The “how I got the idea for this story” post is going to be a little different for this story because I didn’t get the idea, Allie did!
I was scrolling the writer forums one day and found a post Allie made looking for someone interested in co-writing a cute Christmas story with her. Those of you who know me will probably already know this, but I am a HUGE fan of those cheesy Christmas movies that all end in the couple living happily ever after. So when I saw that post I thought it could be, at the very worst, a fun learning experience to write a story like those movies I love so much.
So I stuffed my introversion deep into the couch cushions and replied to her message. I think I said something like “I really love Christmas fluff, please pick me!” and for some reason, she did. So we started messaging about our story ideas and then we pulled up our favourite word processing program (it’s Google Docs, guys!) and started writing down some ideas.
Fortunately for those of you who read my post about the inspiration behind Slow Motion Whirlwind and wanted more than “I don’t know the story came to me,” this story didn’t happen like that. We were both looking at story prompts trying to come up with something original yet familiar. Boy were some of the ones I found bad. Or at least, the ideas they prompted in my mind were bad. We’re not going to talk about it; I’ll let you use your imagination.
For some reason, when I looked at the somewhat unrelated list of Christmas prompts, I was drawn to the story of a young woman aging out of the foster system and searching for a family and a home for the holidays. It didn’t feel tired or overdone but if had that “home for the holidays” feel that all my favourite holiday movies have. So I picked it for us.
Yeah, I admit it, I picked it by myself. It was too good to pass up! Fortunately Allie agreed and thus, the beginning of our plot was made. Next time, I’ll tell you about how we made the characters and the mechanics of co-writing a story.
Have you ever collaborated with another artist to create something? How did you make decisions? Was one of your responsible for some things and the other person responsible for others or did you operate by consensus? Have you ever thought about collaborating with someone you only know online?
Check out more posts about The Road to Christmas or click for details on my works in progress.
Eliza Solares 