Every so often, I have minor epiphanies about the stories I’ve cooked up. They’ll fundamentally alter some underlying aspect of the story, giving it greater depth or more meaning. I love it when moments like this happen. I did not have such a moment today. Today, instead, brought a major epiphany that stitched together dozens of plot threads and ideas that were before only loosely coherent.
Of course, I can’t tell you about any of that.
I can say this, though. Misfits (which has been tentatively re-titled several times, but that’s still its working title) started as a one-off for-fun inversion of fantasy tropes. It intermingled with another story idea, which created the antagonist for the tale. That intermingling gave rise to a Vader-esque arced story; that is, the protagonist of the first story wasn’t the “main character” of the whole story. Then I had some ideas about how magic actually worked in this universe. Then I had some ideas that augmented those first ideas, making it even deeper.
Today, I had an idea that welded all of those pieces into a giant, coherent whole in a way that had me literally bouncing in my chair several minutes after I thought it up. I thought it up while walking to the restroom.
The idea may truncate my four-book chronicle into a trilogy or even a duology, but I’m okay with that. I’d rather have the more awesome story told in the right size than the less awesome story told over more books. Who knows? It may still end up being four books once I sit down and properly outline it all.
Also, Degrees of Epiphany is totally the name of my next album.