JL Stratton

While it is difficult at my age to remember the very first story I wrote, I do remember the story that set me on a path to a life-long enjoyment of writing. It was a creative writing assignment. I wrote a piece of speculative fiction (although the term speculative would not come into play for years) involving a set of characters escaping from their home planet and arriving at another. The characters were so much like that of Adam and Eve protrayed in the jewish and christian bible that I actually named them "Adam" and "Evek." At this early age, I had not yet developed a skill for naming characters. My teacher was appalled by the story. She gave me a grade of 'C' and wrote something referring to blashpemy on the first page. From that point, I was hooked on creating stories that tested the reader's beliefs.

I normally start with an idea or just a tiny seed of a story. I'll write a scene or a character sketch and go from there. At some point I do formulate a very loose outline just to make sure that events and characters are matched. My first draft is often very sparse, basically describing a character doing something or going from one place to another. On the second pass, as I get to know my characters, I add more detail. One odd thing about my process is that, while many writers reduce their word count during rewrites, I normally increase mine because of my initial sparse writing style.