One of the things that’s always fun for me is when things come together in stories based on a comment or piece of information that occurs when I’m writing.
I have nine long novels for the Burn and Bad Karma series sketched out. And, while I’m definitely a discovery writer, I generally know the outcomes for certain characters, major events that will happen, and plot items that need to occur.
As I’m writing the fifth of those novels, I’ve had a couple of things come up that are literally changing what I had in mind. In one case, a character will experience a development arc where they shift their loyalty. Another is that a major bad character will not be killed by the character I had originally planned to kill them (and the antagonist in question will survive at least one additional novel).
So, if you decide to take up writing, expect things like this to happen. Some times your characters will do things you didn’t expect. Some times whole plot lines will change.
Like many writers, I get asked how I keep coming up with ideas. The truth is that I have a lot of ideas. I don’t have enough time to write all the stories those ideas are connected with, but I do have a lot of ideas for stories. And sometimes, some event or comment or action I see gives me an idea for a story.
What I do with this ideas is make a note of them. So, it gets jotted down in a notebook, or texted to myself, or added to a page in my Notion pages. In some way, shape or manner, I document that idea.
If the idea is good, it will be there when I have time to develop it. If it’s great, I build a lot more base for it, so I can act on it when there’s time and not a dozen other deadlines and projects going. Some, sadly, go to the great note page in the sky.
One other interesting idea happens with a few of those idea, though. A rare few show up when I’m working on a story, and they fit. Not usually in the scene I’m writing, but somewhere in the story. So, I work it in.
That’s where Pheobe the Tank came from. Someone else had made a comment about sentient tank stories and I was working on Sandblaster at the time. Since there were already tanks in the story, it was fun to go back through and add a sentient tank to this cyberpunk mercenary story.
From there, I was invited to submit to the Worldbreaker anthology. Which lead to Amarillo by Fire Fight, where Phoebe the Tank catfishing an infantry soldier while in a rolling tank fight.
So, there you have it. Most of the writers I know don’t have a lack of ideas. We really don’t. We have capacity to work on one or two stories at a time, and not nearly enough hours in a day to write everything we want to, but we generally don’t seem to lack ideas.
Thanks for reading through this. I hope you enjoyed a glimpse into my process!
I finished the rough draft of ‘Corporals’ the other day, and thought you all might enjoy a snippet of the story. In this story, Burn and Bad Karma are recruited into Rangers due to some issues that come up with Karma’s past.
Enjoy!
“Training under an identity we’re building for you. Makes it more complicated for politicians. Tossing people with no numbers under tank treads is easy. Soldiers and Department team members get ugly for them fast,” the sergeant major explained.
“We haven’t been a country long enough for politicians to be voted out,” Burn faced the soldier.
“Three politicians had tragic accidents,” the general noted, “And the investigations came up to purely accidental causes. Clearly.”
“Wasn’t me,” Bad Karma said.
“It wasn’t,” the sergeant major smiled, her cheeks rising as she spoke, “We checked.”
“What, exactly, are you trying to say?” Burn’s fingers pressed against the table, turning white.
“That it appears that trying to use the Ranger Department for political advantage can be detrimental to one’s health. Many veterans of the war are outspoken about using individuals as trading chips. The Department, of course, is absolutely loyal to the elected leaders of our nation and our constitution,” the sergeant major said.
Silence settled across the room. Burn noted the buzz of the white noise generator and that her comm systems were showing no signal.
“It appears we can trust you. So, why HALO jumping?”
“It’s the nearest start date we have for any training,” the general shrugged, “And I doubt you two would do well in Ranger School.”
“Why’s that?” Bad Karma asked.
“Ranger School lasts for three months. Freefall school is three weeks, and you don’t have to go in knowing military tactics,” the sergeant major noted, “First, you don’t want to be out of the loop in the dropped numbers world for three months. Second, you don’t need to go through the usual military training program. We just need you in a school to have your new core IDs solid. Third, the training will be useful to you and to us, as it opens some options when situations needing your skills come up.”
If you’re new to my writing, most of my stories is set in the world of Burn and Bad Karma. This setting is a somewhat near future version of our world, where cyberware is common, nations have been fragmented or rebuilt in new ways, and everyone is looking for a way up to the top or at least get out of the squalor of the level they’re at.
