It could be past events that happened or present. And I would add the fantasy sci fi elements for a spin to it.
I'll try Maybe I can write an example of what I mean? I love sci fi fantasy and martial art flicks so I want to combine all those elements into one and add it to the collection of my other comic visual novel ideas in the same universe. I took some karate and jeet kune do classes when I was a kid so I want to make it into some sort of hardcore kung fu action story meets Karate Kid with Batman mixed in. But the MC suffers greatly.
It's a great idea! What would be even better would be add like a "What if" twist to it. Where something changes that ends up drastically changing the continuity. Stephen King did it with his novel Pet Semetary where he saved his son from an incoming truck. He based the book on the question "What if I failed to save him?"
Wow you're right! I never knew that King based some of his real life events in the novel, especially with the cat, the busy highway, his toddler and flying kite but with a "what if" twist. I think I can do something like this. Only problem is it might not be as exciting as Steven Kings novel
I think what I might do is have this story with my other stories intertwined in the same universe by having some type of dark underworld connected with all of them, similar to how Pet Sematary, IT, etc., are all connected to The Dark Tower.
Different genre, but you might be able to take some words of wisdom from this all the same. I've just published my first book which has gone down fantastically well with readers. It's post apocalyptic, but before the end strikes the MC is basically me. Same job,same town, same family set up and same hobbies. He even met his wife the same way. Even after the end, when he is put in situations, I wrote him how I think I would react. It is far from a story about me and my life, but he is certainly based on me. I think it sets you up with a good foundation for a story
The what-if is a chance to make it exciting. Usually, there are two clear directions you can take a story in. Forget both of those and go with the unexpected. The genre elements are already going to put an interesting spin on things. Even if you're basing some of the story on your own life experiences, don't be afraid to go off script. And it's important to remember that not all things that happen in real life are believable in fiction.
Yes, I'm a big fan of that approach. Think of something in your life that could have gone SO wrong ...but didn't. Write a story that makes it go wrong. Conversely—and this can be tricky, because your story still needs a conflict—think of something that DID go wrong in your life. Change it to something else. Make that change the starting point of the story. What would have happened to you IF such-and-such bad thing hadn't happened, or if you hadn't made that bad decision, etc. What would the next step have been? Not happily ever after, tra la la, but realistically. What would have happened and how would you have felt about it? Maybe you decided on impulse to move someplace far away—and now you wish you hadn't. Well, go back to when you made that decision and make a different one. Stay where you were, or go someplace else. See where that takes you. What would you have encountered if you'd have stayed home? What might you have encountered if you moved someplace else instead? You flunked out of college. Go back and study hard and graduate with honors. Then what happens? What kind of a job would you have landed? And what would that have been like? Don't marry the guy you actually did. Marry a different one. Maybe one you have never met in real life—or somebody else whom you did know. You may surprise yourself. Just make it the start of the story, not the end of it. If you had met another guy and married him, what would he have been like? What adventures would you have had? What problems would you have had? Where would you be now? How would you have handled difficulties? In all of these scenarios you will need an antagonist or something that will make life difficult for you, so this isn't an exercise in wishful thinking. It's just a new perspective on what your life might have been like if you had taken a different path from the one you did. The Road Not Taken exists in everybody's life. See if you can imagine the end of 'the other road.'
One image comes to mind for me to answer this question. If you're not sure, this is one of the better known scenes from a movie called "Stand By Me." It was based on a Novella by Stephen King called "The Body." In this particular scene, the kids are walking on the tracks over a bridge when a train comes down the track. All the kids makes it to safety but just barely. This is a scaled back version of something that happened to King when he was four years old. The real event ended waaaaaaaaay worse.
Then I guess this can work the same for me! So I can fit the people that were in real life in my life experience but give them a fictional twist as well? I was going to have an event that did go wrong in my life and turn it into something really bad that the MC would have to face, deal with and overcome but having that bad thing that could've happened a "what if" it didn't go bad and went well would lead to a different kind of story so maybe I can make two separate stories with two different MC's or the same MC that had this bad life experience with say some catastrophe that happened and goes back in time to prevent this where everything changes to the good path? Either way I agree on having an antagonist no matter what happens because I already have that planned. So when I imagine it, I see three ways of doing this, MC's life in the story goes horrible in my own exaggerated twist and ends up fighting it and overcoming it, the MC goes through the same horrific events but gets to change things by going back to prevent this disaster from happening, similar to Back to The Future affect, and the other would be as if these particular bad things didn't take place because the MC had made different choices from the beginning, hence would lead to a different story path. That's literally 3 different story arcs. Do you think it is possible I could rewrite all 3? Or is it better I make a decision on which one will work best?
This is very interesting as I'm learning more about Steven Kings references to his own life but how he's written them into his fiction novels so well. It's pretty inspiring!
