In Lisey's Story, Stephen King talks about story-ideas as bits of colored string, found half-buried in the ground. In his absolutely *brilliant* book Which Lie Did I Tell, by William Goldman describes these idea fragments as 'connectives'.
I call 'em fishhooks.
In the course of any given day we all come across news items, bits of historical trivia, things you see in the street. Some of those items suggest a story. Heck, most of what we see can suggest a story, but some are definitely 'stickier' than others.
Usually, two or three unrelated things catch together and give me the germ of a story. I read about a teenager who kills her parents, see a little girl alone in a supermarket, tears brimming in her eyes, and BAM. What if that little girl just killed her *latest* set of parents and is putting on her 'crying orphan' act to get a fresh set?
This sort of thing happens to me several times a day between books. Maybe a couple, three times a week while I'm writing...
So you get this little cluster of fishhooks. As Goldman puts it, you have to ask, "Is this in my 
wheelhouse?" I've always thought of it as, "Is this my line of country?" Can I tell this story? And can I tell it well enough to spend six months of my life doing so?
wheelhouse?" I've always thought of it as, "Is this my line of country?" Can I tell this story? And can I tell it well enough to spend six months of my life doing so? In other words, am I hooked? :)
Sometimes, those answers are close enough to yes that I 'sketch' a little - a chapter, maybe two or three. The little girl cries, a concerned soccer mom tries to help. How does the little tyke go home with the woman? Haven't a clue. If I don't find one, we're dead right there. If I do (I'd imagine the little girl could be pretty charming and persuasive - and like many predators, quite adept at choosing her victims), we're on: what happens next?
And how excited am I by what's happening?
To be honest, I'm not excited yet by this premise. So I grope in the darkness for more fishhooks and see what I snag.
How about that little hitch of reluctance I felt before I went to help the girl. Scary-looking single male, talking to a child not his own... the Tiny Dynamo assures me I will be locked up for my altruism, but I still do the right thing. I have faith my pure heart will be recognized. So far it has, but there may be a novel in the day that it's not...
What if the little girl latches onto a guy? Maybe an ex-con who means no harm but will never get a fair shake from larger society? Some big, blocky bastard, more scar tissue than skin. Most people shy away from this monster (I'm thinking Frankestein, with that little girl), but here's this kid, this little kid, looking up at him like she knows, *knows* he'll help her.
He looks back over both shoulders, looks down from his great height and mutters, "Where's your ma?" She looks up at him with those big wet eyes, and what swims behind them looks something like triumph.
Or how about a different kind of woman? ex-con, maybe a recovering addict with a yucky past, sees a bit of herself in that lost kid? Stringy peroxide hair and scarred track marks, prison tattoos and cigarette burns.
She looks at that kid and remembers herself at that age. She scratches a gray welt of scar tissue below her collar bone and knows what waits for a little kid like that, vulnerable and alone.
She bends down, "Where's your mum?" "Heaven." "Sorry. Uh, who's lookin after you?" The kid looks upset and sucks her thumb. Too old for it, but she sucks her thumb and tries to hide her tears. "C'mon, kid, let's get you somethin to eat..."
Either one might have legs.
And yeah, I noticed too that my hero's an outcast. That's a fair-sized fishhook for me. It's a condition I relate to, also quite useful when things get rough in the story. Neither of these two is going to call the cops for ANY reason, and both of them, grown though they are, are orphans themselves. They know (or believe they do, anyway) what happens to the kids nobody cares about, and no way he or she's gonna let that happen to *this* little tyke.
And so on I'd go, hooking from one fishhook to another, chaining them together and inviting the barbs to bite deep when they hit flesh. Some of those hooks might come from my past, some from my basic human empathy (I had a pretty nice childhood, but you can't help feeling for the ones that didn't), some from the news or history books.
As I get deeper in, the hooks will tend to attract each other. My subconscious mulls the big issue: how does a small child (right now I'm thinking 6 to 8) overpower and KILL a full-grown adult? Is she a firebug? A poisoner? What? I'll find myself noticing stuff in the news, catching shreds of conversation in the tattoo shop, whatever. I'll attract the right hook to pull me onto the next part of the story.
