An Image, Word, or Lyric
Where Stories Come From, An Essay.
Hi, I’m Max and I write fantasy, science fiction, and all sorts of genre stories as well as essays on the craft. If you enjoy what I write below, I’d appreciate you sharing the piece or subscribing to my newsletter more than you know!
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Ray Bradbury gifted me with an idea last year. His book of essays, Zen in the Art of Writing, contained such a genius idea for short stories that I was required to try it out.
Take a word, any word, and write its story.
Short stories come to me most often, as titles. I don't know what that says about me as a writer, but this in particular, I'd like your opinion on. I think of the title or make up a title before penning a word. It guides my story, sometimes well and sometimes as a struggle. That initial title may not stay throughout the drafts of the story, but it's always within the story.
The Flute Thief came to me before I knew who the true thief was.
The Angler and the Black Stag, stayed throughout.
Bradbury spoke of endless story ideas through words. What is the story that you come up with when you see the words: "New Shoes"? I doubt you end up with the same story as me.
Certain words are easier: Agonia Perpetua, Latin for perpetual agony, heard in a podcast one day and hastily jotted down at a red light. Those words lived in my notebook, then on a corkboard above my writing desk for weeks before I sat down and stared at them and wondered what story they tell.
Once I sat and focused on a word or words, especially the title, I find it hard to not come up with a story. Sometimes - a lot of times - those stories get stopped at a dead end, to be put down halfway done and returned to hopefully, or to be finished and left unedited. But they still exist now. The words became stories.
I'm a visual person. I think it came from watching so many films growing up. Movies were my life. I see stories usually as I write them. Visualizing the actions in my head - side note: this leads to me underwriting a lot of description on first drafts. I already see the thing, why don’t you?
But sometimes a story comes to me in an image first. Stark and more real than a word. I find it easier to dive into the world when I start with an image, but it is harder to create a story. A lot of my images dead end.
The good ones though, the image leads into a vivid tale that I hope to convey as well as I see it in my own mind. The watch, ticking and nearly broken at the beginning of the Tunnel, or a kitten staring at a monstrous ghost at the end of The Specter. A still shot, no more than a few seconds in my mind of rolling film. Something an assistant director would shoot. These are the images that lead me to stories.
My most recent experiment is with lyrics. Nothing whole cloth. That's theft of the lazy sort. Stealing with a deft hand is what I'm after here. A line, poetic still when out of context. What of that to start a story? I've got a few stories written for this year inspired by lyrics pulled out of context. I don't think the system is perfect, but sometimes a line sticks with you and it isn't for the reason the original artist intended. Art does beget art after all.
Whatever method you use to trap the creative fish swimming about you and put them into the art that you create, don't stop. Never stop creating beautiful things. Because all art is beautiful. And it all has to start from something. These are simply a few sparks I carry in my horn as I travel through the west, hoping to one day light a fire with.
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Love ya!
Max