Every writer has a different creative process. For some it starts with a character, or a picture or it starts with an idea, and the characters are created to fit an idea.

This is how it works for me, using my current work in progress as an example. As for why I decided to write this? Well, two questions made me think. The first was a simple question of which comes first: characters or plot? The second was which three movies, or songs, inspired your writing?

I have made no bones about my first foray into writing, in my adult life at least, was as a result of my love of the work of one author, Sherrilyn Kenyon. Ironically, the first of her books which I read was the 12th in her Dark Hunter series, and I bought it only as it was the only fantasy-type story in English in a foreign airport.

Serendipity played a major part in my writing, because if the original group in which I wrote my SK-based fan fiction had not imploded, I might not have decided to see if my own ideas would work. Characters played a major role in my own creative process. From the time I was in my teens, I had dreamt of a dark-haired male, with a huge smile who wanted me to tell stories. He was the starter. My love of legends was next. Legends are stories which I like to see as ways that our ancestors filled in some of the mysteries of their lives and deaths. Greek, Egyptian, Celtic … it didn’t matter to me. The more the merrier. But it begged the question of what if these creatures still walked among us?

Thus, my original series, the Diaries of the Cwn Annwn was born. But when I had taken those characters to a certain point, I wanted something different. My own long-standing favourite has always been the Egyptian legends. So, when it came to designing a new character, that was where I looked. I am fortunate in that I can visit the Egyptian gallery in the British Museum regularly, and there I found inspiration in a book on heiroglyphs in the translation for the words “Beloved of Sekhmet”. Merysekhmet was born.

But where should this character fit in my little universe? With my job association in the NHS, I wanted to give my Merysekhmet characters a medical/scientific background. I had the vague idea that I wanted to use my character to highlight some of the sterling work done in the NHS. No problem there. Then I met another gifted storyteller, who lives in Alabama. The idea that “Karma” had was that she had a hacker character, a former FBI agent who had been the victim of experimentation in a secret organisation, resulting in her having the ability to shift her features and mimic the look of others. I tied this with an earlier part of my series, where the main character had encountered the Nazi regime’s fascination with the paranormal. Her shadowy organisation become a bioengineering facility led by ‘Doc’, the son of a Nazi geneticist. He had been running experiments using his father’s notes. “Karma” was just one of his subjects.

Ramble on … But this gave us the way to introduce some new characters and also look at the whole concept of mutation. Yes, the X-men franchise have covered mutants and what they can do, but what starts the process? We took the idea of a ‘scientist’ working from information that paranormal creatures actually existed, and determined that he felt that they must have interacted with the human race. Interaction meant procreation, which meant that their genetic material was out there somewhere. Finding it was just a process of intense searching. Once it had been found, the subjects might be the source of further experimentation to see what might trigger a recessive gene to be triggered.

It didn’t matter if the subjects didn’t know of the secret within their DNA. An unusual ability in gymnastics, or in the swimming pool? An unusual turn of speed on the athletics track? An ability to see in the dark? Find these people and let the testing and experimentation begin.

But they are ‘free individuals’. Why would they agree, because you can bet anything they won’t be paid for this? That’s easy. Kill them off in their normal lives. If no one knows they still lived, then no one would come looking. And thus, begins their new life in hell, where they are an experimental subject and nothing more than that. What happens to the mind and the spirit with that level of abuse, particularly if everything is geared towards reducing you from a ‘thinking human being’ to an ‘animal’?

In our stories, the Cwn Annwn and their allies will destroy the bioengineering facility. Having seen the potential of such experimentation in Nazi Germany, my original main character, Gavril Negrescu, is firm on that. They know that there are ‘subjects’ being held, but these are individuals pushed to their limits, with the ‘bonus’ that they have more abilities. Thus we had the story to follow Merysekhmet.

Josh Abbott, a ‘deceased’ member of the USMC, whose genetic make-up included recessive characteristics from a Native American grandmother several generations before, when North America was being settled by the incoming Europeans. When the bioengineering facility is destroyed, he flees. He trusts no one. He is a male in mental and physical pain, having been pushed for the gratification of his captor’s experiments. But, buried in the pain is a Marine, a male raised on the stories of an adored Great Grandpa. Reading the Native American legends of the cougar, Toho, I knew I had my paranormal angle.

Returning to those two original questions: characters or plot? I had the rough plot with this one first, and then the character had to be built, because research must be done. At the very least, Josh is a Marine, so he needs to walk and talk like a Marine. That takes research.

Birth of a new story? Well, when the question is posed; about character or plot first, there always seems to be an element of one or the other. The point I wanted to make was that it is not set in stone. Sometimes one works more than the other. Merysekhmet was about the character first. Toho was the plot first. Don’t be tied down to a formula. Relax and go with the flow. Listen to your dreams and surprise yourself.

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LINKS TO THE BOOKS IN THE DIARIES OF THE CWN ANNWN

“Bound”, Volume 1 of The Diaries of the Cŵn Annwn
Amazon.com $0.99: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B016TQFBNY
Amazon.co.uk £0.99: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B016TQFBNY
Smashwords.com £0.00 (Free): https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/589130