Hi I just starting out as a writer and I am having the worst time trying to figure out how to make my ideas come to life on the page. Mostly because when I write the ideas don't really come to me when I fully awake. Right now I am working on writing a story about an angel and a demon falling in love but I no idea where to start. Most places I have gone to for research have said that the two can not fall in love. I know that is probably true and I really don't have a problem with that. I will gladly take advice on how to make this hole thing work right.
To me it sounds as if this idea hasn't fully come to fruition yet. You need to take more time to think about it, develop your characters, develop the world...you get the idea. Right now you feel directionless because you just don't know enough about your story. Before thinking about specifics like the plot or where to start the story, flesh out your idea first. Also, I agree with ChickenFreak. It's your world, and whether or not they fall in love is completely up to you. And besides, devil and angel romances have been done many times before. It's basically just another form of the forbidden romance narrative.
An angel and a demon falling in love isn't a story, it's a premise. Think about what obstacles are preventing them from falling in love, and what obstacles arise as a result of them falling in love. Think about how they'll overcome those obstacles (or not, as the case may be). That will help you work out a story you can tell.
An angel and a demon can fall in love, especially if angels have the ability to fall. What really separates a fallen angel from a demon? They're both spiritually similar and perhaps with coinciding motives?
You have the premise, to a degree. There is an implied conflict, but not a concrete conflict. I recommend you keep a pad of paper and pen always handy and take notes on your ideas.
You're the author, Ellen. If you write it that they fall in love, that is what happens. It may take some work to write it so the reader buys into it, but that's a matter of skill, which is something you can develop and build upon if you haven't already done so. Believe in yourself. Then make others believe.
@Ellen Schaaf If you're going to stick with this theme for your story, you'll need to do two things ...well, three things. One - You'll need to work out the characters of the two lovers. What are they like as ...erm ...people? What do they see in each other that makes them fall in love? And what is your story? Is it about how they fall in love, with the 'love happy ever after' thing as the end of the story? Or is falling in love the START of the story, and other things happen because of it? Two - While you're doing all this, you'll need to be developing your 'world' as well. Angels and demons are not 'real' things, so you can give the world any characteristics you'd like. Just make sure that it all makes sense within itself. If your demons can appear only at night, then don't let them appear during the day without some major explanation. That sort of thing. How does your world work? And does it exist in parallel to our own 'real' world, or is it a fantasy world that has no reference to Earth. And Three - and this is the important one. WRITE. Until you actually start writing, you'll just be floundering from idea to idea. As somebody else said here, this IS just an idea at this point, it's not a story. It won't be a story till you write it down. Start out with whatever part of the story intrigues you. Even if it's the ending. Start with that, then gradually work in the bits you'll need to get you there. Don't worry about crafting a perfect opening sentence at this stage. Just get the stuff that's floating around in your head into words on paper or on screen. Write a scene or two between your characters and see how they develop. As you do this, more ideas will occur to you. Your characters will 'take off,' and pretty soon they'll be telling you what to do. Trust me, this works. Don't worry about making mistakes. Just get started and see what you come up with. I'd say don't be tempted to show it to people either, not until you're well on your way. Writing is never best done by committee; that's the quickest way to lose your enthusiasm that I can possibly think of. This is a labour of love, and it's very personal, so treat it lovingly, and pour into it all you want it to be. Editing and cool-headed judgement comes later—as do 'second opinions.' Right now, just get your hands stuck in the fingerpaint and start smearing it around.
I don't use the pad and paper but I do try to live out the conflict in my head. It's surprising how it leads to a new idea or a solution to a scene or other issue in the story. I would also suggest you write what you have and grow it rather than trying to write it well with the first draft. As I wrote out my first draft when I'd come to a place I wasn't sure how I'd tell that part of the story, I left a place holder or a quick outline of what was needed and went back later to fill the scene in. Welcome to the forum, Ellen.
I do too, but sometimes, some nuance comes to mind, some thought process of the characters, and if I don't get it down right away, I often forget it later when I get home. So I have to get it down right away, because my mind often reflects the page or vice versa. If I draw a blank, the page is blank and if the page is blank, I stress trying to remember what it was I thought out five hours earlier.
