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So, last night I went to bed and started drifting off to sleep. Somewhere I had heard or read that in order to sleep your heartrate has to drop below 60 beats per minute and mine was slowing, approaching that moment when cognitive systems shut down and slumber would take over.

As I drifted my minds began recalling carious Tabletop Role Playing Games in the horror genre I had run for my friends. When I run a horror themed games I like to do it as a ‘one off,’ just that set of characters and events. Horror repeated becomes adventure. One of the games I recalled had been a massive game made up of several sessions instead of the customary single night of game play. I had borrowed the structure of the classic film Citizen Kane with the characters investigating aspect of someone life searching for the key that would unlock the nature of their life.

My heartrate shot up from the gentle slowing and sleep fled from my presence.

I hadn’t thought about that game in years and years now grasped a new purpose for it, a novel.

Now that particular story, much of which I do not recall, but the structure. That would make a fine way to approach a horror novel that would be both grand in scope and focused on a single character. Much more of what the plot might entail flooded into my brain like a river washing away the Black Riders chasing after Frodo. Even more concepts fell into place. I adore the five-act structure and each act could encompass one of the historical aspects of the investigation; a character introduced in the epilog of my werewolf novel could be the point man in this one.

It took quite a while for my thoughts to cease racing, for my heartrate to once again begin to slow, but that sudden inconvenient flash of inspiration still burns this morning.