Has any of you guys ever wondered how I come up with stories? Like, how I come up with the plots and stuff? It’s not as glamorous as you’d think it is, though, let me warn you. To be quite honest, RaeKitano was the one that made me want to write this. Because I came across that one publication about how she comes up with good stories and as I read it I thought that I did some stuff differently and had this urge to write it down. Oh and the example I give later on is based on one of my stories. I write LGBT stories. If you don't like that, then you could just ignore the example, or ignore this all together. It's up to you. Just don't leave your hate here, I'm not a nice person when people piss me off.

                Alright, so for the longest time the place where I jotted down all my ideas was my phone, until I couldn’t bring my phone out in the street (insecurity issues in my country), which meant I couldn’t jot down the ideas no matter when they came to me. I changed the tactic to notebooks, and notepads, and papers and stuff. I always try to bring a pen and a paper with me wherever I go in case something comes to me.

                Now comes the idea. You’d think I sit in front of my computer and the ideas just come to me by magic. No, they don’t. I get ideas from anything and everything. Songs, things that happen to me personally, books and manga and any other type of written form of communication that I read, movies, videos, hell even porn has given me an idea or two. Anything that I can take and develop and that is original will turn into a story idea.

                My memory tends to fail me regarding how I came up with the ideas for my stories, though. The idea for WBT came from this yaoi called Sex Pistols, and from rping with Shax_Panda. I don’t remember how I got the idea for MLWE. LTTS came to me while I was in school but I don’t remember what inspired me. DOLFAN came from an ATL song. And so on.

                Alright, next up, characters. The characters come from the story idea; depending on what type of story I write, I come up with a character that will best suit it. Very rarely do I think of a character before I have a story idea, though that happened to me with LTTS. I had Ollie and Sal thought up before I thought of the plot. The characters’ personalities have to go with the type of story you’re writing. After I’ve thought of a personality, I think of a background for the character. A person’s past forms their personality, so whatever childhood (since most of my characters are teens or around that age) they had, has to explain why they are how they are in the present.

                Then I think of their physical appearance. That has to, once more, go with the plot and their personality. If the character I’m thinking up is someone that looks like any other average person, or someone that’s quiet, I won’t make them have bleached blonde hair and a Mohawk, or neon green hair, or something like that. Sometimes I think up the physical appearances as I go, or there I times I don’t even mention them. And that’s most likely because the story is a short story. Next are the names. To be honest, my names most times don’t have a meaning. I choose them because I like them, but sometimes I choose them carefully, depends on the story and character.

                So after figuring out the main characters in my story, I elaborate on the plot, and what I want to do with the story, where I want to go with it, how I want it to end, what scenes and events I want to add to it, and most importantly, if it’s a short story of a long story. Mind you, I don’t write that down. I was NEVER good at making outlines and all that shit. No, just no. Because that limits my ideas and what I write. I keep coming up with ideas for the story and keep on changing stuff in it as I write, and an outline set out with particular ideas and nothing else limits me. It just doesn’t work for me believe me. And all that shit about how a book’s supposed to be build-up, climax, build-down, and ending, or whatever doesn’t work for me either.

                My stories normally go however the fuck I want them to go. I normally have a character introduction and the explaining of the set up and secondary characters. Then I’ll just keep on writing, developing my characters, their lives, issues, past, happy moments, whatever, and more or less build up for the blow up, the climax of the story. The climax or blow up, is that particular moment that changes everything in the story, that moment when the shit becomes too much. Then I’ll typically pick up the pieces after whatever event was my climax, just picking my poor characters up off the floor. And lastly depending on the story I’ll wrap it up nicely and end the story. That bullshit about the climax being in the middle of the book and whatnot doesn’t work for me. Shit goes down whenever I decide it goes down.

