It’s time to “Picture This!” Every first Friday of the month, A Drift of Quills gets together to chat about reading and/or writing. Writers often collect images to help them envision people, places, and things as they write. For this feature we’re sharing pictures and snippets about one of our works, giving you a sneak peek into our worlds!
Elran = Model Gustav Morstad, Adam Katz Sinding, via le21eme.com
I have a huuuuge collection of images and will never run out of inspiration from that quarter! I write primarily fantasy, but that doesn’t stop me from seeing a science fiction style image and diving off the cliff of “What If…” That happened recently with the short story “Sixes” that I wrote for the Quills’ flash fiction challenge.
See if you can picture this: In my story, Elran’s Journey, the main character is the younger son of highly regarded and respected members of the Peerage. In the eyes of society, he has everything any boy could or should want.
Privileged to receive an excellent education and blessed to have a model citizen for an older brother, Elran still finds himself falling short of society’s expectations. His duty is to follow the path of technical sciences, and he tries. Oh, he tries!
Old laboratory, by IvanLaliashvili at DeviantArt
What he discovers —what he finds a passion for — is forbidden.
With practice he’d been able to exert a tenuous control. Still, the implications of what he was attempting had restrained even his youthful enthusiasm. The last thing he wanted to do was get caught ‘employing a forbidden substance.’
With a grimace, he brought his attention back to the slide he was supposed to be studying. He entered his findings into the computer and ordered a comparison. The parallels were marginal. He might as well have been looking at an entirely different plant. Was it possible that his had been accidentally switched with someone else’s? He checked the labels. There was no mistake. He chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment, then glanced over his shoulder to see if anyone else was in the room. Clear. He grasped the container and closed his eyes, concentrating on the plant inside it. Green. Healthy. Strong. He pushed the image from himself to the plant, a tingling warmth running through him with the use of the magic.
“What are you doing?” The Prof’s voice was strained with incredulity.
Hidden in the Magic Garden, by RGDart (Richard George Davis), via DeviantArt
When Elran gets caught can the flames of his belief warm the hearts and turn the minds of those arrayed against him?
You can read this and other short stories in the collection Obscurely Obvious, available exclusively on Amazon.
And now it’s time to see what my partners have cooked up for us!
P.S. BROADDUS
Author of A Hero’s Curse (The Unseen Chronicles Book 1)
Parker’s website
There are several images and fan art pieces that I really enjoy and that even inspire the way I write. Many deal with Essie Brightsday herself, the central character of both A Hero’s Curse and Nightrage Rising. Essie Brightsday is a 12-year-old blind girl who has a certain amount of gumption, but still wrestles to find her place in the world. The way artists and illustrators have rendered Essie is both interesting and inspiring.
Interesting, as each image reveals something new about both the artist and the character, and inspiring in that I get to discover new aspects to a character I created.
PATRICIA REDING
Author of the Oathtaker Series
Patricia’s website
It’s interesting how vivid are the pictures in my mind of things I write about, yet how terribly difficult it is to find photographs of those people, places and things, to show others.
Readers of Oathtaker know that early on, the twins, Reigna (derived from the word, “reign”) and Eden, are born.
(Header image by Bryan Minear on UnSplash)
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This is how we see our stories—Who (or what, or where!) should we picture next?