A Picture is Worth 90,000 words
From Notes to Novel
But a few weeks ago, I woke up from a dream about rosemary. The plant, not the mom of the demon-possessed kid. I’m all about plants and planting, and it is spring, so I didn’t think much of it.
Until I woke with the same image in my head the next day. And the next. And…well, you get the idea. Something told me it was a trick from my muse to get me back into writing fiction again, but I wasn’t falling for it.
That is, until she gave me a name and a picture.
Flipping through a glossy magazine a few nights later with nothing fictional on my mind, a photograph literally jumped from the page and implanted itself in my brain. I knew this picture (I’d never seen it before) like the back of my hand. In this picture was my heroine and her story. The entire novel in a 4X6 black and white photo with an elephant lamp in the background.
I quickly passed the page but the image was caught in my head. I went about my usual business for a few weeks, thinking about rosemary and the picture every now and then but taking nothing seriously. But when I started hearing voices–accusations and conversations–in my head between these characters (see previous post, Plotting by Ear)), I knew I was toast. It was futile.
I was charged with the job of telling this story.
But in looking at this photo, ripped from the page of the magazine I’d saved on a whim, knowing I wouldn’t be able to escape, I am overwhelmed by the amount of story to be told. My other novels did not start with a photo. Instead, they were grains of sand wrapped slowly and securely with layers of shimmery, glistening pearl. Sure, there were images I found later that conveyed my internal, abstract storythoughts into the real world, but nothing like this picture.
The difference between my other stories and this one is that when I began those stories, I had but a word or two that blossomed into a story. This time, I have over 90,000 words to tell about this single picture that are in desperate need of shaping and narrowing into a single theme. It’s a little scary but I know my way around words. I think I can do this…
How do you write your stories? From a sentence up or a story down? Just curious. I may need some brains to pick on this journey….
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It's pretty simple, really. I'm a writer who loves writing about writing, and sharing all the tricks of the trade with other writers. And when I'm not writing, I'm thinking about writing. I have a hunch you know what I mean :)