Quotable Sundays

"A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest."

~C. S. Lewis

A Step of Faith: The Dreaming Room

Well.

Here comes the next on my list.

Title: The Dreaming Room

This is, yet again, a Cinderella retelling.

This one, though, doesn't really have an exact genre it fits in.

There's a futuristic, almost contemporary feel to it, with some fantasy elements, mixed with a hint of thriller and a dash of romance.

This story particularly deals with captivity, and what happens to one's mind.

I guess you could say that this Cinderella is dealing with Stockholm Syndrome, and what happens to get her out of it.

It's all centered on one pivotal point, an invitation to a celebration.

This particular invitation, is presented to the main character by someone. . .

Almost, let's just say almost familiar.

Oh, and I have no idea how I'm going to fit in a fairy godmother. . .

Maybe she won't be in it?

But let's not forget the title.

That part.

Well, let's just say that if Cinderella kept falling asleep among the cinders, would the room with the fireplace not be called the room she dreams in?

Simple, really, but sweet.

Onward!

It's been years since she last set a foot out doors.
Well, off of the family property.
Eloise Duell never thought that was strange, or at least she would tell herself that.
But today, today is different.
Abraham Cofield, an old friend from before her father died, has suddenly turned up again.
And with him, an invitation to break free.
She doesn't know what from yet, but she can't help but wonder if it includes something to do with the room.
The dreaming room.

Well, that took some thinking out, and a lot of leaving out, but hey.
It's a work in progress.
Questions? Advice? Ideas? Anything is Welcome!

Keep on Writing!

God Bless,
SDG
Joy

A Step of Faith: Dreamer's Ball

This one technically came before the other Dreamer book in the list, but that would have been out of order and reveal some things, so. . .

Title: Dreamer's Ball

I really don't like that title.

I really need to find a better one.

But anyways, I liked playing around with the main character, Grettie, from Dreamer's Bridge so much that I didn't want to stop with one book idea.

I did two.

This one I decided to play around with the Cinderella story.

Instead of a step-family, it's extended family.

Instead of a prince, it's a leader of a smuggling ring, who inherited his position from his family.

I'm still not sure about the story world, but I'm leading towards a steam-punk style early 1900's.

Not quite bustle skirts and petticoats, but not quite historical 1900's.

Anyways.

Here's what I have for the synopsis.

Grettie has upset the village, and until things cool down, it no longer is good for her to stay there.

Her grandparents send her off to the city, to live with her widowed aunt and her three cousins.

Once there, they at first treat her like she was one of them, but that quickly changes.

Placed under their harsh cook, her limits are pushed.

But she still hangs on.

Until she one day she runs into a strange man in the market.

He's quiet, and soon she starts to notice him again and again, and slowly they start to interact.

Winter approaches, and the family gets ready for the week long winter festival, where each day ends in a ball.

When they mock her ability to go, she turns to the friends that she has made for help.

A group of older women in charge of a few shops collaborate together to get her dressed for the first ball, only for the cook to intervene and stop her.

The next day she the older women intervene again and literally escort her to the ball.

There, the quiet man from the market is the center of attention.

And she's now the full center of his attention.

Which she quickly discovers, is not the place where she wants to be.

Poor Grettie, she keeps meeting people with bad reputations.

I wonder if I should find her a storyline that doesn't end like that. . .

Who knows.

Questions? Advice? Ideas? Anything is welcome. :)

Keep on Writing!

God Bless

SDG

Joy

A Step of Faith: Dreamer's Bridge

The next idea is a little out of order, but that's the way it's done sometimes.

Title: Dreamer's Bridge

This one came from taking one element out of a fairy tale, and seeing where that leads me.

I decided that I didn't want to give Little Red Riding Hood a crimson garment that would be easily seen in the woods from a distance in broad daylight.

Taking that element led me down many interesting paths. . .

I also turned the idea of the wolf into two different characters; a young nobleman's son and a banker.

This introduced some interesting conflict.

Mix that in with a few dashes of super-natural, entrapment in an old monastery wine cellar, and an unlikely friendship between Red and some old ladies, and I quite like the idea.

I just need to actually sit down and write it.

