Writing Words for Nerds #AtoZChallenge‑‑S is for Stories (and where to find them)

As many writers will tell you, the first rule of being a good writer is to read, and read, and read some more.

But I like to think it goes beyond that. You can’t simply read like any other reader; you have to read like a writer. You have to take apart what you read and figure out what works and what doesn’t and why. You have to take what you’ve learned, and you have to apply it to your own writing.

I also think it goes beyond stories written in books. There are stories in every medium imaginable. There are stories in movies, TV shows, songs, and art. But it goes beyond that, too. The truth is there are stories pretty much everywhere you look.

In Toren the Teller’s Tale, young Toren learns that every person, every object, and even forces like the wind have their own unique stories. If she can read a thing’s complete story, that thing becomes a part of her. She can control it, but only if that thing wants to be controlled. And when she fully knows a thing’s story, she can retell it in a single word that brings that thing to life. This is her unique magic, the magic of the storyteller.

While Toren the Teller’s Tale is an epic fantasy, there’s a part of it that’s, well, not a fantasy at all. The truth is that every person and every object does have a story. You have to crack it open like an egg, take it apart and figure it out to discover the story hidden within.

Just pick up any object, the object closest to you. Who made that? Where did it come from? How did it get to you? Who were the people who affected or were affected by its journey? And isn’t it interesting to think that someone at the start of its journey in some small way affected you at this stage of its journey? You’re connected to each other through this object. You’re connected to every person along its path. And that’s just one object. Look around you. How many people affected or were affected by the objects just in your immediate vicinity? And role did they play in that object’s story?

But it’s even more than that. Because every person, every object, holds millions of possible stories. How could this object have arrived here? Where could it have gone instead? And what could happen to it in the future? How would that affect the people involved? The potential stories are infinite. And if you believe the Many Worlds theory of quantum physics, what’s even crazier is that they could all be true, somewhere out in our amazing universe.

In his autobiographical book, Rewrites: A Memoir, playwright Neil Simon says (I’m paraphrasing), “Writer’s block isn’t when a writer has no ideas; it’s when a writer has so many ideas and doesn’t trust himself to choose the right one.”

With so many stories around us all the time, that truly is a dilemma. How do you choose the right one?

I like improv’s answer. There is no right and no wrong choice. There’s just a choice, and you have to make it or let the audience make it for you. Whatever the choice is, you have to commit to it 100%. I guess you could say the only wrong choice is not choosing or not committing to what’s been chosen.

I see dozens of stories around me every day, and I throw almost all of them out.

It’s not because I haven’t committed to a choice. It’s because I am already 100% committed to choices I’ve already made, stories I have thought out in my mind or outlined on paper but haven’t had time to turn into fully formed manuscripts. Like the persona in Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” I “have promises to keep/And miles to go before I sleep.”   

But the stories are there, inside my head. Don’t ask me what I’m thinking. You probably don’t want to know.

I once sat with a guy near a bonfire and watched the ashes float in the hot air above the flames. He leaned in and said, “You’re a writer. I bet you’re thinking something about the poetic beauty of the fire.” I smiled and nodded, although what I was really thinking was “Wouldn’t it be funny if some prehistoric caveman who was obsessed with flight saw those ashes and thought he could fly if he could somehow sew or glue the ashes together? And after a few failed attempts, it might occur to him that it had something to do with the fire. He’d wonder if he could fly if he could just somehow throw himself on the fire at just the right angle. Maybe he could test that theory by tossing a friend over it. Hey, maybe that’s what gave J.M. Barrie the idea for pixie dust!”

See? There's a reason why I don't tell the stories I don't tell and focus instead on the ones I do.

Speaking of which, I should get back to those stories. The second book in the Legend of Gilbert the Fixer, here I come! 

Writing Words for Nerds #AtoZChallenge--I is for Ideas

It only takes two words to inspire an infinite number of story ideas. 

“Where do stories come from?” It’s the question writers get asked most. “Where did you get the idea for your book? What inspired you?”

I think the idea for all fictional stories starts with two short but incredibly powerful words: “What if?” 

There are what-ifs everywhere you look. Every person you meet, every story you read or see or hear, and just about everything you experience or have experienced is full of what-ifs. This is why I completely agree with something that Neil Simon wrote in his autobiographical book Rewrites (I’m paraphrasing), “Writer’s block isn’t when a writer has no ideas. It’s when a writer has so many ideas and doesn’t trust himself to choose the right one.”

There are so many ideas—so many what-ifs—everywhere you look that it seems impossible to me that a writer could ever have no idea what to write about. Why, I write at least a dozen story ideas in my head every day. At least. And I throw them out, because I don’t even have enough time to write the stories I’m already working on, never mind a dozen new ones every day.

A little imagination and two words are all you need to create infinite story ideas.

Here’s an example. Recently I was sitting with my husband in a courtroom, because he had a couple of unfair traffic tickets we wanted to contest. (We reached a compromise with the court, because the police officer who issued the tickets wasn’t available and taking it all the way would have meant my husband taking another day off work, which wasn’t worth the $58 cost of the remaining ticket.) We had to spend about three hours in the courtroom waiting for our turn. My husband thought I might get in trouble for using my cellphone, but even the bailiff was using hers. The first cases brought before the judge were those where defendants had lawyers, as well as drug-related cases that involved already incarcerated defendants. Instead of being brought in, those defendants appeared in the courtroom via some sort of teleconferencing arrangement on a large flat-screen TV.

I leaned in toward my husband and whispered, “I can imagine a story about a woman who comes into court because of a traffic violation and is shocked to see her missing husband on that screen.” My husband loved the idea and continued it. What if the husband was in jail pretending to be someone else? What if he married her while pretending to be someone else? What if he had other wives who had no idea where he was or who he really was? What if after she screamed in court, “that’s my missing husband,” he pretended not to know her? What if he really didn’t know her? What if the husband but had lost his memory in the same accident that led to his incarceration, and while the system believed and had been telling him for a year that he was someone else, she was the only person who could reveal the truth and that he was innocent? What if after his experiences even he isn’t sure she’s telling the truth?

By asking one what-if, I came up with a story idea. And by continuing to ask one what-if after another, my husband was able to hone it into a very interesting story idea. I’m probably never going to use it, because, like I said, I think of and then abandon at least a dozen of these a day. But this little event gave my husband a glimpse into how my mind works when I write a story—and how much fun it is.

And asking what-ifs really is!

Yes, hearing or reading or seeing stories is fun, but it’s even more fun when you’re the one who’s telling yourself the story and you can make it go anywhere you want.

Infinite story ideas are everywhere. All you have to do is ask yourself, “What if?” and then let your imagination do the rest.