Making Up Stories
People often ask, "Where do you get your ideas from?" and it sounds flippant to answer, "From my head," but it's true. They grow like little cabbages: a single leaf that curls, surrounding an inner core and producing other leaves that layer upon themselves until a single theme poplated in layers of separate but closely related parts.
When I know what is needed, e.g. "What's the next Simon & Elizabeth story going to be?", the beginning elements are there. Simon, the shy cripple who grows to a confident man with the help of his father, his girlfriend, his teacher, his friends, and his favorite princess. In each story, the situation changes as Simon's life unfolds and as Elizabeth's threats ebb and flow. So I begin thinking, (for Book #3) "Mary is on the throne. Elizabeth is a danger to her sister and she well knows it, so she must be extremely circumspect. In fact, invisible would be better." In this book, I will try for a different situation from the first two while holding on to the elements readers like. In my brain, then, I've already selected Hannah and Peto the Pope as characters who will play large roles. Once that selection is made, the story seems to grow by itself, like those cabbages, filling in the middle as characters do what I (and my readers) know they must when perils arrive.
As far as the original idea for a book goes, I have no idea where that comes from. Where did I get a young nobody who comes to be friends with Elizabeth Tudor? How did he acquire a withered arm? Why does he care so much about who killed whom? I'm not sure.
I only know that Simon is as real to me as a fictional character can be. I know how he thinks, what he will do in a given situation, and what drives him. I used to tell my students that in fiction, we know characters better than we know our own family and friends. We have seen them in situations that test their mettle. We know exactly what they are thinking when those situations arise. And we learn their motivations, hear their doubts, and understand their decisions. Very rarely in real life is all of that true.
I guess the answer to where an author gets her stories is from her picture of the world: the way it is, the way she imagines it was, and the way she hopes it might be. Weaving all that together, authors recognize evil and deal with it, each in her own way. For me, there is always that person who fights evil, despite limitations, despite expectations, despite fears. Because that's the way I want the world to be
When I know what is needed, e.g. "What's the next Simon & Elizabeth story going to be?", the beginning elements are there. Simon, the shy cripple who grows to a confident man with the help of his father, his girlfriend, his teacher, his friends, and his favorite princess. In each story, the situation changes as Simon's life unfolds and as Elizabeth's threats ebb and flow. So I begin thinking, (for Book #3) "Mary is on the throne. Elizabeth is a danger to her sister and she well knows it, so she must be extremely circumspect. In fact, invisible would be better." In this book, I will try for a different situation from the first two while holding on to the elements readers like. In my brain, then, I've already selected Hannah and Peto the Pope as characters who will play large roles. Once that selection is made, the story seems to grow by itself, like those cabbages, filling in the middle as characters do what I (and my readers) know they must when perils arrive.
As far as the original idea for a book goes, I have no idea where that comes from. Where did I get a young nobody who comes to be friends with Elizabeth Tudor? How did he acquire a withered arm? Why does he care so much about who killed whom? I'm not sure.
I only know that Simon is as real to me as a fictional character can be. I know how he thinks, what he will do in a given situation, and what drives him. I used to tell my students that in fiction, we know characters better than we know our own family and friends. We have seen them in situations that test their mettle. We know exactly what they are thinking when those situations arise. And we learn their motivations, hear their doubts, and understand their decisions. Very rarely in real life is all of that true.
I guess the answer to where an author gets her stories is from her picture of the world: the way it is, the way she imagines it was, and the way she hopes it might be. Weaving all that together, authors recognize evil and deal with it, each in her own way. For me, there is always that person who fights evil, despite limitations, despite expectations, despite fears. Because that's the way I want the world to be
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