Here goes.

Grettie had no idea that the stranger was going to bring so much problems.

Nor did she want the banker to appear with a two week deadline for paying off her grandparents farm.

But there is little, so it seems, that she can do.

When offered a job running errands shortly after the banker's visit, she readily accepts.

Now, with some new courage she didn't know she had, Grettie races against time to save the only family she has ever known, and be back home before the moon rises.

That's all that I have for now.

I know some of it is vague, and there isn't much to it actually written out, but there are some things that I leave to develop later, when I know a lot more about the story.

Also known as when I start writing it.

So!

Questions? Advice? Ideas? Anything is welcome. :)

Keep on Writing!

God Bless,

SDG

Joy

A Step of Faith: The Dark and the Delicate

Next up in my folder: The Dark and the Delicate

This idea came from a dream.

It was really weird, because a smattering of my family and I (four of us out of my six sisters and I) were for some reason in Europe when war broke out against the US.
We were in an enemy country, so we had to somehow go somewhere safe.

Which ended up being a mountain estate of someone's, a huge modern/castle-like mansion, where they were also hiding seven other foreign women.

I got a small room with this beautiful view, a tiny desk (that held the Narnia series and a notebook, all that evidently I had brought with me), and a small bed in this nook/closet area.

Days, then months passed and no one came to help us out of the country.

We settled into a routine, and we didn't get much information outside of the small rural village that was a little way below us.

It goes on, to include druid-like magic users and enslavement via these weird necklaces and lots of walking in the dark.

Let me just say that it was a very vivid dream.

And I decided to run with it.

Here's what I have!

(By the by, I'm going with a contemporary fantasty feel for this story. . .)

War has broken out.

In the southern hills and mountains of France, twelve foreign women seek refuge.

Duke Risbond, a wealthy land and business owner opens his spacious home to them.

For a few weeks, they wait for help to arrive.

Then one night, a man heavily robed sneaks into the building.

He knows his way well, and goes into one of the smaller rooms that one of the women are staying in.

She is sound asleep, and he enters a secret chamber in her room without disturbing her.

Or so he hopes.

In reality, she watched his every move from the shadows of her bed.

The next night, he does the same thing, and the woman slips in past him.

Doing so, she sets off an ancient secret that puts her own life and the lives of the eleven other women in danger.

They are now at the mercy of the Hiero Vasileios.

So. . . Yeah.

I pretty much see this in terms of a simple story, that, in many ways, seems too simple.

It's so much like the classic twelve dancing princesses' story, that I've never had too much of an interest in actually working on the characters.

Which is why I love Pinterest.

I can always discover something to keep my interest.

Questions? Advice? Ideas? Anything is welcome. :)

Keep on Writing!

God Bless,

SDG

Joy

A Step of Faith: Beautiful Eyes

My next idea to share, is:

Beautiful Eyes (a Beauty and the Beast retelling)

I wanted to play around with the idea of giving both Belle and the Beast a curse to battle.

Then I decided to, well, flip the effects of the curses.

In essence, Belle is disfigured and the Beast is considered innocent.

This is an old idea, one that I played with in my mid-teen years.

After tossing the concepts around for a bit, I couldn't make much sense of how to make it work.

(In fact, I think that I might use it now in a different way then originally imagined.)

Here is what I had written on my story ideas document:

Twice Cursed.

Disgusted with the current thread of nobility, a Fae curses the daughter of a Duke; she'll forever long for human contact, but in the presence of a human she morphs painfully into a monster.

Unwanted by good society, a half-blood thief runs from the band that he had called home for years; with no where to turn in the metropolis, he turns to the legendary old haunted mansion.

Uncertain of what to do in his new prison, he embarks on a quest to end both of their pains.

So in essence, I tried to give the Beast a bigger and more important part in the story than what I grew up with.

Like I said, I like the idea still. . .

I just need to twist it just so that I can actually make it work.

Maybe a different genre?

I don't know.

Questions? Advice? Ideas? Anything is welcome! :)

Keep on Writing!

God Bless,

SDG

Joy

A Step of Faith: A Palace of Words

After a lot of thinking, I've decided to start with the stories inspired by pictures and quotes I've collected on my computer.

