I've just hit the 50% mark in my new Controllers Book 0. This is based on Tolis (if you have read the series, this is where Lilly and the viral research are based before the Uncorrupted attack).
Where did this story idea come from?
I had a loose scene in my head where a muted Omega was introduced to a selection of Alphas. In my mind, this was a civilized setting, perhaps a little stately and grand. There would be three Alphas, and she would be invited to pick.
She didn't have to pick, and in this case, another day she would be introduced to three more until she did pick.
In my scenario, she picked, and thus began the story.
This scene ended up morphing into Ruthless Control.  I know there is not much of the above in that book! But it gives you an idea of how a writer's brain works, and how we take concepts and mash them about until they look nothing like the inception!
But, that idea, the presentation of the Omega and the selection stayed with me...Which leads us back to Controllers book 0.
I often have whole scenes pop into my head first thing in the morning or last thing at night. There is something about a sleepy brain that generates ideas. It's like you already have an idea, and that idea runs away with itself and morphs into something new.
I imagined this young Omega who had just gone through the program with her Alpha, whom she had picked. He would need to be ruthless, perhaps manipulative, and in this case, older and utterly adoring of his new Omega.
But yes...also intensely Alpha.
This is where the restaurant scene comes in. Until the restaurant, the story was all very vague. The characters without personality and the tone of the book undefined.
The restaurant scene is intense, it became the hinge-pin from which the full story unfolded in my mind...and it became the epicenter that shaped the two characters (Alpha and Omega) and provided a foundation for everything that happens in the rest of the book.
The scene itself will be a long way along, certainly past 50% mark. But that's just the way my mind works when writing. It's a bit like a scattergun blasting scenes backward and forward in time from that one defining moment.
I never quite know how the story will unfold when I start; the more you write, the more ideas pop up. I like the unplanned events, they are usually the most interesting.
This book has a very distinctive, dark-dystopian flavor.
I adore Verity; she has had a terrible lot in life, and revealing as an Omega has only made that worse. But, like all my books, she will get her HEA.
