I Don't Pick My Stories
I Don't Pick My Stories
Where is the story born? When is it born? How exactly, does it all take shape and maybe, less importantly, why?
|I often get my ideas from the world around me. A talk show had a guest with a photographic memory and that's where I got the idea of Lucy. I built three novels off that one character.
I like to people watch. I watch as two men lean together talking in a library, I have no idea what they are saying but I study the tilts of their heads, the slight and subtle movement of their eyebrows as they register what the other is saying. I fill in the gaps myself and try to remember what I saw. I scan crowds, watching for how people are walking, talking and laughing, wondering what their stories are and if I can make up one to tell all of you.
My ideas come in snippets usually, (Feather was different and you can read that post if you are so inclined) pieces that come together over time like an instruction manual that is missing steps. I see my books as clearly as you see a movie. I watch them in my head and try to find the words to match what I feel and hear when I take in the story. Sometimes it takes months to put it all together, like a tarot card reading that only makes sense later.
Sometimes, I close my eyes at night and the images assault my mind. I see random pictures; a woman's toes in deep grass, the curve of a man's stubbled jaw line leaning in to whisper something, water running lazily down a stream or snow landing on a peaked roof, layering like patterned lace.
I saw Nathaniel jumping off the cliff far before I even knew what he looked like. I see all these things and words seep out of them like fog. Sometimes, I scramble to write it all down, other times I see it and know that if it is meant to be, it will come to me again.
If it is a good story, I won't forget it.
A new idea is pervading my thoughts, causing interruption to the Faith edits, my short story deadlines and my sleep. It's not a story yet. Really, it's just a jumble of intentions at this point. Something with time travel and a girl who goes everywhere but still feels trapped. A boy who has gone no where and yet feels free. The concept of time passing, choices made that change the future and how someone could see both sides of the choice. I see a coin flipping lazily in the air, a small idyllic town with too many secrets and a huge mangled oak tree, sitting lonely in a quiet field. Those thoughts will sift through my mind over and over, being molded and reworked until something comes of them.
That's how the story is built for me. I never really worry about coming up with ideas for stories, for now, knock on wood, I have them in spades.
I often feel like I don't pick the stories, they pick me.
Where is the story born? When is it born? How exactly, does it all take shape and maybe, less importantly, why?
|I often get my ideas from the world around me. A talk show had a guest with a photographic memory and that's where I got the idea of Lucy. I built three novels off that one character.
I like to people watch. I watch as two men lean together talking in a library, I have no idea what they are saying but I study the tilts of their heads, the slight and subtle movement of their eyebrows as they register what the other is saying. I fill in the gaps myself and try to remember what I saw. I scan crowds, watching for how people are walking, talking and laughing, wondering what their stories are and if I can make up one to tell all of you.
My ideas come in snippets usually, (Feather was different and you can read that post if you are so inclined) pieces that come together over time like an instruction manual that is missing steps. I see my books as clearly as you see a movie. I watch them in my head and try to find the words to match what I feel and hear when I take in the story. Sometimes it takes months to put it all together, like a tarot card reading that only makes sense later.
Sometimes, I close my eyes at night and the images assault my mind. I see random pictures; a woman's toes in deep grass, the curve of a man's stubbled jaw line leaning in to whisper something, water running lazily down a stream or snow landing on a peaked roof, layering like patterned lace.
I saw Nathaniel jumping off the cliff far before I even knew what he looked like. I see all these things and words seep out of them like fog. Sometimes, I scramble to write it all down, other times I see it and know that if it is meant to be, it will come to me again.
If it is a good story, I won't forget it.
A new idea is pervading my thoughts, causing interruption to the Faith edits, my short story deadlines and my sleep. It's not a story yet. Really, it's just a jumble of intentions at this point. Something with time travel and a girl who goes everywhere but still feels trapped. A boy who has gone no where and yet feels free. The concept of time passing, choices made that change the future and how someone could see both sides of the choice. I see a coin flipping lazily in the air, a small idyllic town with too many secrets and a huge mangled oak tree, sitting lonely in a quiet field. Those thoughts will sift through my mind over and over, being molded and reworked until something comes of them.
That's how the story is built for me. I never really worry about coming up with ideas for stories, for now, knock on wood, I have them in spades.
I often feel like I don't pick the stories, they pick me.
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