Mostly, for me, the writing process is about exploring those hooks: Outcast tries to help. Innocent mask hides a predator. How does this kid keep doing this? Maybe I tattoo a parole officer (or meet her in a supermarket, or eavesdrop on his conversation in a coffee shop, whatever) and get to thinking about the parole board's role in our hero/heroine's life. Or maybe...
One way to look at it is letting the characters fight it all out (this story would be real cat-and-mouse), but while they're doing that, I'm swinging from these damn hooks and looking for more...
13 comments:
I forgot to mention, that little girl, *did* also make me think of a romantic comedy, something where she's found the perfect gal for our single dad and puts on the crying act in front of her to unite them. Or maybe reunite them at the climax, after their falling out.
I like to read that kind of stuff, but no way in hell, in six months or six years, could I do a story like that justice.
Simply NOT my line of country...
Jon Franklin, the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, talks about "collecting string." He comes across a fact that's interesting but it's not enough to hang an article on, so he sticks it in a folder. Over the next few months or years, the folder may accumulate other related facts and events that together become the germ for a piece of narrative journalism (100% true stories constructed using the techniques of fiction).
I really like thinking of this process as "groping for fishhooks". I've found the need to sort through these fishhooks quickly to be much more apparent since starting a recent new approach to writing. Still learning -- so thanks for the new terminology. I like it.
Interesting take on a complicated process. I do think the best stories evolve in our heads over time. It's when I'm forced to rush the process that they never feel quite "right" to me.
In the last few years I've found my best "threads" to follow at night, between bouts of sleep. I wake up after every dream period and so wake up a lot during the night. I go to sleep thinking about a plot problem, think about it when I wake up from a dream and hit the bathroom, and oftentimes, like last night, some solution works it's way out in my mind. When my conscious mind is too controlled to really toss up the offbeat ideas, the unconscious can do it for me.
Shauna, much the same idea, only without the files and we're free (in fact, encouraged)to make stuff up!
Cheers, Lisa. If it helps, great! If not, don't let that stop you. As I like to say, take what you like and leave the rest...
CS, couldn't agree more. For me the real process is subterranean, with the molemen who do the real work telling me when they've got what they need to start...
And Charles, I do much the same thing - fall asleep thinking about the plot and wake up with my answers. The molemen are powerful indeed!
And my apologies for using the faux-science 'subconscious' instead of the more proper (and less heirarchical) 'unconscious'. I really should know better...
Very interesting post. Although I'm not a writer, I can relate through my old days being Dungeon Master for a group of buds in Canada. (There, I did it. I admitted total geekdom in a public forum!) Not only did I have to come up with some basic storyline for the players to follow, I had to try to anticipate any possible move they might make, I had to look at my characters through the players' eyes & figure out how they would relate (or not.) That's where I encountered my "fish hooks." It was an entertaining process that usually led to better, more intriguing & (relatively) "realistic" storylines & more enjoyable games.
I do the sleep thing too, plug it in and let it simmer.
Great post except for the picutre of the woman! I find it all comes together when I'm traveling - be it car, plane, plane, train or feet. Something about the down time during travel that lets the threads knit or the hooks catch......
Another interesting post, Steve!
Now I perhaps know why I stopped wri ting one of my pieces. Imight be looking for more hooks :)
MyMy father used to fish but I didn't go with him. I hate waking up early.
Lana, I also paint and draw in a 'looking for hooks' process. It can be a slice of narrative image ('I wanna paint a cowboy') or something as purely visual as the desire to play with a certain repeating shape or color scheme...
Bernita, I just wish my 'dream solutions' didn't come in such symbolic language!
Liz, sorry about the 'hooked' pic. It was that or one of those pain-tourists hanging from a bunch of them!
Also, the Coen brothers (Fargo, No Country for Old Men) also like to compose on the road. Something about the highway under your wheels, I suppose...
SzélsőFa, that's likely the case. I've stalled out on projects before, until the next hook came along...
Emperor, welcome! I was always more of a sunset fisher, m'self...
Dangly sparklies. Ideas. Stray bits. Schnibbles.
I think of them dragonflies. Those wisps of thought, flashes of sunlight, hints of a buzz that dash and dart just out of reach. I'm learning to sit still and watch the flowers, waiting for one to land. Every now and then, two dragonflies will join -- and magic happens. I also learned that when I chase them, they disappear.
Cynthia Mueller
http://anuncappedpen.blogspot.com
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