-
As
writers wiser than I have said, ideas are all around us. Whether we do
anything with those ideas depends on several things. First, we each
have God-given talents to use or let atrophy, but we aren’t all
given the same gifts. Second, if we have been given the ability to
write, we usually know that at an early age - not always, but usually.
So, as we go through life, we need to be aware of our surroundings and
what’s going on.
Many
writers keep a writer’s journal in which they jot down ideas that
occur to them: snippets of overheard dialog, a truly funny (or even a cruel) joke, an inspirational
saying about building a bridge to the moon, the names of the seven dwarfs
and the eight reindeer, a folktale they’d like to research, and so
forth. A writer
soaks up everything: dialogue – spoken and unspoken –
between human beings; the communication that goes on all the time
between God’s other creatures; sounds and how they vary at different
times of day, or whether near or far away; smells, like cinnamon toast, a
backyard barbecue, the oily diesel exhaust from a decrepit old school
bus; the
ocean and its majesty; a dead animal; the forest after a rainstorm; that
which is beautiful and sometimes, that which is ugly; whatever we happen
to experience or hear about. There
is much joy in life and also, much pain. And it’s natural for us to
flee from suffering. But sometimes we are trapped and must deal with
things as best we can, until a window of opportunity opens up for us to
escape.
So
where do I get my ideas? Some just come to me, like Old Man
Shever, when I saw an elderly gentleman in his front yard one day. I
don’t know where the idea came from, but it was there and l had to
flesh out that story. When I started to write it down, though, nothing came out right at
first, and then a little boy sauntered down the streets of my mind and
walked out onto my keyboard. And I had to backtrack and fill in the rest of
the story. There is a certain magic about the creative process that all
real writers are at a loss to explain, especially to those in an
audience who do not understand that all good gifts come from our
Heavenly Father. There are no age requirements for writing that kind of story. If you have the gift, the stories will be there, no
matter how young you are. But you must apply yourself and do the
work.
If you're fortunate and find good teachers in high school and in
college, you will grow from listening to them also. They can draw out
what is already there and nurture budding talent. They cannot implant
motivation where not even a seed exists. But beware the perfectionist or
he who wears blinders. They will break your spirit.
Other
stories grow the way a pearl grows inside the pearl oyster. Sometimes a grain of sand
or a parasite gets inside the shell of the pearl oyster. The oyster
finds that to be irritating and secretes a layer of pearl to protect itself.
And then another and another over a number of years. It’s time-consuming work before that
grain of sand becomes something lustrous and beautiful. And in our
lives, many times
tears are shed waiting for the finished product. Something will happen
in my life and from it, often many years later, I can craft a story that
will have relevance for other people, too. If I were to write it
immediately, without that distance, that marination, other people might wonder why I wrote it. Of course, some
people will always wonder why you wrote a particular story and why it
ended the way it did! And all I can say is, that’s what the character
told me. Anna told me in Such an Invitation that she could not
part with her necklace, not at that point in her life.
My
notes help sometimes to jog my memory and get me going again on a story or
an essay that I’ve had simmering on the back of the stove. However, in fiction writing, there is no such thing as “telling it just
the way it happened” because that would be a non-fiction piece or a
newspaper article, where all the journalist is allowed to do is present
the facts without editorializing. I am a trained journalist also, so I
know you cannot embroider your reporting, not if you want to keep your
job. As a journalist, you must also present a balanced picture of the topic, unless you
can find no one ready to present an opposing view. It’s sometimes
obvious that people are afraid to voice their thoughts or publicly
present a dissenting opinion. And then the journalist must say so, if
she is to honor the ethics of the profession. But in fiction writing,
you must change things, sometimes everything, to give resonance,
relevance and clarity to what you are saying.
© 2002 Shirley Ann Parker. All rights reserved.
|