Breeding Ground: The Culling

One of the most common questions authors get is “How do you come up with story ideas?”.

It’s a tough question to answer because they can come from many…or sometimes even one place. A snippet of conversation. A weird news story. Some obscure fact you read in a book years ago. We file them away and, like a sliver of wood under your skin, eventually make their way to the surface.

That’s how it happened with my latest story, The Culling.

ABOUT THE CULLING

In my story, Gemma is the youngest of three brothers. The three have underestimated her their entire life. They left home as soon as possible and only come back when Mama is on her death bed. But Gemma knows her brothers. They aren’t necessarily there out of sentimentality. They are there to divide her things. To change everything that Gemma has known her entire life. And Gemma won’t allow them to do it.

But, that’s not where the original seed of my story idea came from. It came from a strange video I saw online of a starling, one that fascinated me enough to explore the idea of the weight of one’s words and the effects they can have.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KId25_Jf7Fc

WANT TO READ MORE?

In my latest Breeding Ground post on Patreon, I share the video I saw that inspired the story, and detail exactly how I got from that story seed to the final product of The Culling.