Marie Weiler's Blog: Fiction Fans - Posts Tagged "writing-inspiration"

Spoiler Alert: If you haven't read my novel Olivia yet, then you might not want to read this post until after you have done so.

The Bible is stocked full of stories about the most unlikely of people whom God uses to carry out His plans for salvation. And in the exact same way, He can also help people through the most unimaginable means available to them. In this instance, I speak of the things which God has used to inspire me to write for Him in the past.

As improbable as it may seem, God started turning the wheels in my head for my debut novel Olivia the first time I ever watched the movie Jaws. In particular, the following scene from the movie was slow enough for me to allow my mind to wander a bit and let God form a story within my imagination. It was one of those "what if" moments. And at first it was just one idea, but soon after I felt it had enough potential to be split into two. One of those ideas has been completed, whilst the other has since been rejected by myself.

I now recommend you watch this scene from Jaws before I continue with how God formed the initial idea into my head; and while you do, do not pay so much attention to what is being said, as to the types of personalities and qualities which are coming out of Captain Quint (Robert Shaw) and Matt Hooper's (Richard Dreyfuss) performances.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9S41...

So like I said before, it was a slower scene, and my mind started to drift away from listening to the dialogue being spoken to watching the characters' personalities and traits being displayed instead. Now, what I got out of Quint's performance is that he comes across as this rough-edged, but wizened, old fisherman with a temper when provoked; but he has to be this way in order to survive on the Atlantic waters. As for Hooper, though, as much as he seems to listen with respect to Quint's words, you can see there is an ambition in his eyes to do things the way the modern world has taught him to; he wants to make his own mark and be his own man.

With all of this in mind, I started to create these "what if" scenarios in my head at around the two minute mark of the video. "What if Hooper was actually Captain Quint's son, and they came from a long line of fishermen in some maritime village? I mean, they both look like these gruff, unshaven men who have seen some harsh sailing weather and dealt with some fairly dirty grunt work; and their shirts are both opened almost the exact same way (like father, like son). But what if the father and the son were at odds with one another about something, and this causes the son to leave and go off to university in the city? But the son is drawn back years later, because he worries the father, who's now a widower, will wind up raising his younger sister just as badly as he felt their father had raised him?" From there, I ended up changing it from being an older son to an older daughter who leaves home instead.

And that's how God used something as random as the movie Jaws to inspire me to write my first novel for Him. What kinds of things has He used in your life lately to inspire you? I'd love to hear about it in the comments below. An important thing to remember is to always look for the extraordinary blessings which God hides for us to find in the very ordinary, everyday things.

Over and out.
– Marie