to look like. And I think that my editor called that the book throwing ending or something like that, where, you know, she like chucked the book or i actually don't know if that was Lisa Lobby saying that my who's my developmental editor, or that might have been coming straight from Steve, because they both read it.
00:40:08
Paul Regnier
Hmm.
00:40:08
Lindsay Franklin
And so I don't know ah who called it like the book chucking ending, but it was like, you know that was the scene that before i had imagined what anything else was going to be it was just so clear in my head and then you kind of either spiral out from there or if it's a scene that's more towards the beginning like uh probably the monster therapist and you know witch in the wardrobe those are you know more like establishing scenes um you start to kind of go from there you think back a little bit how did we get here but also where are we going from here and you know in my case it was the very last one so it's like okay
00:40:20
Paul Regnier
m
00:40:38
Paul Regnier
Right. Right.
00:40:44
Lindsay Franklin
How did we get there? And, you know, working backwards to kind of create that.
00:40:45
Paul Regnier
m So you wrote backwards. Yeah, that's cool.
00:40:48
Lindsay Franklin
I did. i did.
00:40:49
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:40:49
Lindsay Franklin
So that's it's super fun. And I love art of that one particular scene from Lion Witch and the Wardrobe where it is Mr.
00:40:57
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:40:58
Lindsay Franklin
Tumnus and he's by the, you know, the lantern or the Yeah, the lantern because land yeah, lamppost.
00:41:02
Paul Regnier
Lamp post.
00:41:03
Lindsay Franklin
There you go. Lantern waste was what was in my head um with that.
00:41:05
Paul Regnier
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:41:06
Lindsay Franklin
Yes. um By the lamppost and he's standing there in the snow. It's such an iconic image and you'll see a lot of like art based around that.
00:41:12
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:41:14
Lindsay Franklin
And there's something that is so peaceful about that scene.
00:41:14
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:41:18
Lindsay Franklin
And yet it was like.
00:41:19
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:41:20
Lindsay Franklin
it spiraled into this very like kind of intense when you think about what's going on in Narnia and what's happening there.
00:41:24
Paul Regnier
Right. Yeah.
00:41:27
Lindsay Franklin
Like it's it's pretty intense, but that, that scene in particular is so peaceful and beautiful. And I just, I love that. I love art based on that.
00:41:35
Paul Regnier
Yeah. Yeah. It's like your first introduction to Narnia, like through Lucy's eyes, you know, as she steps in, that's kind of like one of the first things she sees and and knowing like, okay, I'm, I'm, I'm not, I'm the, I'm not in Kansas anymore, you know, whatever.
00:41:39
Lindsay Franklin
Yes.
00:41:44
Lindsay Franklin
Yes.
00:41:49
Lindsay Franklin
We're not in Kansas anymore.
00:41:50
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:41:50
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm.
00:41:52
Paul Regnier
You know, ah um it also makes me think of there's a lot of websites out there that have but story prompts. Have you seen these?
00:41:59
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm.
00:42:00
Paul Regnier
um
00:42:01
Lindsay Franklin
yes
00:42:01
Paul Regnier
Those can be great places to start too. Because I've done that sometimes where it's like, okay, I um i need some new ideas here or I need something to spark some ideas. And there's websites that just have like all kinds of story prompts.
00:42:14
Paul Regnier
And it's usually just like one sentence, you know, of just like a kind of a scenario, like a weird scenario that just gets you thinking like, oh, you know what if you had a twin in an alternate dimension and the twin was trying to hunt you down and take you out?
00:42:23
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah.
00:42:28
Paul Regnier
you know Whatever, I don't know. um
00:42:30
Lindsay Franklin
Right.
00:42:31
Paul Regnier
But it has those little things where it just gets you thinking. And even if you don't use that, it might get you like inspired to like think about something else. But So I guess that would be one recommendation I would have, like find those out.