They could be a gang member looking to move up so they can quit pulling watch on their turf at the the most dangerous times or a corporate wage earner who’s looking to move up to the team lead position for the perks and the bigger paycheck, no matter who they have to step over or step on. Grunts on the front lines of militaries, police forces or corporate security offices who want to get the better gear, implants and equipment, as well as sergeant’s stripes to show the world they can lead people and get work done. Politicians and their flunkies cut deals to bring them power and position, without a thought to the consequences their moves inflict on the common people of their city, state or nation.
Now that we see that, the question is why would I write in such a setting? I mean, it can be depressing to think about all the ways people can and (in setting) do burn through those around them, toss away those below and back stab their peers and those above them in the food chain.
The truth is that I’ve been reading cyberpunk since the 1980’s and it’s milieu that intrigues. Everything in it creates conflict at every level. Trust between characters is hard earned and can be burned away with a single action. People in these stories can be driven by anything from greed to a simple need to help others, but even at their best most don’t limit their options in how to deal with a problem.
It’s fun to write characters who are both desperate and empowered. They’ve done what they had too so they could get the tech, weapons and experience to scratch their way to a better life. Back them into a corner, and they’re going to fight, and they don’t care about rules, fair play or whether their actions are far beyond the threat posed to them. And afterward, no matter how beaten or bloodied they got, they’ll stand up again to deal with the next threat.
Burn is motivated by greed, a need to prove herself, and a growing love of Bad Karma. Meanwhile, Bad Karma doesn’t count people are particularly important, but the small number that are important to her, she’ll fight all hell for. And she’ll move first, because she’s going to let them know she’s one of the best they’ll ever fight.
To be far, while I write in a cyberpunk, dystopian setting, the actual stories are pulled from other genres’. Moving Target is a thriller and tells about Bad Karma’s origin. California Chaos is a spy novel set in the fragmented cyberpunk environs of San Luis Obispo, California. Sandblaster is a military science fiction story that combines two heist stories, a mercenary team and a sentient tank. Easy Jobs is an action thriller with cyberpunk characters and an 80’s movie sensibility toward violence as a problem solving tool. And in short fiction, I’ve written a zombie story, an earth based war story, a Christmas story and even a true military science fiction story.
So the answer, really, is that the setting is fun and creates opportunities to explore many other story types in the back drop of the broken world my characters are in. Also, anywhere less dangerous would just be boring for Burn and Bad Karma 🙂
I hope you enjoy my stories! Feel free to leave a review or email me at Keith@keithhedger.com if you’d like to discuss any of this or ask questions about any of my stories!
As Halloween approaches, I thought I’d share some about how my story “A Simple Escort” got started and how I managed to write a cyberpunk horror story.
Shortly after I’d sold a ‘Santa Claus kicks ass’ story to JR Handley (https://jrhandley.com/) for his Slay Bells Ring anthology, JR reached out to me about the zombie anthology he was putting together, saying that ‘You write dark stories’. While I didn’t think my stories were that dark, even accounting for the cyberpunk and dystopian elements, I sat down and thought about it for a minute. Obviously, I had an idea 🙂
A Simple Escort combined three elements. The first was that Burn and Bad Karma would be involved in a classic cyberpunk data theft job. They would go into a corporate facility to get data on a biotech project for whoever their mysterious employer was. That required them to escort a hacker (Cat, who you may have met in California Chaos), and biotech expert to confirm and vet the data.
The second element was incorporating an ‘uncanny valley’ aspect. This is a term that describes how people react when they see something that is close to human but not quite right. If you’ve walked past a store front at night and seen a manakin in a window and your stomach tightened in a fear response, that’s the uncanny valley response. Because of their levels of implants, Bad Karma and Burn can cause that in unmodded people. I wanted to cause that response to Bad Karma.
For the final, third, element, I wanted Burn and Bad Karma to end up with a house pet, as part of their relationship developing. So, yes, there’s a cyberware implanted cat in the story. And, yes, the cat lives.
If you’re interested in my stories or good zombie stories, hit the link and check out Zombies! Patient Zero.
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