At Havok, we love stories and the people who write them. What better way to celebrate both than by hearing from our talented authors on what sparked the idea of their stories? It’s like peering into the mind of genius. (You know, that would make for an interesting story…)
Without further ado, here is this month’s Story Behind the Story.
On The Thirst by Jes Drew
The Thirst flowered from my love of a grouchy vampire character in my Howling Twenties trilogy. I fell in love with ‘Uncle Vincent,’ and the balance he always found between being a curmudgeon fighting the urge to drink blood and a protective father character to the heroine. His backstory always intrigued me, so I decided to delve into it–and The Thirst was born. A younger Vincent has to fight between his primal need to drink the blood of his best friend or the call to be greater than the monster he was created to be.
Glorious Nothing by Zachary Holbrook
Glorious Nothing came about in response to Havok’s February Recycle theme. What’s the last thing you would expect to be recycled? Well, how about an entire army? The first draft I wrote was about the general figuring out what to do with his army now that the war was over. I submitted it for February, and was advised to focus on the disappointment experienced by the glory-seeking protagonist. I rewrote the story, this time complementing the hero’s over-the-top personality with a legendary sword named Jimmy Bob. It was accepted for March, and the rest is history!
When I started brainstorming ideas for May’s recover theme, I knew right away how I wanted to interpret it: recovering a mysterious archaeological artifact! Fortunately, I had already created an Indiana Jones-like character in a story I published with Havok last year (Sword of the Stones in April’s Extraordinary Exploits issue). I took the classic adventure elements of that: a powerful artifact, supernatural guardian, and plenty of action, and reimagined them in a new location. In a pleasant twist of serendipity, the recover theme also ended up influencing the artifact’s power (healing) and a way to defeat the guardian (well… healing to a point). Once those key decisions were made, it was just a matter of putting it all together and letting the adventure write itself!
Thank you, authors! We love reading about where your ideas come from.
If you’re one of our authors and you’d like to appear on Story Behind the Story, email your story title and inspiration to us.
Thanks folks, it’s always fun to learn a bit about where the story came from.