You're thinking in terms of situation and action, the plot. We need one, obviously, but that's not the story. Stories live in the goals, the desires, the hopes, the sorrow, and the joys of the heart. Your reader isn't looking to learn the details of your plot, they're hoping to live the story in real-time. And that's a bitch to write for because nothing we learned in English class prepared us to write the reader into the story, and to move them, emotionally. And none of our storytelling skills are useful for that, either, because they're performance skills and depend on what we bring to the telling as part of our performance—something that doesn't cling to the words we would speak if we record them. It's good that you have a story, and the desire to tell it. Now, you need more knowledge of how to present it, not as the storyteller, but as the character experiencing the events. Where do we start the story? That's easy. Just before everything goes to hell and the protagonist loses control of his/her life, because your story isn't about events, it's about the struggle to regain control. Do the things leading up to that point matter? Only as they matter to the protagonist in that slim moment of time they call "now." Was the protagonist an acrobat with the circus for ten years? It doesn't matter to the story or the reader until, and unless, the protagonist has reason to make use of what was learned in that time. In other words, tell the story, not history. And once you determine where the protagonist falls into the crapper, back up just a but so the reader understands who they are, where they are, and what's going on, so we can participate in the decisions the protagonist is making. That's the beginning—act one. After the inciting incident takes place we're in act two, where no matter what the protagonist tries things keep on getting worse and worse, until both we and the protagonist are saying, "What in the hell am I doing here? I should run away." But, bastards that we are, we give them reason why they can't run, so they struggle on until it's all or nothing and it looks bad for the home team, at the black moment—which leads us to the climax, the denouement, and, "the end." This article may help. But were I you, given your current situation, I'd dig deeper into the craft the pros feel is useful. It can make a big difference and save lots of wasted time in blind alleys.
Angels can't fall in love with any creature as we imagine. They are from incorporeal world ( heaven- not paradise) , They haven't any desire or lust because they are not earthy. They are some creature in the heaven ( and some of them are on earth as the heavenly agents). I can say angels are functionary of God and everyone has a duty. Of course they can show love to somethings but their love is like an orientation to holy things without any desire or lust. Angels pay not attention to we ordinary humans ( because of our wrongs ) or the disobedient demons ( some of demons are faithful to God, prophets and heaven or hell) because they hate of sin and sinful. Angels themselves are clean from any sin and just do what God has ordered them, not more and not less . Angels love God, prophets and other real faithful and righteous humans which are connected to heaven. Also, all angels are not beautiful as we imagine due to hearing some stories or tales. Some of them can be so much horrible and awful, among the angel of death ( he can turn into the so much grim and fearsome shape or can be a so much beautiful angel). However, angels don't fall in love with a human or demon.
Mans, that may be one idea of angels, but even if you believe in angels, there are many very different fictional depictions of them, and there's nothing to stop the OP from writing a story including a depiction that could fall in love.
Donald E. Westlake, one of my favorite authors (RIP) wrote a book where an angel falls in love with a human, which isn't that far from falling in love with a demon. The title is "Humans." As others have said, it's your universe and you don't have to make your angels or demons conform to somebody else's idea of what they should be. Even taking a completely traditional Biblical approach, Satan was once an angel. And the Old Testament God, although a spiritual being, shows totally human emotions such as anger and vengeance. The simplest reason they might be attracted to each other would be that the angel longs for a little excitement/fun/sin and the demon longs for something pure and good, is dissatisfied with being bad all the time, which he finds UNfulfilling.
I think there's a cultural difference here, because the old and new testement have little on the nature of angels and the Qur'an along with a great deal of Sufi studies do. But we could pretend that god has ordered the angel to fall in love with the demon in order to...something. Teach it a lesson maybe?
Thank you everyone for the feed back it is really going to help me out a lot more than what I was getting from a lot of other people I know.
@Jack Asher Love the idea! Maybe a guardian angel who is unsympathetic to its human charge who is brokenhearted?
...no...you don't understand. The angel doesn't need to be taught a lesson. Angels have no free will. They only want what god wants and they only do what god tells them to do. The demon he's (she's?) falling in love with on the other hand might need love. Or some kind of thing, I don't know.
Maybe the premise is that God for some reason needs an angel with free will? I realize that that just shifts the problem one problem over.
It seems we are falling into a discussion of what exactly an angel is, or a demon for that matter. I don't believe in either, but that's beside the point. I would again point to Westlake's "Humans" as an example of an angel falling in love. You can read a wikipedia plot summary if you don't feel like getting the book. But I take your point that I misunderstood your idea. You think only the demon can or should fall in love.
No, you still don't get it. Mans an I are working from the Qur'an and (in my case) the Baha'i writings which go much further than the Bible or the Torah when it comes to the ephemeral nature of heaven and hell; the role of free will in mankind, and nature of Angels and Demons. To us (me) the idea of an Angel falling in love is anathema, as is the ability of a demon, because these feelings do not exist to supernatural beings in the same way the do for us. Angels love only god and his creations and demons know only despair and anger. I AM NOT SAYING YOU CAN NOT WRITE THIS, OP. I'm trying to explain that outside of the judeo/christian understanding there is a much more concrete philosophy surrounding angels, demons, their motivations and their desires.
Alright, I admit that I am not familiar with non Judeo-Christian dogma about angels. I am not a believer in any case. To me this is like arguing about the true nature of Ents, banshees or Munchkins.
Sure, if there was 5 milenea of thought, study, and philosophy around JRR Tolkein that would make sense.