00:42:43
Paul Regnier
Or even a AI can do a lot of the, you know sorry people that don't like AI, but you could do ah it can like generate a lot of like images, even if you give a prompt like, hey, I'm thinking of this kind of story.
00:42:54
Paul Regnier
you know Give me a couple different ways I could take this. And then you know it can it can, it's a, it's a fun brainstorm. I've used it as a brainstorming tool a little bit, just when I already have like a little bit of a concept, like, Hey, what would it look like if I did this tweak?
00:43:09
Paul Regnier
And, or if I went in this direction and it's kind of cool, you know, but, um, you know, it was,
00:43:13
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah. I think that's something that's so cool about those writing prompt prompts as well is that you can take, i don't know if you've ever done this where you've been either in a writer's group or like a class or something like that, where they'll have something like that. And it's just maybe a one sentence prompt or an image or anything, really, it can be anything. And if you put 10 writers in that room together and say,
00:43:37
Lindsay Franklin
you know, craft an idea based off of this one sentence, nobody's ideas are going to be the same. Those 10 writers are going to completely go different directions in it with that, that one sentence, because our brains are all unique.
00:43:44
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:43:50
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:43:52
Lindsay Franklin
Our styles are all unique. Our voices are unique. And where we go with that is going to be completely different. And so, um and even when there are, it's just so fascinating to me because people are so interesting.
00:43:58
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:44:04
Lindsay Franklin
ah Brains are interesting that way where, We all have the same tools that we're working with.
00:44:07
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:44:10
Lindsay Franklin
We all have the same writing craft tools even. And yet you give us one sentence and one brain is going to go over here. Another brain is going to go over there. And we're going to tell different stories, even if some of the elements are similar or we're all starting from the same place, which I just think is so cool.
00:44:26
Lindsay Franklin
I love that.
Unexpected Sources of Story Ideas
00:44:27
Paul Regnier
Yeah, me too.
00:44:27
Lindsay Franklin
Brains are so neat. Yeah, it's it's very cool.
00:44:29
Paul Regnier
I know, i know. Especially when it comes to creative stuff. Well, I mean, at least that's what I can relate with and and like truly appreciate.
00:44:32
Lindsay Franklin
Yes.
00:44:38
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah.
00:44:38
Paul Regnier
like I have such appreciation now for well-written stuff. Even when I see like a TV show, and i'll just I'll be like, wow, that was just one episode that was so well-written.
00:44:48
Lindsay Franklin
yeah
00:44:49
Paul Regnier
They're just there're in the studio just churning these out like on deadline. I'm thinking, how did they do that?
00:44:52
Lindsay Franklin
Right?
00:44:53
Paul Regnier
that was like so just They wrapped everything up so neat. you know but um Because you know sometimes when you the more you get into writing, you feel like, oh, I'm gonna i'm going to like lose the magic and the mystery of story. You know what I mean? Because like i'm I'm looking behind the curtain now and I'm seeing like it's all the inner workings and it's going to wreck the mystique of it. but um And sometimes it does in some ways, I guess.
00:45:20
Paul Regnier
But in others, it just makes you appreciate like the really well done stuff.
00:45:20
Lindsay Franklin
Sure.
00:45:25
Paul Regnier
You're like, wow Like, how did they do that? That was so clever, you know?
00:45:29
Lindsay Franklin
Right.
00:45:29
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:45:30
Lindsay Franklin
Absolutely. And I think that hopefully our little our little journey today through some of our stories and what inspired them um really kind of shows that that inspiration and that creativity can come from Literally anywhere.
00:45:46
Lindsay Franklin
um This is not something I've written yet, but this is the thought that keeps pinging around in my brain.
00:45:47
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:45:52
Lindsay Franklin
And it's just one piece of probably what I'm going to write next. But I was watching a documentary. I think it was a Netflix documentary on Hurricane Katrina.
00:46:02
Paul Regnier
Hmm.
