Flights of Fancy by Ann Evans
How's your imagination?
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| We all know the story of the ugly duckling that turned into a beautiful swan |
Are you always thinking up new plots and story-lines? Can you conjure up new characters at the drop of a hat? Or, like me, do you sometimes feel you haven't a creative bone in your body.
Well perhaps because I've been doing quite a few school visits recently and been asking the children where they get their ideas from, I've realised that 'from our imagination' is just one point of reference. And because I've called this blog 'Flights of Fancy' I thought I'd illustrate it with some photos of birds!
I can't help thinking that the main source of ideas comes from our everyday life. Just take a trip to Tesco or a walk around town and you'll find a multitude of possible characters. Unaware that they could be at the heart of the next best seller, these individuals go parading by, allowing us to observe, listen to and pick up ideas from.
You only have to wander through any city or town centre to spot someone you could
write about. Of course you’re only going on appearance.. You can’t
know what their soul is like, or what their hopes and dreams are.
Sometimes though, you can guess at their problems. Often you can
pick up on their background and family life. You can snatch snippets
of conversation. You can detect accents, dialects and rhythms of speech.
You can see the relationships between people. And you can see relationships breaking down.
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| Writers need to be hawk-like, swooping down to snatch up snippets of conversations. |
In most
stories you only need a spark of an idea to set you writing. When
you’re observing passers by, you get more than a spark. You might
get long seconds or even minutes where you can make a close
observation. It’s as if we have a stream of never-ending ideas and
inspirations parading past our eyes all the time. It’s just a
matter of reaching out and grabbing one of those snippets and seeing
where it takes you.
In my
experience, it’s always been a little glimpse of real life that’s
set me writing something new– or helped me to continue with what I'd been writing. For instance, an
old man with a long coat, hat and bag inspired a Christmas story.
Sunlight glinting off a mountain top inspired The Beast. An
email from a little girl inspired the follow-on book, The
Reawakening. A bit of news from my brother inspired Fishing
for Clues; a friend in a band inspired Stealing the Show;
horses in a field inspired Pointing the Finger.
Looking at my titles, I can pinpoint where the inspiration or
idea came from in practically every instance. Mostly, it was something
I’d done, seen or heard in real life. The short story about to go into my writing classes next anthology called Nightmares was inspired by a
crushed pop can sitting on the dashboard of my car. Its reflection
looked very macabre. The story was written in my head
before I’d reached home.
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| Writers need to use the good, the bad and the ugly to their advantage. |
You can
even turn bad experiences into something positive. So, if somebody speaks
unkindly to you or treats you unfairly, what's to stop you putting them (or someone very like them) into a story
where the tables are turned? Or make that argument the basis for a
story or a scene that you're writing at the time. If someone
is unwell, take note of the pallor and the tone of their voice, and when you're next writing about someone who is sick, make them even more true to life by using your first hand experience.
The
everyday places that we go to can be the settings for stories and
scenes. Crowded streets, deserted streets, country lanes, motorways
with speeding traffic. Shopping precincts, churches, boarded up
buildings, stately homes, the office where you work; the school your
child attends; the local pub; the post office, the library, the
doctor’s waiting room, the hospital ward.
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| Just like Mr Wise Owl, writers need to use their brains and be aware of what's around them |
Of course as writers we do this all the time - subconsciously drawing on our own experiences every time we sit down to write. Although I think we can sometimes forget that all this is available to tap into.
Last year, on a writers' retreat in Gozo, we were given a writing exercise, which everyone found really useful. So if you're short of an idea, you could do worse than trying this:
Think back
to yesterday (or today) and pick out one little incident, no matter how mundane. Begin free-writing it up – allowing it to go off in any direction. See where
it takes you.
So how about you, had any flights of fancy recently?
Thank you to Rob Tysall of Tysall's Photography (www.tysallsphotography.org.uk) for the photos which were all taken incidentally at the Nuneaton & Warwickshire Wildlife Sanctuary. And that's not really Mr Wise Owl above - it's Geoff Grewcock who does an amazing job rescuing injured wildlife.
(www.nuneatonwildlife.co.uk)
Please visit my website: www.annevansbooks.co.uk
Out now: Become a Writer - A step by step guide.
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