A Writer's Journey

Sometimes it can be quite difficult to explain how a writer gets from point A to point B by drifting off to points Unknown and Well Maybe.  It just happens! 

            Take for example, The Survivalist series.  Jerry and I had begun seriously considering the basic story while we still lived in Chicago.  We knew John Rourke had a survival plan and a retreat all set up for the bad days that would eventually come, but we hadn’t really fleshed out the details.  We knew it would have to be structurally sound, lasting for hundreds of years, while keeping everyone safe.  Fast forward and we are now living in Northeast Georgia.  Out on a joyride, exploring a highway we had never been on before, we reached a highpoint and before us, off in the distance, loomed Mt. Yonah.  I pulled out my camera and took a few shots and copied down the location as best as we could tell.  When we got the photos back from the lab –yes, this was the early 80s and cameras used film -- locals recognized the mountain and gave us information on some of its history.  We ran with it and gave the Rourke clan bedrooms, a full kitchen, plenty of bathrooms, a greenhouse and a greatroom complete with a waterfall.

            Driving home from a business trip in Tennessee, we pulled over to watch a large group of kayakers and tubers waiting for a dam to open, causing a rush of water to flow down the river.  The water indeed rushed down, and everyone headed in for a wild ride as they twisted and turned to prevent crashing into craggy obstacles, and each other.  The shore on both sides was mostly rocky and the entire area looked like a canyon scene in a movie western.  We both immediately agreed that it would be a great place to have a fight scene.  Again, out came the camera.  A few books later in the Survivalist, we fashioned a huge fight scene with characters climbing up the rocky slopes and some falling to their death.  Guns blazoning, hand to hand combat and bodies floating down the rapids came out pretty well, if I do say so myself.

            Sometimes, an article of clothing can help a story or become part of a character.  When we traveled, I would switch from my regular purse to one quite a bit larger so that we could keep some things closer at hand.  Jerry was one of those men who, rather than carry a lot of stuff in his pockets, would assume I would have plenty of room in my purse.  That would mean that beyond my items, my purse was the repository for extra knives, guns, handkerchiefs, and notepads.  Also business cards and extra cigarettes would be dumped in and any other items picked up along the way.  I’m sure there are plenty of women who can understand.

            Mary Francis Mulrooney carried my purse every day.  She and Culhane traveled the world with her always finding the right thing needed to save the day, somewhere, hidden in that purse.  The hardest thing for her to find was her lipstick.  The Takers were able to defeat aliens, warrior Amazon women, zombies and Blackbeard the pirate, as well as other bad dudes, so I guess I can’t begrudge them the use of my purse.

            Most times you have a pretty good idea of what your main characters look like, and are able to layer in their particular personalities and peculiarities, but secondary characters might come to you differently.  Imagine stopping off for a quick burger at your local fast food joint and as you casually glance around the room, you spy a middle-age man, sitting alone, with a Styrofoam cup of coffee in front of him. At first glance he seems normal, but then you notice he’s wearing a rather heavy, bulky-looking coat on a hot and humid afternoon.  Is he concealing something?  Could he be armed?  But maybe he’s an undercover cop!  Could he be wearing a bomb, ready to blow up the place and scatter the greasy fries and onion rings to the four winds?  There’s always the possibility that he has nothing on underneath the coat and this is all part of a dare.  But why does he keep looking out the window as if he’s waiting for someone or something?

            While you are still trying to decipher the overdressed man, you home in on a screeching bird sound emanating from a tall, skinny woman, up at the counter. She’s complaining about her order and the young girl behind the counter is trying to be understanding and polite.  The woman is tall and thin, wearing large framed glasses resting precariously on the tip of her rather pointed nose.  She would be hilarious in a comic short story about an unpleasant, stupid, ostrich, flapping her beak and wings and getting nowhere.

            The next time you’re out in public and you see some stranger staring at you, it may be because of your fantastic good looks, or, it might be something entirely beyond your comprehension.  Remember not to pick your nose!  You may become part of someone’s newest adventure.

Sharon

THE GAME OF PRETEND

Someone said that penning fiction showed the immaturity of certain writers; that made-up stories were an easy copout rather than real stories presenting hard facts based on research.  Personally, I thought that person must be loaded with BS but without the scientific research necessary, I couldn’t prove it.  Maybe some fiction writers are immature but what’s wrong with that?  Some of our best research was accomplished at an early age.

Recently I watched the movie, HOOK, starring the late Robin Williams. It is the story of Peter Pan, now a father, with neither the time nor patience for childish ways, who must return to Neverland to rescue his two children, kidnapped by the evil Captain Hook.  Unfortunately, Peter has no recollection of his earlier life or his flying skills. He doesn’t remember ever being a child or thinking like one.  Peter must rely on help from Tinkerbell and the Lost Boys who are still miffed that he left Neverland to grow up and eventually have a family of his own and, even worse, he becomes a lawyer! 

As we know with stories like this, Peter strips away the fetters of civilized adulthood and relies on his imagination and childlike confidence to save the day.  Along the journey, he realizes that the bridge between childhood and adulthood can and should be traveled both ways.  Essentially, Peter learns to lighten up!

I think there’s a little Peter Pan in most fiction writers.  We tend to let our imagination run amuck.  We see something or hear about an incident and wonder what would happen if?  A person sitting near you in a restaurant grabs your attention and you start wondering who they really are and what are they writing on that piece of paper.  Will they slip it to the waiter or perhaps another patron passing by the table?  Voyeurism and imagination are useful writing tools.

As children, wrapping paper rolls were never thrown away until they were rendered utterly useless as swords or head boppers, finally  flattened and ripped apart after our last encounter with bad guys or our little brothers and sisters.  Our fighting skills were honed using those cardboard rolls and later reenacted by our characters in their life or death battles against evil soldiers and fire breathing dragons. 

We raced across neighbors’ yards and down alleys being either chased or pursuing bad guys, knowing that if we hit a tree or bounced off a curb at the wrong angle, the chase was over until the front wheel got fixed and worse still, Mom told Dad!  Many a car chase grew out of those high-speed two-wheeled adventures.  It didn’t take much to expand our knowledge to include double pedaling and downshifting.  But, the sounds of the motor never sounded as great as baseball cards being throttled by bicycle spokes.

We have a tendency to incorporate our family and friends into our stories.  Our children became the inspiration for Michael and Annie in the Survivalist Series, our nephew was an ongoing character in the Track Series and the whole family ended up in our novel, Written in Time, along with Teddy Roosevelt.  Real-life friends are scattered throughout many of our books, after first getting their permission. 

Fiction writing means you have to accept the fact that there is a lot going on between the colors black and white.  That huge gap can be filled with stories out of this world or over the fence next door.  What did Angie say to Bob that caused such a ruckus?  Out of all the stars I see tonight why is that one different?  I wonder why?  A writer might remember sitting inside a blanket tent with a canteen of water and a plate of Mom’s chocolate chip cookies and lifting the corner of the blanket to discover a vast jungle inhabited by deadly creatures and spear-holding natives, instead of Grandma sitting in her overstuffed chair knitting, her big yellow cat perched beside her, purring, a clock loudly ticking on the wall.

Who knows for sure what makes a person want to tell stories.  Maybe some writers are looking for their own universe to control; some might be hiding a past reality, disguising it behind a facade of fiction. Some of us just want to crow about a story and see if it will fly.

Sharon