{"id":1552,"date":"2012-04-19T10:15:49","date_gmt":"2012-04-19T16:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1552"},"modified":"2012-04-19T10:15:49","modified_gmt":"2012-04-19T16:15:49","slug":"when-real-life-intersects-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1552","title":{"rendered":"When Real Life Intersects Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writers are fond of saying that everything<\/em> is grist for the writer-mill (which suggests that writers’ minds are like big stones rotating in one place, but…any metaphor can be carried too far) or potential ingredients in the cauldron of Story (same caution applies: metaphor!)\u00a0\u00a0 Some things are more obviously useful right-this-minute in a story; others take a long time to find their spot in the tapestry.\u00a0 But I thought you might enjoy hearing about some real-life interruptions that have (or had) obvious story potential.<\/p>\n

The most universally useful reality bits are those that remind the writer of real things that happen to everyone (and thus can find places wherever you need that particular character-reaction.\u00a0\u00a0 Loss–of a job, a home, a friend (by quarrel, illness, moving, death.)\u00a0\u00a0 Unfulfilled wishes–the college you didn’t get into, the person who didn’t love you back, the job you didn’t get, the “perfect” house\/car\/coat\/dog\/pair of shoes sold to someone else just when you’d made up your mind to get it.\u00a0\u00a0 Hopes fulfilled (see above list and add your own.)\u00a0\u00a0 Any of the things that evoke common reactions, and allow the writer to make the character’s reaction real to readers.<\/p>\n

“Interruptions” are a category in themselves.\u00a0 We all get interrupted; most of us don’t like it (though a friend of mine says the discovery of a non-fatal as she was being prepped for a different and unpleasant medical procedure was a desirable interruption, as it put off\u00a0 the evil day for months and maybe forever if she turns that color again…)\u00a0\u00a0 Yesterday, for instance, the red horse escaped at morning feeds when the person doing the feeding failed to latch the gate from the horses’ side of the barn to the human side (where the feed room, equipment and fool storage, and aisle between those is.)\u00a0\u00a0 Tiptoed past the person feeding, who in the feed room, and into the back yard.\u00a0 Which has two gates to the front yard, one at either end of the house.\u00a0 The front yard communicates with the rest of town, which has a highway running through it.<\/p>\n

I became aware of this while working away in the study, when the thunder of hooves and a red streak passed the study window.\u00a0\u00a0 The subsequent twenty minutes were busy,\u00a0 giving me at least a small cardio workout.\u00a0 Horse is now back in.\u00a0 But how rich in detail for a story…not just a horse escaping, but my thoughts and feelings, the other person’s thoughts and feelings (both of us expressing our thoughts and feelings),\u00a0 the discovery that a horse who will tiptoe through a barn aisle will not (at first anyway) go through an equally wide gate if the old rambler rose’s strands are hanging down to tickle its back and nose (which meant I got to the east gate before he got out), the discovery that the same horse will not go through a wide, unobstructed gate into a familiar paddock, even though someone’s there with a bucket and some feed in the bucket…when it’s more fun to play chase in the backyard.\u00a0\u00a0 (I suspected this might be the case: this is the Drama Queen horse.\u00a0 Anything for drama.)<\/p>\n

Stories can be plotted or written by instinct, but characters need to be interrupted in their progress through the plot…their horse gets out.\u00a0 Their phone rings even as they’re on the way out the door to do something they consider important.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Phone calls (or, given the setting, someone running in the gate to say that the spotted bull has gotten out AGAIN, or someone’s least favorite in-laws arriving, or a child falling and getting a scalp cut that bleeds copiously all over the formal clothes the person put on for the important event they’re due at, or someone spilling a hot drink into the space-ship’s control panel…) are inevitable.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And very, very useful in making fiction believable.\u00a0\u00a0 And in keeping the plot moving when characters have settled into a comfortable position and are talking far, far too long about things that aren’t that important (in terms of finishing the book on time and having it be a story, not just a 400 page conversation.<\/p>\n