00:46:02
Lindsay Franklin
And just, you know, and this is like a nonfiction thing. And it's speaking to people who were there in interviews and and whatnot and talking about some of the divides and some of like the barriers to getting help and different communities, you know, and how they were impacted and how, you know, this community was impacted versus this other one that was right next to it and why some of those things happened. And it just got my brain thinking on the question.
00:46:28
Lindsay Franklin
who is our neighbor? Okay, what does that mean when somebody's our neighbor? And so whatever I, exactly.
00:46:34
Paul Regnier
Good Samaritan.
00:46:36
Lindsay Franklin
And so the Good Samaritan and who is actually our neighbor, this has been like churning in my brain for over a year now. And I don't know exactly how it's going to work itself into my next story, but I know it's going to be in there because it's something I've been ruminating on and really thinking about.
00:46:52
Lindsay Franklin
So, and that came from, i was not at all looking for story inspiration.
00:46:57
Paul Regnier
Right.
00:46:57
Lindsay Franklin
I wasn't going for that, but it was just something I happened to be watching. And so these ideas can come literally from anywhere. And, um, they are worth when something like either pops out at you like that or sticks in your brain and just won't let go.
00:47:12
Lindsay Franklin
It's worth writing it down and having like a notebook or post-its, however it works for you, whatever you need, even if you're just like my husband and can remember everything without writing anything down, whatever. ah Love that for him.
00:47:25
Lindsay Franklin
But, you know, even um I don't know, but he'll just be like, oh, no, I have the list.
00:47:26
Paul Regnier
Does he have a photographic memory?
00:47:30
Lindsay Franklin
It's in my head. What?
00:47:31
Paul Regnier
Wow.
00:47:32
Lindsay Franklin
That's not what are you talking about?
00:47:33
Paul Regnier
That sounds photographic.
00:47:33
Lindsay Franklin
Crazy, crazy.
00:47:34
Paul Regnier
Or at least, ah what's what's the next tier down? Eidetic? What do they call it? Eidetic memory, something like that.
00:47:39
Lindsay Franklin
Oh, I don't know. I don't know about that. That's cool.
00:47:42
Paul Regnier
I'm probably saying it wrong, but it's like a tiered step down from photographic.
00:47:44
Lindsay Franklin
That's, that's,
00:47:47
Paul Regnier
It's not quite photographic, but yeah.
00:47:47
Lindsay Franklin
That's probably what he has. That sounds like what he has.
00:47:49
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:47:50
Lindsay Franklin
I'm going to look that up when we're done here because he's, I just, that has never made sense to me because I'm somebody with notebooks and post-its and index cards and just things stuck everywhere so that I won't forget things.
00:47:52
Paul Regnier
ah
00:47:58
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:48:00
Lindsay Franklin
But um yeah, it's worth when something sparks like that for you, it's worth writing it down and thinking on it and seeing, is this a story idea?
00:48:01
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:48:09
Lindsay Franklin
Is there something I want to say about this? And if the answer is yes, there you go. That's fodder for your next, your next idea.
00:48:16
Paul Regnier
You should tell your, your husband, all your passwords for all the websites and stuff, just so you never lose them. Right. They're always in his head somewhere.
00:48:22
Lindsay Franklin
Oh my gosh, they'll be locked in.
00:48:24
Paul Regnier
ah All right. Well, we should probably wrap this up. Well, thank you everyone for listening. We hope this has been helpful. We know this is this one was a little just more fun, but I think you know it's it's still, it's like story ideas.
00:48:37
Paul Regnier
It's actually very important. like Where are you getting your story ideas and you know where they can come from and and what type of ideas can spin out into a full novel? like You'd be surprised sometimes.
00:48:47
Paul Regnier
But yeah, hope you enjoyed it and we'll catch you next time.
00:48:48
Lindsay Franklin
Yep. Bye.
00:48:52
Lindsay Franklin
bye