Never Catch Them All
The picture isn’t going to help my case here, but this is where the idea came from. I was working at Baskin Robbins and bought a Pokemon book because kids were asking for cakes or sundaes with more unique Pokemon on them. So, I know more about Pokemon than I would like to admit.
This also made me think about writing a story/series where you gather a bunch of creatures for some reason. The original idea was that a new ruler was needed and several boys and girls were sent out to prove themselves. To earn the throne, the main character needed to capture and tame 100 or more special creatures. Every ruler was a master summoner with these creatures and would also have their own unique critter, so really each creature was the essence of a former ruler. I had all the creatures written out in a book that I’ve since lost. The idea lost traction with me when I lost interest in writing for kids and focused on Windemere.
Then came the second incarnation, which is where Eden comes in. A human girl accidentally falls into Eden and is able to communicate with the soul beasts. The soul beasts are animals that never crossed over to Earth like the animals we know today. In the history of this world, Eve tried to return and corrupted Eden enough that the animals become anthropomorphic. She was trapped in a castle and wanted the girl and soul beasts to free herself. The girl was helped by a fox boy and a few other characters, but the fox boy would eventually take the lead in another version. He was named Raven for some reason and would set out to unite the 12 kingdoms by getting the blessing of each of their magical beasts. This idea became iffy when I transferred everything Windemere and I wasn’t a big fan of going biblical anyway.
Another incarnation is a kingdom where each of the creatures is a dragon of some kind, but I’m not sold on that idea. Some days I’m leaning toward turning this into an Orc story. You see, the Orc Prince of Windemere is able to summon monsters. I left this as another story, but I’m thinking of combining it. The prince will still lose his family and escape to a hidden island where he will need to befriend or dominate these creatures in order to escape. I might make more characters on there, but I’m still lost on where I really want to go with this.
This isn’t even counting the idea I had this week to go Digimon instead of Pokemon. The Digimon work with one creature to a character and they can change into something stronger during battle. Not a permanent change and various forms from one creature. My only problem with this is it strongly resembles my Zombie Girl story. So, I don’t know if I can feasibly do this.
That’s the mess I’m in with this story. It’s on the same shelf as Project Phoenix. Do I go for serious story or do I make the move to go for a series of children’s short stories that resembles Pokemon?
Legends of Windemere 
Your fantasy mind never stops. it is good to see that you are planning ahead…even beyond Legends of Windemere. What would soul beasts look like, I wonder?
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Physical beasts with the ability to bond to a person’s soul. The bond allows the person to summon the beast at will.
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Oh goodness, I have no idea. I suppose as you have built up a serious market then maybe it would be good to continue to work with ideas that your existing base can identify with? But then if you want to write for children then I would say go for it! What do I know? 🙂
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I’m thinking children might not be the way to go, but the idea is rather juvenile. I could even go dark and have the kids fight for each others spirit beast. Throw in that the losers become husks and it loses all child appeal. So many paths.
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Ooh whats Zombie Girl?
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It’s another idea. Think I had a post about it in the past. Type zombie girl into the search bar in my blog and it should come up.
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I’d go for children’s stories, gives you a change of scenery, could be invigorating.
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It could. The issue with that comes from my verbose word usage. I write too wordy for kids from what I’m told.
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try to write real Haiku for awhile, or power shorts in 55 words to practice cutting back on the the superfluous.
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I do write a lot of haiku, but it’s just how I write fiction. It’s been that way for over a decade, so I don’t even realize it.
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a sad problem, if you could beat the verbosity barrier, you could add a fun genre to your curriculum.
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The other option is to tell it through poems, but I’ve learned that poetry doesn’t sell too well.
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Well…think of Dr. Seuss…I just put up a Power Short prompt for the 13th Floor Paradigm, maybe you’d like to give it a whirl 😉
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I’m not going to have the time to do much for the next few days. Dr. Seuss is an interesting case. Maybe I can get away with the wordiness if I aim for a higher age group than him.
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Yep…he did go for the younger…what does that tell us about poetry?
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I think he’s more the exception than the rule, but I can see that it would work best as a paperback. I’d be going the eBook route, which is the problem.
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Yes that could be a problem…unless of course kids go to bed with an e-book now days. Would you honor me by trying my 13th Floor writing prompt…I’d like to see what you can do.
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I’ll see if I can find the time. I’m still home alone with the toddler all day, which leaves me exhausted at night. It’s left me with very little time for anything else.
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