The horse escaping is only one of the interruptions that have given me ideas and reminded me of the value of interrupting characters.\u00a0 There’s the night the hot water heater gave up and flooded the hall (it entered my dream as a hurricane–wind and water–through which I was fighting my way.\u00a0 Then I woke up.\u00a0\u00a0 Then I stepped into the flood.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There’s the night I woke up to the sound of small child throwing up.\u00a0\u00a0 The time I went in the bedroom with an armload of laundry (a regular, but necessary, interruption to writing) and found a small snake coming in the window, through the hole in the screen we’d made for the phone line to the “fire phone” (no longer then in use.)\u00a0 Longer interruption, as the terrified snake made it all the way in, and zipped under the bed.\u00a0\u00a0 (We had to move the bed, and what else was under it.)\u00a0 The time I went out to the kitchen for a drink of water and found a much larger snake coming in the kitchen door.\u00a0\u00a0 Neither snake was venomous; the smaller snake didn’t survive (sorry, snake) but the larger one did, though both of us were excited and not thrilled with each other.<\/p>\n

When I was on the ambulance crew, call-outs were always interruptions but always elements in the Story Cauldron…beyond the obvious (learning up close what gunshot and knife wounds look like, how quickly a means of transportation can turn into a means of mangling one or several human bodies),\u00a0 emergencies reveal details of human behavior very useful to writers.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 How different people react to violent interruptions in their own lives,\u00a0 for instance.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To death, injury, property damage,\u00a0 scary things.\u00a0 Though coming home to a large batch of bread that has over-risen and oozed over the top of the bowl, across the counter, and onto the kitchen floor–where it forms a gooey mess–leads to thoughts of writing horror.<\/p>\n

Another horse-related interruption occurred years ago, when I was rehabbing a Thoroughbred mare for someone and he was coming to pick her up.\u00a0\u00a0 She was a spooky, difficult mare–it had taken me a long time to convince her that I was not going to hurt her–and being a Thoroughbred, and former polo pony, she was a hard keeper and took a lot of careful feeding to get her weight back up.\u00a0\u00a0 On the day appointed for her homeward journey, I put her owner’s halter and lead back on her,\u00a0 tied her to a post,\u00a0 and–since it had been raining overnight and she was wet–started rubbing her down with a burlap pad to dry her before the trip.\u00a0\u00a0 I’d rubbed her down before; she hadn’t objected to my touch since the early days.\u00a0 All the sores were healed up; she’d grown a new coat.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The owner’s choice of lead was a nylon webbing one–which means it could stretch.\u00a0\u00a0 But that day–she went bonkers, set back on the lead, stretched it out, and the !**!\u00a0 pot-metal snap they put on that kind of lead broke, and the broken end flew straight at my face.\u00a0\u00a0 I got my hand up–saved my eye–but it broke the index finger of my right hand as well as cutting it to the bone of the first joint, cut my thumb and the second finger as well.\u00a0\u00a0 I explained to the mare, when I could speak,\u00a0 that she was lucky she’d broken my trigger finger.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Went in, bandaged the broken finger tight to the other one, and let her owner deal with her when he arrived.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (I had been using a heavy cotton lead rope with a big stout bull snap on it–the only safe lead rope in my admittedly biased opinion.\u00a0 The broken end of the pot-metal snap showed clearly that the “brass” color on the outside was just that–color.)<\/p>\n

It is possible to keep working on a book with a broken index finger, since there was no mousing to be done in those days.\u00a0 Just typing.\u00a0\u00a0 Put a proper splint on it and typed flat-fingered.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Horses and families are an excellent source of interruption.<\/p>\n

Yesterday’s escapee, you ask?\u00a0\u00a0 Back in confinement, but very, VERY interested in that gate every time someone comes near it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He thinks it would be fun to get into the yard again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writers are fond of saying that everything is grist for the writer-mill (which suggests that writers’ minds are like big stones rotating in one place, but…any metaphor can be carried too far) or potential ingredients in the cauldron of Story (same caution applies: metaphor!)\u00a0\u00a0 Some things are more obviously useful right-this-minute in a story; others […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[112],"class_list":["post-1552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-beyond-writing","tag-life-beyond-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1552"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1552"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1553,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1552\/revisions\/1553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}