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Found Objects

Sometimes when I start a new story it’s easier for me to focus on specific moments that may lead to a story rather than outlining a beginning, middle, and end. When we access a memory, for example, it’s not necessarily a full-fledged tale; it’s a feeling, or a place, or a person, or an epiphany that means something to us. These moments, like memories, can make for good scenes and characters, as well as poignant conclusions, and they eventually form a kind of scaffolding for a story. In “Stoney Creek” the character Rosa Bell is based on a real person who used to squat on a piece of land near my former home in rural Virginia. When one day “Rosa” and her trailer were hauled away, it prompted many questions: Who was she? Where did she come from? Where did she go? With these questions came all the memories of “Rosa” when she was still living there—her strange behavior, the renovations to the house across the street, the wild rumors about her killing her husband—and the story and characters grew out of that.

When I approach a story that way, it’s more fun to let the scenes chase an arc than it is for an arc to chase the scenes. But it’s always a learning process, and I try to recognize when I need to adjust. For example, I’ve found it’s easy for me to dwell too long in a character’s mind or fill too many pages with description. I have to take a step back and ask myself if there’s enough forward momentum, if the reader’s going to want to know what happens next, if I’ve even built a scene yet or if I’m just playing around with words. I try to approach story from different directions, too. The novel I’m working on now is historical fiction, so the scaffolding is more or less already there. Since I have to maintain some responsibility to the historical accuracy of the story, I often already know what a character is going to do. So instead of starting with a character’s moments and memories, and imagining a story for them, the opposite becomes true. It’s about imagining those little moments, memories, and epiphanies for the character, and getting them to react in an interesting and believable way within a prescribed framework. That can be a lot of fun, too.