                Then comes the title. The title has to have to do with the story. I normally chose a representative phrase, something that can encompass all my story in just a few words or word; sometimes it has to do with the idea that inspired the story. I know I make it sound like it’s oh so easy: just think about something that describes your story in a few words and done, right? No. It’s not that easy. Picking a title is hard work. I spend hours, days, brainstorming about titles and words that I want to use in the title, and then picking the one that I like the best, the one that rolls off my tongue easier than others.

                And lastly, the cover. My cover’s always, and I mean ALWAYS, have to do with the story or the title, or the characters. And it will always depend on what story I’m making the cover for. For me the covers always have to have a meaning, something that truly represents my story. I’m not one of those writers that puts hot guys on their covers just to get attention. I’m not gonna put a half-naked guy on my cover when there isn’t even a kiss in the book, or when the book isn’t even based on sex or hot guys. Sex is part of most of my stories, yeah, but it’s not what the story is about. So I honestly try not to do that. That is, however, with the covers that I, Desyre Maine, make. If a fan or friend comes along and decides they want to make a cover for me I’ll accept it gladly and use it. I really adore when people make covers for me, even if it has a half-naked guy on it. Why? Because everyone has their view of my story, and if they think that a shoe represents it, who am I to say they’re wrong?

Example:

Let’s use Beautiful as an example, since I do remember how I came up with the idea for that story. I warn you, though, there will be SPOILERS. Yes that’s in bold, italic, underlined, and caps lock. It’s that important. So I recommend, if you plan on reading that story but haven’t gotten around to it, that you do not read what follows. And I mean that the whole damn story is ruined, so honestly, don’t do it man. Also if you're pathetic enough to steal the whole plot and idea, the characters, and basically everything, I feel sorry for you. If it inspired you to write your own story, I'm proud of you and I'm glad I could help. And if you want to borrow one or two of my ideas in particular, then who am I to stop you? As long as you use the idea in an original unique way be my guest.

Idea:

                The idea for Beautiful came to me while I was in another state. I was just lounging around (I’m not a productive person, to be honest; I just lay around all day, reading or writing) while my cousin was listening to obnoxiously loud music (she does that all the time and it gets on my nerves so goddamned much, I swear). Then this song by a Guatemalan singer I really like came on. It’s called Que nadie vea, which basically means, don’t let anyone see. It’s about the life of a male transvestite, childhood, teen years, adulthood, growing old, and finally death and obituary. All that spent hiding in the closet, never having a partner or being truly happy since he was living a lie. It’s a really sad song in a sense, it always makes me tear up a little.

                So either way, that song came on, and I started singing it. Then, I thought about this movie that my cousin (the same that plays the obnoxiously loud music) showed me called Rent, and about a character in it called Angel. That lead me to a book I absolutely adore called Slow Bloom (e-book, not on wattpad) and about the main character Ricky, and how he mentions that he’s not tucking. And lastly, that lead me to a movie I also adore called Romeos. So, with all these things swirling around my head, I started thinking about cross dressing and tucking and transsexuals, and I thought about how they look at themselves in the mirror and see one thing but want to see another. I came up with the first few paragraphs and then I knew I had an idea in my hands.

                I literally jumped off the bed and ran to get my notepad, scaring the right shit out of my cousin. It was quite funny, I have to admit; she almost fell off her chair from the fright.

Characters/Plot:

                These two steps can be inverted, sometimes someone thinks about the plot first and then thinks about the characters, sometimes they think up the characters and plot at the same time. It depends. For this story, after I had my general idea, a guy that cross-dresses, standing in front of a mirror, just examining his reflection, I thought up the plot. Hiding from his parents, the door locked, nervous. Turning back to the reflection, thinking about how this is what he wants, what he thinks of himself. His dad coming up the stairs, running to take everything off, keeping appearances. The therapy and surgery, complications. His best friend being in the same ship as him, his boyfriend, his life. This is literally how I think up the plots, little ideas that develop.