First one up:

A Palace of Words (A Snow White Retelling)

There are many things that I've come to detest in Snow White retellings.

Many of them include:

1. Weird to really fast romance

2. Either really innocent or some odd combination of innocence and warrior princess

3. An overly trusting Snow White

I guess you can say that I don't read too much fairy tale retellings, but I can say that this is what has been bugging me personally.

So, like a lot of my stories end up becoming, I decided to try my own little spin.

(This story has had two different versions arise in the time that it has stewed in my noggin. . .)

Oh, my answers to the things I don't like. . .

1. Either somehow learn to make it realistic, or don't include it at all.

2. Where's the background reasoning behind everything? Turn her into a real character I can understand!

3. Similar to 2, but I'd probably also give her some common sense. . . 

Version 1:

 

(Snow) was a very sheltered princess/girl while growing up.

Her father pampered her.

Her step-mother was her closest confidant and friend.

But times have changed, with the rise of a great plague and the rumors that only spilled blood with end it.

Her father tried to bring this down with the help of the local priests, only for the step-mother to side with the priests and kill her husband.

This doesn't end the plague, and all eyes turn on the new found ruler, the queen.

Fearing the priesthood, she herself turns to the young woman who she had once adored, (Snow).

Unable to do the requested deed herself, she sends the girl out with some men who were told to do the deed.

The frightened girl escapes from these strange men, and eventually comes upon a small mountain village, starving and in need of help.

Taken in by the headman's family, she becomes dear to them, despite her useless knowledge and strange ways.

When a strange woman comes to their village, the plague quickly follows.

The queen has come to do the job herself.

Version 2:

The royals are dying out, and danger lies everywhere

When the queen dies, leaving the king with a little daughter as his heir, he remarries and sends his daughter to grow up with her wet nurse's family.

He keeps the knowledge of his daughter from his new bride, in the hopes that his daughter would become lost to the royal world.

After a short and barren marriage, he dies and leaves his kingdom to his queen.

History will not, however, forget his deed.

A group of young historians come to the queen, requesting information on the young princess, who would be reaching her time of eligibility soon.

Aghast at the news that her husband had a child, she sends out men to find the young woman.

By the turns of Fate, she was not found in her home, and the men retaliated by needlessly murdering her adopted family.

Frightened for her life, she escapes into the nearby forest and travels for weeks.

She eventually ends up in an enclosed University, where she is befriended and given work.

After years of searching, the queen finds her and slowly tries to befriend her.

After coming to a standstill in (Snow's) defenses, the queen decides that she must act.

I don't know the details, or all of the answers yet for these two versions.

For all that I know, I'll end up changing the name for one of them and just write two different stories!

Questions? Advice? Ideas? Anything is welcome. :)

Keep on Writing!

God Bless,

SDG

Joy

Long time. . . Soon to be returned

So College took over my life for a while. . .

Even though I decided to go easier on the credits I'm taking, the classes I chose are. . .

Hard.

Systematic Theology.

Ethics.

Hermeneutics.

MATH.

Don't get me started on math.

BUT I HAVEN'T BEEN FORGETTING THE BLOG.

Or, eh-heh, not intentionally.

I will be back in May! 

I promise!

May is my 'almost done with Semester' month.

Only one week left one May hits. . .

Which brings me to my Summer blogging/writing:

/~/

I have decided to try my hand at writing a short story/novella.

On the Frog Prince story.

I didn't think much of it, and I have failed to start multiple times over the past few years.

Until I just wrote the way I usually verbally tell stories, and this mid-teen boy with a stupidity streak just went kur-plump right onto my page and I'm having so much fun with him!

So my goal with that story is to finish it over the summer, edit it, and hopefully do something with it.

/~/

For Blogging, I want to start writing articles on world building.

World building is my specialty.

I've spent many years of my life just creating story worlds, not necessarily stories.

In fact, it has come to the point where I'm scarred to start building the world for the story because I tend to end up not writing the story, but with a huge world instead that drowns out the story. . .

Enough with the long-ish sentences.

There's much to do.

Stories to live.

