Thanks to author Glen Allison for his guest post today. Glen writes the Forte suspense novels, featuring New Orleans child rescue specialist Al Forte.
A teenaged girl is found wandering the hard streets of New York. She doesn’t know who she is. Or where she came from. Or how she got there. Her fingerprints lead nowhere.
On her arm is scrawled a birthday greeting and some Chinese characters.
She does recall some lines from a fantasy novel. She found herself reciting them. Why? What does it mean? She has no idea.
Sounds like the start of a mystery novel, doesn’t it? Nope. True story. It was in yesterday’s (Friday, October 23, 2009) news.
But here’s the thing: I have a novel idea that involves an amnesiac kid. Think I’m not going to swipe a scintillating fact or two from the lost girl story?
Maybe you should, too. (Not this story but some other story that smacks you in your news collector.)
My point is this: There are stranger-than-fiction tidbits flying past us all the time, true tales of intrigue that are there for the picking. If we will only open our eyes and see them. And reach out and pluck them.
Don’t worry about copyright violations and lawsuits. You aren’t going to use the facts and act like you made them up. You are going run the real-life stuff through the creative mazes of that pinball mind of yours and by the time the idea goes DING, it will be your own concoction of mysterious fictional fun.
Off the top of my head, here’s how I would use the true lost girl in a story: Remember the fantasy novel the girl is quoting? I’d have the author of that book behind it all. Maybe she staged the whole situation to give herself some buzz for her book. But something happened. The girl was intercepted by nefarious cads and brainwashed. Those Chinese symbols on the girl’s arm? They are a code for something more sinister. Something that bodes trouble for the “lost girl” and the author both.
See how it works? Go loosen up your Weird-O-Meter as you scan the news. You’ll crazy up your stories a bit. And your readers will benefit.
Glen C. Allison
Author of the Forte suspense series
http://torturedhero.com/
@glen_allison
Great post, Glen! I love the pinball analogy :)
The news is such a great source for idea seeds. I work in a school and find a lot of my seeds there as well. As you say, once we’ve played with these seeds, they become our own. I love “what if…”
Glen – What a great idea! The news can provide a rich source of ideas for us. Ruth Rendell, author of the Inspector Wexford series of novels, has said that she gets some of her ideas from what’s debated in the British Parliament. Maybe truth really is stranger than fiction : ).
I keep a notebook of interesting news items. Anyone can take a news item and just ask themselves, what happens next.
Great information.
Glen, thanks for helping me out with a post today. And you’re absolutely right–news stories are one of the best sources for fiction. You can play the “what if” factor with them all day long…what if it HADN’T turned out that way and THIS happened instead? Great point!
Elizabeth
What a great reminder to just be aware of what’s going on with us–that life can still be “stranger than fiction”!
“If we will only open our eyes and see them. And reach out and pluck them.” Love that! No matter what genre we write, I think we can always be absorbing facts. I write historical fiction and as I read biographies and history books, I’m alwasy reaching out and plucking tidbits that I can use in my stories, but making them mine!
Great post. Glen, I think I met you at Killer Nashville this year! Good to find you again!
You are absolutely correct here: the most fascinating things happen around us every day. I read somewhere (apologies for absence of citation) that trying to fit true life into fiction will make your fiction read false. So your point about blending the edges and twisting the facts a bit is very important. Thanks, Glen!
Michele
SouthernCityMysteries
Great post, Glen. Thanks for the reminder that there is always inspiration to be found if we will just open up our eyes!
I agree that using the news can provide some terrific ideas. The trouble, however, with using some of these stories can be making them sound believable enough to use in fiction!
Magnificent post filled with smart thoughts. Well done, sir. Inspiration can be anywhere; but news stories are superb as a jumping off point. One gave Peter Shaffer the inspiration for his play “Equus”. A few sentences is sometimes all it takes to get your motor running.
Elspeth
Thanks, y’all, for your comments. That “lost girl” true incident was perfect timing for a post on gleaning ideas from the news, wasn’t it? I agree with Jane: It was almost too (mysteriously) good to be believable — if we wrote it as fiction.
This was a fantastic post and some really great advice. Stories are out there waiting to be written if we just use our eyes and brains right! Thanks for the food for thought.
Great post. Lots of useful stuff here – I’m off to read the news and loosen up my Weird-O-Meter!
Marvin D Wilson
Whenever I hear you can’t make this stuff up, I cock my head and listen close. Good post, very intriguing.
I enjoy playing the ‘what if’ game with news too. Unfortunately, you’re soon concocting a lot of conspiracy theories, and if you mumble your idea to your friend as soon it comes to you, without prefacing with “I have this story idea”, they start to think you’re paranoid. I’m even more worried that it IS making me paranoid.
My Weird-O-Meter went into action recently when I heard a news story about an angry ex wife setting off a professional-size firework shell in her ex’s car!
Such great advice. Even when the truth is stranger than fiction, you can use it to create believable fiction.
Helen
Straight From Hel