                And then I put it all together. A short story about a guy that cross-dresses and not just for fun but because he really wants to be a woman; he tucks and everything. He’s arranging for the therapy and surgery, finally having saved all the money needed, but there are complications. One of them being his parents and the fact that he has yet to come out to them. The little details (his career, stuff about his past, his best friend and boyfriend’s names, and other stuff) were developed later as I wrote the story.

                Then I had to come up with a name for my character. Notice that I don’t really develop much into his past or into his personality. That’s because those details are not truly relevant to the plot of the story, since it’s a short story. It doesn’t really matter if he was bullied when he was a kid or not, if his parents loved him and his relationship with them, who was his first boyfriend, or when he learned to tuck. No. I only add the details that are important to the plot in short stories. In long stories I take the time to develop a background, think up a past, and whatnot since I have space and lots of chapters and pages to do that.

                So back to the character name. At first I was planning to make it something manly, to make it an irony that he turned out to be as queer as a three dollar-bill. But then, I thought that an ambiguous name would be better for the readers. Something that didn’t reveal immediately that it was a guy and not a girl. I thought of a lot of names, Sam, Shell, Chris (Christopher/Christina), Taylor, and many, many more. But I settled on Lindsay because it wasn’t a shortened version of a name, it was a unisex, and it wasn’t as common (I have a thing for not-common-but-not-ridiculous names).

Title:

                The title of this story is based on the first few paragraphs I came up with when I scared the crap out of my cousin. Since that moment I knew that the story was gonna be named Beautiful. Because above all, above society, above grammar, above biology, above the fact that he was born a man, Lindsay thinks of himself as beautiful.

Cover:

                The ideas I had for the cover of this story circled around the fact that Lindsay was an ambiguous name, and the reader would most probably think at first that it was a woman when it fact it’s a guy. Based on that, I thought about making the cover a silhouette of an ambiguous looking person, someone you couldn’t really tell if it was a guy or a girl. But that went down the drain when I couldn’t find good pics. Then I thought about backs, and how you couldn’t tell a gender just from looking at the back either, but that too went to the trash due to a lack of images that met my high standards. I finally settled on legs. Shaved, smooth, delicate legs that ended in high heeled feet. It could easily be a guy wearing high heels and you would never be able to tell the difference. I’d go on to explain about the font I used and why, why I placed the title like that, and all those unnecessary details, but I don’t want to bore you to death.

NOTE:

                Sometimes a story will require research. If you know little about a topic and decide to write about it, I really don’t recommend that you wing it. Because there will be people that do know about the topic that’ll read your story and who will be able to tell that you know jack about what you’re talking about. Also, you should be aware that since you’re writing a story that you’re going to publish on a public site, where people will most likely read it, you’ll be spreading out false information. Granted I make it sound like you’re telling people that the cancer is a lie created by doctors, but honestly, any means of communication delivers information and you need to be careful about that information.

                However the amount of research you need to do depends on the story you’re writing and the event or thing you’re writing about in that story. Sometimes an extensive research before writing the story is not needed, sometimes you can just research particular things as you write. If you’re writing about how to treat injuries but aren’t sure if icing is effective after a week of getting said wound, then you just research quickly about it. In ten minutes tops (or more if your internet connection is crappy or had to go look in a book for the info) you’ll have found out that icing only works if done within a few hours of the incident; icing after a few days of it happening won’t do anything, except make you cold obviously. Which is all you needed to know in the first place.

                For Beautiful I had to research some stuff regarding this topic. I knew about the Gender Reassignment surgery and hormonal therapy (for women that wanted to be men), and quite a bit about transsexualism, and the uncomfortableness of being born with a body that you don’t belong in. But I seriously knew shit about the effects and side-effects of the therapy, or about tucking for that matter (that was quite fun to research), and other things I needed information on.

               And that ladies and gents, who were bored enough to read about how my weird brain comes up with stories, is all. That’s how the magic that isn’t really magic happens. Hope I didn’t bore you too much with this. Thanks for reading.