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RayeAnn Carter

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Ideas are easy.

They come to me all day long. While arranging flowers, filling balloons, walking around the block, really anything repetitious that my body can do without much though. Like: A prince fathered four children with his stepmother (who’s about his age) and everyone (including the king) thinks they‘re the king’s.

Why would he do this? Why would their mother? What would either have to gain from the arrangement? Does he hate his father, yet love king and country despite his father and the king being one and the same? Is he effeminate, which would be fine if he were merely one of the king’s men, but not as his oldest son and heir? What does the prince hope to gain? How could his actions hurt him even if he wins? What would he count as Ideas are easy.

They come to me all day long. While arranging flowers, filling balloons, walking around the block, really anything repetitious that my body can do without much though. Like: A prince fathered four children with his stepmother (who’s about his age) and everyone (including the king) thinks they‘re the king’s.

Why would he do this? Why would their mother? What would either have to gain from the arrangement? Does he hate his father, yet love king and country despite his father and the king being one and the same? Is he effeminate, which would be fine if he were merely one of the king’s men, but not as his oldest son and heir? What does the prince hope to gain? How could his actions hurt him even if he wins? What would he count as winning: His father finding out in the most hurtful way possible, while everyone else is in the dark, so his children continue to be treated like legitimate children of the king? What gifts are in his power to bestow on his stepmother for giving him children? (Whether she did it from anger, pride, or desperation.) Her heart’s desire: traveling to distant land and never coming back (to keep her safe from the king’s wrath).

How will he use his power (knowledge) over his father? By seducing the king of another country’s younger brother. Maybe when this foreign prince comes to watch over his nephew whose is being fostered during a war the Main Prince’s country isn’t involved in. Other Prince knows he’s being used, but is using him in return. And Main Prince gives him the upper hand declaring that if the other king dies and Other Prince has to go home and be regent for his nephew, Main Prince will follow him back.

This hurts the first king as the Main Prince is his only son. He is uninterested in having one of his grandchildren be his heir. So he sends troops to help and Other Prince looks good to his people who never respected him. (Maybe being gay is illegal/socially unacceptable there).

This was a nice little story to finish when I was in the shower, but it, like most of it’s kin, will never be written. Summarized maybe, getting all the kinks worked out, but nothing that would take more than an hour or two. Most don’t even get that. Otherwise that’s all I’d do.

Like I said, ideas are easy. Molding the idea into a workable story takes more energy. And research. The fun really starts when I write it down and see where it goes. (Most of the time I know how a story will end before I start naming the characters, but I might not know how they get there.) Sometimes I realize early on that I have the wrong point of view (like the story above would be better told by the Other Prince). Sometime it becomes something I didn’t expect (in one case, the lead character falls for two people other than my intended love interest). Sometimes the story piddles away into nothingness. And sometime the cute little story grows to seven, ten, or even twenty thousand words from two to five thousand like I’d hoped.

A short story I can write in a day. Longer ones eat up much more time. And with all those ideas fighting for attention, the story has to grip me hard for me to want to spend hours or even days on it.

I have stories I’d like to write (a girl sets about killing the men who organized the terror that led to the new government that they now run; in a land covered in magic, an orphan would rather be thought a whore than be known as an assassin; the back story of how a boy's ancestor was spirited away by a mountain god and the curses and blessing that came with it .)

But all those will have to wait, because I always have more ideas.

I write as frogs-of-war at FictionPress and AO3.
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Average rating: 3.32 · 28 ratings · 12 reviews · 2 distinct works

	Be My Queen 3.25 avg rating — 20 ratings — published 2015	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Locked Room 3.50 avg rating — 8 ratings — published 2017	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars