Story Origins

Here's a question for my fellow writers.

How do you get your ideas for your stories?

Post a comment with your answer to my writing question. I'm curious to know what other writers use as the seeds for coming up with a story idea.

I went to an author event with Meg Waite Clayton last night. She talked about writing her book The Wednesday Sisters, sitting outside Tressider on the Stanford campus, having a "pity party" for herself, feeling like she'd never be able to write another word. A woman in a red baseball cap with a blonde braid sticking out the back walked by. And suddenly Meg started writing about a character in a red cap and blonde braid. And an hour or two later, by the time she was ready to leave, she already had a story outline and set of characters for what became her novel. Bam. Just like that.

The muse has never graced me so profoundly as it did Meg, though one of my short stories started with just a title: Imagining the Moon. I was in a writing class; we were told to come up with a story title, write it on a small piece of paper folded up and put in the center of the table. We each drew out someone else's story title, and had to develop a synopsis to fit that title. Imagining the Moon was the title I wrote on my piece of paper. The classmate who drew it had it all wrong; something about aliens and goofy stuff like that. I took my prize title home with me and wrote a story that I still love to this day. (There are no aliens in my story, just a single mother and her 4-year-old daughter who wants to go to the moon.)

Another story started with a friend's photograph of red rock country. You can read an excerpt from that story in my previous post. The story I'm currently working on came from yet another writing class exercise: a 1-sentence plot description. The plot description I drew: a man lives in Montana, 150 miles from the nearest body of water, and is building a sailboat in his backyard. I'll let you know how it turns out. If you're in the Kepler's writing group, you might get to read the draft this summer. We'll see.

Don't forget to post a comment with an answer to my question. I could always use some more great ideas!

Characters, Give Me Characters

Here's my question for my fellow writers: How do you create characters that pop?

You know, those compelling characters in a novel or story that you love and never want to leave. What are your writing techniques that draw your readers to your characters?

Aggie in her recent post wrote about the psychological landscape of a character, and asked how a writer portrays that inner landscape. My question: is that always necessary? Can you create compelling characters without this complex mental state?

This is the aspect of writing that I struggle with the most: characters, bringing them alive on the page, pulling the reader into their world. On the other hand, I find writing descriptions the easy part of the craft. I love putting beautiful words on the page, using the senses, creating images.

The rock rose high off the plains like a Hawaiian wave he ached to surf, ribbons of red coursing its grainy texture. He felt the pull of the rock, anxious to begin. Let’s go, Jeremy’s voice whispered.

Tim ran the palm of his hand along the sandpaper surface. Placing the toe of his shoe in a small indentation, barely more than a pockmark on an acned face, he started to climb. He felt like an infant navigating a grand staircase. The sun beat at this back. Warm beads of sweat trickled under his t-shirt. His flexed muscles kept him pinned to the cliff’s face. He reached the top, a landing heading off to nowhere, and looked back across the horizon, his blue pickup little more than an oddly-placed pixel in a picture against the red and beige background.

That's the start of a short-short I wrote called "The Grand Staircase." I took up fiction writing nearly three years ago as a way to use my creativity, to create balance in my life, and because I love books and literature.

Sherman Alexie's "The Toughest Indian in the World" is one of the best short stories I've read; I thought about it for two weeks after reading it the first time. John Steinbeck is among my favorite authors; East of Eden and "The Red Pony" two of my particular favorites. Willa Cather (Death Comes for the Archbishop), Charles Dickens (Great Expectations), Shakespeare (the complete works).

But I have to say my favorite book of all times is Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver. I've read it cover-to-cover three times, and pieces of it five times. Of course it comes back to the characters. I love them all: Nannie, the old curmudgeon Garnett, Deanna, Eddie Bondo, Lusa. They feel like old friends. I'm always sad to say goodbye to them when I turn the last page. But beyond the characters, I marvel at the construction of the novel - three parallel yet intertwined stories told during the same summer - and the message that all life is interconnected. Most of all, I love the lush, sensuous, lyrical writing. The wonderful descriptions. The way it reads like a song.

I majored in English as an undergraduate at Stanford. After a brief stint as a technical editor, I found my way to software, going back to graduate school for a masters in computer engineering along the way.

These days, on any given work day, I can be found telling people what to do. Technically, it is not really telling. My upbringing by an ex-Air Force officer father of German descent put me off the direct approach to task masterdom. My approach is more suggestive – a Socratic method to project management. "Has the requirements document been released?" "Will design finish this week?" Team members unlucky enough to have their tasks hit the critical path are likely to hear the three dreaded words, "I am concerned."

When not keeping projects on track, I write short stories and give my time away to women's organizations pushing the equality envelope. I have dreams of publishing a book of stories, and working on a Presidential candidate's campaign. Until dreams come true, I can be seen power-walking my Palo Alto neighborhood, usually headed to the nearest Peet's for a sinfully delicious chai latte. Or hanging out at Kepler's, the best bookstore in the world.