Starting Small

Good morning everyone!

Remember the old saying, “Rome wasn’t built in a day?”

At no point is that truer than when you’re building a career or business.

As writers, we often have grand ideas of what our first book will hold. I’m sure all of us have thought about waking up the morning after being published and hoped to see a couple hundred thousand or more sales.

There’s nothing wrong with dreaming big, after all, if we don’t dream big we’ll rarely get there. It’s how we handle not getting there as soon as we can that’s important.

Building our stories often hold the same feelings and/or problems.

How many times have you had a grand vision of a story that’ll change the world that disappears as soon as we sit down? I know it’s happened to me more times than I care to admit. I mean, think about it. It looks so easy when we read a book or watch a movie or show. Yes, we’re seeing the final product, but we’re also seeing dialogue and ideas that generally aren’t that difficult at first glance. So we pick up a pen and paper and start writing our adventure.

Here the sound of the trap springing?

At one point, I could tell the same story Stephen King did, but in thirty pages and without any depth because we all saw the movie or read the book, so we have something to draw on, right?

That was my mindset when I sat down to write my first fantasy novel. I tried a few other times to write a fantastical epic and failed after ten pages, if I even made it that far. Then I decided to make it as simple as possible. I decided on a simple story where a handful of characters meet to go on a treasure hunt in some tunnels where they’d face a dragon, kill the dragon, and walk away rich.

Yes, it was a generic idea that has been used a million and one times, but it was a way for me to get something written. It wasn’t even something I intended to share with anyone but a few of my closest friends. Then it happened.

My simple story grew and took on a life of its own. More important than that, my characters took on their own personalities that refused to allow me to stop, so what would’ve been a thirty page short story ended up being roughly a thousand pages and my first two epic fantasy novels. The tunnel scene (minus the dragon) ended up being something completely different than I planned and ended up being a stepping stone for myself in developing my characters and their story instead of a climax.

Looking back, it was really that easy, but it also scared the ever-loving crap out of me as I had no clue where I was going with it. I’m now writing the fifth book in the series and have a spin off YA series in the same world.

What started as a simple exercise that never would’ve seen the light of day has grown into something I’m proud of and love. The experience is different for each of us, but never discount or be afraid to do something that seems off the wall. You never know when you’ll be laying that first brick for something special.

Have you experienced a moment like this? If so, how did it work out for you? I’d love to hear about your experiences and thoughts on this.