I love creating new worlds and the characters that live in those worlds. As such, I have a lot of story ideas that have come up over the years that are in varying stages along their journey to become a completed story. I would love to hear what you think about the ideas I have posted here, especially which you think would be stories you would most love to read*. If any of the stories below really speak to you, please send me an email to laurahighcove(at)gmail(dot)com and let me know what you like.
The Storyteller
The Story: One upon a time there was a prince. She was a girl.
The World: This world is one where people are forced to play out Fairy Tales in order to keep the world stable. It is a Storyteller’s job to protect the artifact that powers each story until completion from the mythics that want to steal its power.
The Background: I have always wanted to do a story based in a fairy tale world where the characters are genre savvy (ie, they know the fairy tales are stories and respond accordingly.)
Other stories:
Shifting Winds
The Story: Angelica is the rebellious younger daughter of the country’s current king. Dubbed the Renegade Princess by the press, she lives life as she wants to. That is until she’s kidnapped by a demon.
The World: Ryall is a world where the angels of the Choir guide humans in their worship of Lucinia, Goddess of the Heaven, and protect them from the ravages of demons.
The Background: When I decided I wanted to become a serious writer, this is the story I chose to focus on. It is currently a full length novel and is in the revision phase, however I hit a wall with the ending and moved on to something else while I try and figure that part out.
The Trickster
The Story: Karin is a girl who has become bored with monotony of the world until she stumbles across a banished aesir, cursed into the form of a child who is struggling to regain his place in Asgard, and finds herself caught up in a world of magic.
The World: Midgard is basically present day Earth, where a seal prevents humans from noticing or interacting with the effects of magic, and keeping them from knowing that their world is one of nine that hang among the branches of Yggdrasil, the World Tree, from which all magic flows.
The Background: I came up with this story long ago. I’m not sure if I fell in love with norse mythology before or after I started on this story, but I have done more research for this book than any other. It is my most anticipated prospect, but it’s on the back burner until I become a better writer as I need to gain more skill before I can do it justice.
Blessings of the Nerial
The Story: Aaronchel is struggling to become a devoted templar after his father was killed for losing his blessing. His faith is further shaken when a girl appears with no knowledge or understanding of the divine gods and he finds himself oddly drawn to her. Are the spirits trying to corrupt him like they did his father, or is there something more going on?
The World: The world itself doesn’t have a name, so I just call it my nerial world. Nerial are great beasts, a cross between a dragon and a gryffin, and are worshiped as the gods of the land. The spirits, which live inside everything, have rebelled against the nerial and it is the job of humans to pray that the spirits return to serving the holy gods, and in doing so, earn themselves the blessings of the nerial.
The Background: This is one of the few stories ideas I have that came from a dream. It has a completed rough draft (that is very rough in some places) that came about as the result of NaNoWriMo. I had a little bit of trouble with the main female character in that I currently have two and I’m trying to figure out which of them gets the job.
Candidates
The Story: Shaewynn and her sister Kwenthian are half-shisa nobles who are sent to the capitol by a grieving father. Once there they must compete with other candidates to become hand-maidens for the queen, only some things about their training raise questions about what they may actually be doing there.
The World: Graymane is a country founded around a gryffin knight king. It borders the country of Shiisa, where ferocious beasts walk around on two legs. Magic in this world consists mostly of a special ‘gift’, an ability that is inborn to only select people.
The Background: Another rough draft ‘completed’ out of NaNoWriMo, the plot is still weak in some places, and I’m not positive the place the rough draft stopped is the end of the book, or just the halfway point.
The Colors Of
The Story: Some people are able to control the aura that surrounds them, and one company is trying to create rovas to do this as well. Shani, the daughter of a scientist escapes with one such rova and they struggle to survive in a world nearly destroyed by war.
The World: Kline is a planet that was almost entirely destroyed by war so severe that the plants and animals shifted as a result, leaving the humans struggling to survive in the new environment. Rovas are created. They are computers that are built to look and act like animals, and fulfill the desire to continue fighting without endangering people’s lives. The organized battles, sponsored by the three countries that rose from the ruins of the war, keep the population’s mind off of the dying planet.
The Background: Here, I’ll let you in on a little secret. This story actually came about as a result of a fan fiction I wrote for Pokemon. There are very few similarities anymore except in the overarching theme of people controlling animal-like entities into fighting each other. This story is probably the one that has evolved the most from it’s original form.
Demonslayer
The Story: Akrise finds herself in the magic-fearing country of Ender with no memory of where she came from or why she is there. Only that she has a sword made of an extreamly precious and expensive metal, and she knows how to use it.
The World: Feldoor is an expansive world ruled over by gods and goddesses, who often take a more direct hand in the workings of the world than its inhabitants would like.
The Background: Feldoor is the first world I created on my own and Demonslayer is the first completed rough draft of novel length. I have overflowing background on the countries, races, magic, and lore of this world (I even wrote languages for the different countries.) so much so that I have no idea how many stories I may or may not have. However, because it (Demonslayer) was one of my first ever creations, it is very immature as a story and I haven’t gone back in any attempts at revision in a long long time.
Silent Wings
The Story: Rayne and her partner Benjamin are mercenaries, and a seemingly routine job throws them into the middle of a secret war.
The World: Estrella is a system of planets overseen by the Estrella Police. The planets resent the far-reaching hand of the EP, wishing to rule themselves, and mercenaries and pirates of all kinds take advantage of the ever-present tensions.
The Background: This world came out of my love of Star Fox 64. While it is the most technological of all my worlds, it’s still considered ‘fantasy’ because of a focus on magic (psychic powers) over technology. No completed rough draft on this story. It was a failed year of NaNoWriMo (Because the World of Warcraft Burning Crusade expansion came out in November that year.) but I am still interested in finishing it some day.
The Team
The Story: Astin, Toril, and Caleb are members of one of the most effective groups of Retrievers in The Order. This is a short introduction to them.
The World: Another world that doesn’t have a name, I refer to it as my myst world. In this world, there are no countries or government so much as there are companies that ‘oversee’ varying portions of the population. These companies run everything from food production to medical care to the public school systems. These companies vie for power and recourses and are always led by psychics, people who are able to control the invisible myst. The only neutral party in this world are the private Academies that raise every psychic through their 18th birthday within the neutrality of the Academies, where no one from the companies is allowed to set foot.
The Background: No really sure I remember where the idea for this story came from, and I have very little written on it, but it’s still interesting enough a concept that I consider it one of my better, if underdeveloped ideas.
*Please note that the ideas here are subject to change without notice and most of the titles are simply working titles. Basically, nothing here is set in stone.