Math to conquer.

Keep on Writing!

God Bless

SDG

Joy

Writing Wednesday: Pinspiration

This Week's Theme: The Twelve Dancing Princesses

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The secret entrance inspiration

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This really reminds me of the story!

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Soldier inspiration.

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The littlest princess

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What if the princesses' where not dancing freely, but because they had to?

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Dancing. . .

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Finally, a beautiful ballet scene.

*~|~*

Keep on Writing!

God Bless

SDG

Joy

Writing Wednesday: Pinspiration

This Week's Theme: Red Riding Hood

~_~

I know She's from Game of Thrones, but all the same this picture makes me think of Red Riding Hod

~_~

I'm actually not sure where this one comes from.

~_~

Classic RRH

~_~

Another classic picture

~_~

I'm not sure where this is from, but the bunnies behind its a GUY with a red cape/cloak. . .

~_~

I had to add one for the grandmother

~_~

The dog/wolf's expression makes my mind whirl with ideas. Heh.

~_~

RRH done in a different culture?

~_~

That's all for now!

Keep on Writing~

God Bless

SDG

Joy

Writing Wednesday Pinspiration

This Week's Theme: Beauty and the Beast

You can't have B&tB without the enchanted rose!

The way to the Secret Room. . .

Beauty will ALWAYS be a bookworm to me. . .

My fav Cosplay EVER! :D

Beauty is always going to have a horse in my mind!

This just screams B&tB.

Disney Fanart can sometimes come out really nice!

Keep on Writing!

God Bless

SDG

Joy

Brainstorming Saturdays: I might as well

So, I thought I'd start sharing some of my ideas for stories, because I probably won't write all of them.

If you like a specific one, feel free to comment and I'll answer questions. :) 

As my latest Writing Wednesday was on Little Red Riding Hood, I thought I'd share my idea for that story.

Oh.

In case you didn't know, I have a dream of rewriting fairy tales. . . 

Maiden of the Wolves.

(So far YA, but lately I've been thinking of moving it to just Adult. . .)

I thought I knew the MC's name, (I think it started with an L) but I cannot find it now.
Anyways, I try to make a one liner for each of my story ideas, as that usually helps them push off.
Let's just say that MotW needs work. . . (AKA it's not in existence)

This SI came to me when I was on Pinterest one day (which used to be a lot last summer. . .) and someone was pinning a lot of fairy tale based pictures of people.
Then, I saw this picture:

 And this one:

That's when the title hit me.
Maiden of the Wolves.

So, who is this maiden?
Why do the wolves follow/possibly-protect her?

To be truthful, I still don't know all the answers to that question, but here is what I have.

L (as I'll use for her name right now) is the daughter of a king, whose whole royal family is somehow connected/guarded by the wolves.
When L's grandmother from her mother's side successfully poisons the king and pays one of the Royal Guards to turn away when she slips some of her own men in who massacre a lot of the people in the palace, L's mother slips away with the toddler L.
Hunted by her own mother's men, the queen leaves L with the one symbol of her true birth (her red cape and hood, red is the symbol of royalty) and some wolves standing guard over her; she runs off successfully distracting and moving the men away from L.

L is kept warm and rather well cared for by the wolf pack, until she is found by a wood cutter.
Seizing an opportunity, he takes her home to his wife where they raise her along with their other children, until she is about 8 or 9 years old, when the wolves come looking for her.
Afraid because of the royal curse (whoever kills a wolf. . . Well, something dreadful happens. . .), they put her out of their home.
The children are confused, and continue to be friendly with her, but the rest of the village considers her cursed.

That's what I know the most of.
What I also know, is that the son of the traitor guard is the one who knows that the princess L survived the massacre, and goes looking for her with the help of some rogue royal guards and a small elite group of warrior women.

Oh.
L is a red head.
It just fits with her spunky, no nonsense-ness.
I have no other words to describe her personality yet.
Yet.

So!
Questions, words of a kind sort, please comment below.

God Bless!
SDG
~Joy

Writing Wednesday Pinspiration

This week's theme: Little Red Riding Hood




















Keep on Writing!

God Bless,
SDG
Joy