Gathering Story Seeds: Part Two

"Gathering Story Seeds," my last post, was about finding story ideas. I spent the summer showing my Young Writers group how to keep their "writer's brain" open and alert for those little nuggets that stick in your head.  Or as I explained to the students, "Things that make you go 'huh?'"

image courtesy of Morguefile

Like finding seeds in nature, finding story seeds can be hard work. It's not so much a matter of concentration, but of awareness..  "Don't think too hard," I tell my students.  "Keep your Writer Brain open."  A Writer Brain uses all the senses to observe. If you think about it, most of what you think of as "observation" is what you see.  Wake up hearing, smell, touch and taste. (Be cautious with taste!)

Every writer goes through a time of story drought, where your Writer Brain becomes distracted by the minutiae of life, and eventually become dormant. That's been me for the past year. A whirlwind of family situations, caused my Writer Brain to check out as the rest of the mind skittered here and there with a thousand decisions and deadlines.

This summer, the pace slowed down. I had the luxury of focusing on my young writers and their progress. Talking about using all your senses and staying alert for six straight weeks must have imprinted on my Writer Brain.

No sooner had the Young Writers summer program finished than it seemed as if Story Seeds were cascading from the heavens. Even in the best of the staying-focused-and-alert times, Story Seeds are scarce.  Filling a page in "Seeds" notebook in a month is a huge deal. (Yes, I'm Old School; I still use a notebook.") This August, the notebook is half-filled...and there is still another week in the month!   Out of seemingly nowhere, Seeds have been falling in my lap, tapping me on my shoulder, being handed to me in the supermarket checkout along with my change. Seriously.

For example...

I was skedaddling through the "10-Items-or-Less" line at Publix, with four cups of Greek yogurt...and a hammer.  The checker (her name tag said "Rebecca") scanned the hammer. I am not a chatty person by nature, so it was out of complete silence that Rebecca hefted my new hammer, and with a gleam in her eye, said, "You know, when I was a little tyke, I wanted nothing more than a bright red tool box and hammer. And my mama and daddy got me one for my birthday."

Bzzzzap!  Writer Brain shocked to life, neurons firing rapidly. "How old were you?" asked Writer Brain, which is considerably more nosy and sociable than Mary Ann's brain.

"Two, three." Rebecca said carelessly, bagging the hammer and yogurt separately. "Guess that wouldn't happen in today's world, would it?"

Mary Ann's brain agreed that no, it probably wouldn't. I had a quick mental image of my own daughter at two, armed with a hammer.  Writer's Brain leaped into action to quash the silliness. Writer's Brain hurled down the words, "Becky's Toolbox." I scribbled that down on the back of the receipt as soon as I was out the sliding doors. (I know, I know..where was my notebook?) Unlike a lot seeds that seem interesting, but will need germination time, this one had sprung roots and was pushing through the dirt by the time I hit my driveway.

image courtesy of Morguefile

The wealth of ideas grew and multiplied. Family stories from my dad, an anecdote on Facebook, a surprise cache of Kodachrome taken by parents early in their marriage...all of these things have given my Writer's Brain more than enough to process, mull and squirrel away for future use.

My antennae are up, my ear cocked, nose ready.  Don't stand within my energy field, or you will wind up in my next story! Let those Story Seeds rain down on me.


Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

P.S. Don’t forget to join the fun! Enter (HERE)  to win an autographed copy of Amy Cattapan's middle-grade mystery Seven Riddles to Nowhere (Vinspire Publishing). The giveaway is open to U.S. residents only and ends August 31. That happens to also be the day of Amy’s Facebook Launch Party, where you can win lots of other great prizes, including a copy of Carmela's own book, Rosa, Sola.

Gathering Story Seeds

Summertime.  Iced-tea-sipping, rock-skipping, ice-cream-dripping summertime, when everything and everyone moves at half speed. The leisurely pace allows time to notice lacy tree shadows on a bright green lawn.  To inhale the perfume of fresh-cut grass (smells like watermelon to me.)  Find a shady spot to do a little people watching.

Summer is a time to slow down and observe.

Summer also means the Young Writer's Camps I conduct in June and July. If there is one thing I hope my students take away from their week with me, it's the ability to observe.

"I don't know what to write about," kids complain. I understand.  When I was their age, I thought the Story Fairy delivered characters and plot to "Real Writers" (the published ones) in a neat package. I wrote for thirty years before I realized stories come in dribs and drabs...a bit from here, a bit from there, a sort of mental chemistry I can't explain.

I tell my students that like any living thing, stories come from seeds.  Seeds that the writer has to gather and store (preferably in a notebook.)

What is a story seed? they ask.

Anything you see or hear that makes you go "Hunh?  That makes you ask "What is that? What happened?  Why?"

Discovering a "fairy house" on camp property. How did it get there?

Observing at the park.

My favorite example is the clown I once saw at an Atlanta bus stop.  In the middle of a Wednesday afternoon, a clown in full makeup and costume (clown shoes included!) stood waiting for the bus.  He carried a Macy's shopping bag.  Where was the clown going? Why was he taking the bus?  What was in the Macy's bag?

Another of my favorite observation activities is eavesdropping on total strangers. The odd random comment can rev my imagination like nothing else.

Example: Two teenage girls in a jewelry store.  Salesclerk: "May I help you?"

Girl One:  "Yeah, we're buying a birthday present for a friend."

Girl Two.  "Yeah, but we don't like her very much.  You got something cheap?"

My campers have a daily "homework" assignment: write down five things that make you go "Hunh?" I give each student five index cards. They write one observation per card.  I collect the cards, shuffle through them, then pick the most evocative to share with the group. This weeds out the silly/potentially inappropriate items, and allows the shyest group members to contribute to the discussion.

I don't have to ask for feedback.  Even the quietest group will burst into spontaneous comment, brainstorming the myriad of ways they would use those things in a story. I love watching them add detail and action, building and building until someone shouts, "I've got it!" and starts scratching away in their notebook.  A story is born.

No amount of "explaining" how stories come from the flotsam and jetsam of everyday life illustrates this concept better than young writers discovering this for themselves.

Brainstorming!

 The camps are over for this summer. My souvenir of those five fun-filled weeks is a notebook of my own observations.  Some of those seeds are already germinating. Some of them are tucked away, literary acorns for a cold, winter day when the brain is dull and the computer screen blank.

The poet Robert Herrick was not talking about harvesting story ideas when he wrote"gather ye rosebuds while ye may," but let's make it our summer slogan.  Gather ye story seeds? Why not?

It's summertime.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman