I usually do my podcasts on Wednesday, and trust me, it’s pretty fucking cool that anyone is listening, but in the beginning I have to be honest I was going to talk about that stupid conference forever, and after I got done with that, I was going to go to another conference and do the entire thing all over again. Of course I quickly got bored of doing a podcast about a single event, so here we are. I have ton more to talk about, and I’m going to start this week’s podcast with this blog about how I start a story.
During the conference there were tons of seminars about how to turn writing into a math problem. If you take this, and add a little of that, and then add a little of this, and divide it by pi then you have a story. There were talks on how to start a story, and how to end a story, and how to develop characters, and all and all these lectures were given by people who have been in the publishing game forever. Now if you think the next great American novel is going to come from you, you’re going to have to politely ignore these people. Forget about great stories for a second (I know I told everyone last week that American’s aren’t looking for great story telling, but great stories, but today we’re not talking about America; America pisses me off from time to time, and now is one of them). I’m talking about great story telling here, and I don’t think it’s a math problem you can solve, but I’m of course going to anyways, and tell you where to get ideas for stories, and where I get ideas for stories. And I figure you’d best pay attention, because I’m the guy who wrote about the kid getting run over by a car, that sped up after seeing him run outside a store with a doll … I’m pretty good at coming up with obscure stories from my ass.
I’m inspired by one of my commentators from this blog for the first way I think you can come up with a story. The first story I read from Tana was one where she gave her voice to someone else’s life … someone else’s plight. This is actually a great way to come up with a story … steal someone else’s. I know that sounds dishonest when you say it like that, but it’s not. Writers are suppose to observe and record … in the very basic sense of that, where it is just straight observation and recording it’s called journalism, but when a writer take liberties and adds style, flare, and personal objectives in the recording aspect of it it’s called art; and rightfully so. It is art. I think the key to this is respect for your topic. She wrote about prostitution, and she couldn’t have written it with the depth she dove to without having some respect for her subject matter. If you set out with a plan other than one from that level you’ll find yourself writing a hit piece, or writing about something that isn’t there and not real. If you don’t respect your material you’ll find that you’ll skip over accuracy for opinion, and you’ll do justice only to your own personal agenda. It’s okay to have an opinion about something, but leave it at the door when you research a story … use as much of it as you want when you write it, but when you fact find, or observe, do so with both eyes open.
The second way to find a story is pull it out of your ass. Actually these are the only two I can think of now. I start every story I write with a sentence. I hear over and over again that the opening sentence is the key to any good story. TO BE CONTINUED …
