Inspiration for Settings

Old North Bridge by Sarah Phillips Pellet

I have a scene in my current Work In Progress (WIP) where my main character and his sidekick encounter a raging river. While I grew up nearby the Concord River in Massachusetts and spent many an afternoon roaming around the gardens of Buttrick Mansion and canoeing under the Old North Bridge, I haven’t spent much time on rivers in my adult life. So to re-enforce my memories, I turned to a virtual source for my setting’s inspiration: Facebook.

A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words

A friend of mine from childhood is a fly fisherman now and lives, breathes, and luckily for me, photographs, rivers. He spends hours immersed in the subtleties of his environment in solitude. He has managed to find places to fish where nothing – apart from the natural  life cycle of things – has changed. No cars, no boats, no other people. Just him, his fishing pole, his dog, and the river. And in the quiet moments of the morning or evening, he captures the nuances of river life: the interesting details of rock formations, the dappled sunlight on the water, the mist curled around rocks, rotting trees spanning banks, unusual bugs. They are taken from the perspective of a patient native, content to let life unfold, not of a tourist taking a snapshot. His pictures don’t scream, “Look where I’ve been.” They suggest, “Look at what I’m surrounded by.” When I see his pictures, I can smell the river, hear the water rushing, and feel the cool soft moss on my fingertips. I can experience the river vicariously through him and it inspires me to take a reader to that same place through my words.

Memories Shape Perspective  

I could have gone on-line and snagged a few shots like the one of the Concord River above, courtesy of Wikipedia, but there is another layer to the photographs from my friend: memories. I haven’t seen him since we were kids, so my memory of him is from that time in my life. When I look at his photographs, I imagine him as he was as a child and thus, see the pictures through the eyes of a child. Interestingly, the river scene in my WIP was one of the easiest ones to write. I was so in the moment, in the character, in the place and I think that had everything to do with my friend’s pictures putting me there in that mindset.  Now, if I could just get my other childhood Facebook friends to capture other settings for me, I’d be all set!

I wonder how other writers glean the finer details of the settings in their stories? Do you immerse yourself in a setting? If so, how?

 

Retreat, Regroup, Refresh

Sunrise at the Cabin

After last week’s post (despairing of invaded writing space), I decided to pack up my materials, some food, a shovel, and head for the hills for the weekend so I could write, undisturbed. No dogs nudging my hands off the keyboard for attention. No children running amok with Nerf guns, having battles in the living room, and hitting me in the head with foam bullets. No husband stopping by my desk to chat about the latest and greatest tool for wood-working that he just read about in Wood magazine. Nope, just me, my stuff, and the snowed-in cabin. Very Ernest Hemingway. Minus the beard, the pipe, and, well, you know, the shenanigans.

It was pretty darn quiet.

But I got so much done! It was great. I didn’t get a whole lot of creative writing done, per se, but I think what I did do, was just as important: I de-cluttered and got organized.

I have a binder where I store all the information relating to my story. At first, it was a file folder. But as the story morphed from a picture book format into a novel format, it became apparent that I needed something bigger. So I got the “Big Binder” as I refer to it as (not very creative, I know, but it works). I initially put my information in to it and loosely organized it. Big mistake. I should have spent time upfront organizing because I’ve wasted a lot of time since trying to find things I know I’ve already researched.  So this weekend I sifted through all the paper, discarded the unnecessary items, categorized what remained, and put it back under proper headings with proper dividers. So much better. Everything I need is at the flick of a sturdy, colorful divider tab. Divine.

The best thing about getting all this information sorted is that I now feel like I have a handle on the complexities of my story. I don’t have to remember who’s wearing what, whether or not I fully researched something, etc. By getting everything in its place and out of my brain, I can refocus on writing. I know that sounds so simple, but sometimes, it is the simple things that matter most.

 

Morphing Lessons

I’ve read a lot of blogs about the debate on outlining your story versus letting it just flow. Larry Brooks wrote an interesting piece, “SOLVED: The Outlining vs. Organic Writing Debate,” which deftly addresses the two approaches. He mentions that there are some folks who dabble with both organic and outline writing. I guess I’m one of those. I think of myself as highly organized – business writing will do that to you – but recently, I’ve found myself meandering over to the dark side, and frankly, it scares me. It’s new for me.

Morphing Lesson #1: Book Type

To date, I’ve published two picture books, written several others, and fully envisioned staying in that lane. So it is no surprise that my most recent Work-in-Progress (WIP) started off that way, too. I outlined, did the storyboard, and sat down to write. After about a month, I found my sentences kept turning into paragraphs. It was driving me nuts. I tried to trim them, but they wouldn’t abate. It was ruining my outline. After a while of struggling with the content I stepped back and realized that my sweet little picture book was growing up. It didn’t want to be a picture book anymore. My main character demanded a bigger platform. He wanted to be in a chapter book.

So I set aside the carefully plotted outline and let the paragraphs happen. I had no idea where the story was going anymore, but it was fun to write. That is until I crashed head first, with 20,000 words behind me, into a wall. Everything stopped. I fretted. I researched. I went back to outlining. I worked on other WIPs waiting for the words to come back. They never did. I thought maybe I was right the first time, and dusted off the picture book construct, but it just didn’t feel right.

Something was off.

Morphing Lesson #2 : Voice

So with a stalled WIP in hand, I went to the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) conference in New York. I hoped to find insight and maybe if I was lucky, some inspiration for my writing. I got lucky: I found both. I was listening to keynote speaker Jacqueline Woodson read excerpts from her many books and was enveloped by the richness of her characters. Then it hit me, right there, sitting in a massive ballroom with over 1,000 fellow writers digesting lunch: I was telling my story from the wrong voice. I had written it in an omniscient narrative – my voice. It was all wrong. I rushed home, reread my WIP, and binned it. I realized my main character not only needed a bigger platform than a picture book would give him, but that he needed to be the voice. Suddenly, the words sparked back to life and lit up the page.

It felt right.

Morphing Lesson #3: Faith

Organic versus outline. I’m still not sure where my loyalties lie in that debate. My business brain says outline. My creative brain says organic. Had I stuck with my original outline, my book would have been finished long ago. I could be well on the way toward securing an agent for it. But then, it wouldn’t be the book that it is today either. So, going organic has expanded my writing and taken me to another place. It’s a trade off. Maybe the best of both worlds is to have faith in your writing and be open to it?

Let it morph.