Sphinx- Part 1

I thought it might be kind of cool to write how my writing process works for a story I am currently thinking about writing. Its not to say that this story will ever see the light of day, but it may be fun to look back and see how I went through the whole “figuring things out” to a final product.

About a month ago, as Bronze Raiders was finishing up its second draft, I began to think about what else I would like to write about. I had considered a few things—all of them historic in nature. I had been writing a story about Sargon of Akkad about six years ago and I thought maybe I’d go and pick that up again or perhaps I’d go back to one of the various other fantasy stories I have worked on over the years. I had also considered writing a story about Priam, Heracles, or the Amazons—all of which would be set in the same universe as Bronze Raiders.

I then did a little exercise. I wrote down as many historic periods that I could think of (Viking, Mayan, Greek, etc.). Next to them, on a scale of 1-10, I wrote my level of interest in each of those areas. Next to that, I wrote on a scale of 1-10 what I thought people’s interest in those areas were and would be willing to read about. I then added up the numbers for both. The two highest were Greece and Egypt. I figured, well, I just wrote a story that was Greek, why not do an Egyptian one?

My first inclination was that I would write a story about Memnon and keep the story within the same universe as Bronze Raiders. I had a few passing ideas about Memnon over the last couple of years. For those that don’t know, Memnon was a hero in the Trojan War who came from Ethiopia. I thought I could weave in that he had grown up in Egypt. I could write about one of his adventures before the Trojan War—similar for what I had done with Hektor.

As I thought about what I knew about Memnon, I thought about what he would have been like growing up—how he had become this great warrior. I knew he had a brother who was later killed by Heracles. I wondrered what type of warrior he must have been compared to his brother. I like my stories to have a spin on them. I thought maybe Memnon hadn’t started off as a warrior. Maybe he was something else. Perhaps it was his brother that was the warrior and Memnon sort of grew into it after his brother died. I wondered if there was another spin I could put on it. What if Memnon was actually a woman? That changed the whole characteristic of the story. But I thought, you know, I don’t really want to write about a warrior woman—I plan on writing about the amazons someday and I don’t want to cover that. Besides, women warriors have been overly done. Still, this whole idea of writing from the point of view of a woman intrigues me and it has stayed with me for the last couple of weeks.

Right now, I am leaning towards making the woman magical instead of a warrior. Maybe she’s immortal, or near immortal. Perhaps she is the basis for the mythical sphinx and is a protector of Egypt. I think that sounds kind of cool. I thought perhaps she would see people come and go and how that would effect her. I keep thinking of the title “Sphinx.” I’ve also thought about making the story take place over a hundred years. I have a fascination of how things change from generation from generation but in many ways don’t change all. What happens in the story? I don’t know.

So, you can see now how my processes kind of goes with this story. Will I keep going on this path or will I go on to something else? I’ve got other ideas that I could run with—for instance over the last few days, I thought about doing a steam punk story—a Victorian style Batman or James Bond maybe. But right now, the Sphinx idea is something that sounds like something I could have fun with. Who knows?

I’ll post from time to time about how my thought process goes with this story.