I was stuck on a story for weeks until I saw a kid at the park

I was trying to write a fantasy story about a lost kingdom, but I kept describing the same old castle and forest. Then I saw this little girl at the park in Seattle, totally convinced a puddle was a portal to an underwater city where snails were the royalty. It hit me that I was building the world from the top down with kings and maps, instead of starting with one weird, small thing a character truly believes. What's a simple, odd detail you've used to kickstart a whole setting?

4 comments

4 Comments

caleb2621mo ago

Found a lost city by describing the smell of its rusted pipes first.

paige861mo ago

That's a wild way to start. What did the rust smell like exactly? Was it a sharp, metallic scent or more like wet, old pennies?

margaret_gonzalez2518d ago

Okay, so that's a solid question, and I'm dying laughing at lopez.simon's take because, yeah, it does sound like a weird excuse. But let's be real here. That guy probably just got up, walked into his garage, stuck his nose next to a rusty pipe, and said "eureka, I can finally write Chapter 1." Wet, old pennies is exactly the smell, extra damp and slightly sour, like if a vending machine threw up. Honestly, I'm picturing him writing a whole paragraph about that exact metallic tang and calling it his "breakthrough" moment. Did he at least find a treasure map in that puddle too, or should we all just start sniffing our plumbing now?

lopez.simon18d ago

Question whether a single puddle is really the key to unlocking an entire world, sounds more like a convenient excuse to stop writing than a breakthrough. @caleb262 probably just smelled some old pipes and called it a city.