George Esler

I was sitting in standstill traffic one day, on the narrowest and shakiest bridge in New Orleans, no less, and I was getting frustrated. I had left work over thirty minutes ago, and in the distance, from the bridge, could literally still see the building in downtown New Orleans where I worked. If I turned my head the other way, I could see a great ways along the Mississippi River in the direction of my house, and I thought to myself: "If I could just teleport to any place I could see, I could get home in about ten seconds. I could stand in my office, look at this very same bridge I'm on now, and be there. It would take one second instead of thirty minutes. Then, from that bridge, I could look as far along River Road as my eyes could go, and teleport there. And then again. It would probably only take me about five or six 'hops' to get home."

That thought persisted. I just couldn't get it out of my head. I started pondering how could I get home in the fewest number of 'hops'. And then it hit me. I would write a story about a guy who could teleport to any physical location he could see. But how would he get that power? What would he do with it? How would it make his life easier? Harder?

Next thing you know, I was writing a story about sacred artifacts, voodoo cults, zombified spirit monsters, and supernaturally-charged family feud murder mysteries. Now, more than a year later, I have finished and begun selling "Line of Sight" and I'm almost done with the sequel.

Normally, an idea will present itself to me in the form of a scene, or conflict. I'll start to wonder, "How did this happen?" "How did this person get here?" "What will he do now?"

From that nugget, the framework of a story starts to take shape. I'll typically make note of the idea to make sure I don't forget it, and I'll let it percolate, even while working on other projects. Soon enough, I'll start jotting down ideas. I like to outline, so I might even start outlining a series of events. If the story makes it that far, I'll sit down to write that first draft. The best advice I've ever heard about first drafts is that they are more for the author than the reader, you are just telling yourself the story right now. At later stages, we edit and revise for the readers' sake.

I will move from outline to first draft, filling in details not present in the outline, maybe changing stuff as I go through and revising the outline. During my second pass through, I'm looking for major story holes, poor wording choices, obvious typos, etc. Then the story is off to a group of pre-selected test readers, who I instruct on what I need from them. Once I get it back, I review feedback, make necessary changes, then revise again. Then I revise again. By this time the story is pretty much ready for the public.