Quick Tip: Think BIG

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

Imagine a confederation of banshees, demons, ghosts, monsters, vampires, werewolves, witches, and zombies with a single goal to unify them against a town, a region, a country, or even the world. Now, you’re thinking BIG. Your scope is large--huge, in fact--with regard both to the numbers (and types) of characters your story (or, more likely, your series of stories) and your setting will include.

You’re talking a novel here, at least, or a whole sequence of novels--chronicles, you might decide to call them. You need a title for them, though, which not only suggests the commonality among the books but also sounds cool, as in elevated or grand: The Chronicles of Mayhem might serve your purpose. Perhaps the federation of monsters could call themselves “Mayhem” as their collective name.

Now, you’re rolling! Or not. Maybe you think this idea, whether for a single, stand-alone novel or for a series of book-length stories, is lame. That’s okay. I wasn’t trying to sell you on the idea of The Chronicles of Mayhem per se; rather, I was showing you a way to think big, to enlarge the arena of your imagination so that it encompasses a whole town, or region, or country, or planet and any number of antagonists. You can people your novel or series with whatever characters tickle your fancy and set it wherever you like. It’s your story (or stories), after all.

The point is that, to think big, you have to, well, think BIG.

But once you have decided on your characters and your setting, you can enhance your plot by introducing intrigues among different characters or groups of characters, developing romantic interests and triangles, establishing allegiances and feuds, and so forth. You have enough characters and a setting big enough in scope, now that you have thought BIG, to encompass all these plot angles and twists and more. You can write on an epic scale.