Posts Tagged ‘fodder for fiction’
Feel Like Someone’s Watching You? — Use It In Your Writing!
by Roseanne Dowell
Several years ago, I dropped my husband off for work at midnight. On the way home, I was following a car. A few minutes later, another car turned out of a side street and followed me. I didn’t pay too much attention until I turned for the third time. The car was still in front of me. I remember thinking; I hoped he didn’t think I was following him. He turned down a side street that just happened to be the same side street I needed, so I turned also and so did the car behind me. At this point, I thought it was strange that three of us were all going the same way and down an out of the way side street. I hoped he wasn’t following me. But having a logical mind, I shook off the thought. I mean here I was innocently following the car in front of. We came to another side street and the car ahead of me turned off. I kept going straight, as did the car behind me. Again, I shook it off and continued on to my house. I turned in the driveway and the car stopped in front of the drive. I couldn’t have backed out if I had wanted to. Fortunately, my house – as usual- was lit up like a church. I mean just about every light on the ground floor was on, several in the living room, the dining room and kitchen light lit up the house as if it were full of people. Actually, it was. My six children were in there asleep. I flew in the house, my feet barely touching the ground. I could barely get the key in the lock, my hands shook so badly. Once inside, I looked out the front window. The car still sat there. I grabbed the phone and called my friend who lived on the next street. She was just about to wake up her husband when the car pulled away. I spent a sleepless night. Every time I heard a car, I looked out the window.
Years later, this sparked a story called Only in the Movies available at Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Only-Movies-Roseanne-Dowell/dp/B000RGZSKY/ref=sr_1_20?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267573619&sr=1-20. My heroine drops her husband off at work, just as I did. In fact everything is the same until she runs to the house. Then her life becomes one terrifying event after another.
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Roseanne’s work has appeared in Good Old Days, Nostalgia and Ohio Writer magazines, along with several other online publications. Her first novel, Satin Sheets, was nominated for the Ippy Award and was a finalist in the Reader’s Choice Award from Author Island. Time to Live Again is available from Red Rose Publishing and Designed for Love is coming soon. Only in the Movies and several other short stories are available at Amazon.com. You can visit Roseanne’s website at: http://www.roseannedowell.com or her blog at http://roseannedowellauthor.blogspot.com/
The Omnivore’s Dilemma as Fodder for Fiction
If you checked in this past Friday on my What I’m Reading feature, you probably noticed that one of my recent reads was a nonfiction called The Omnivore’s Dilemma. The author Michael Pollan follows each of the food chains that sustain us—industrial food, organic or alternative food, and food we forage ourselves—from the source to a final meal, and in the process develops a definitive account of the American way of eating. I’m not going to get into an extensive synopsis or review of the book today. However, because today is my fodder for fiction feature day, I’m going to share a tidbit within the book that made me think about another aspect of character to consider when I build new fictional characters.
In the last section of the book, where Pollan is foraging for a meal, he states,
“Playing at self-reliance takes different forms in different people and you can probably tell a lot about a person by his choice of atavism: whether he’s drawn to the patient and solitary attentiveness of fishing, the strict mathematical syntax of building, the emotional drama of the hunt, or the mostly comic dialogue with other species that unfolds in the garden. Most of us have a pretty good idea which of these jobs we’d try for if somehow a time machine were to plunk us down in the Pleistocene or Neolithic.”
From the perspective of crafting good fiction, I like the idea of probing into which of these qualities a given character will possess. I like even better thinking about how a character who enjoys “patient and solitary attentiveness” of fishing will conflict with another who is drawn to “emotional drama” of the hunt for instance.
Pollan goes on to write, “At least until my adventures in hunting and gathering I’d always thought of myself as a Neolithic kind of guy. Growing food has been my atavism of choice since I was ten years old, when I planted a “farm” in my parent’s suburban yard and set up a farm stand patronized, pretty much exclusively, by my mother.”
This begs another proposition from a literary perspective. Taking a “gardener” and thrusting her into a “hunt” would make a great story! See, even when I’m reading nonfiction I can’t seem to get my mind out of the land-of-make believe.
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
www.LLLeibow.com
Should I Follow Alice Into the Rabbit Hole?
Several months ago, while re-exploring some favorite stories from my childhood, I re-read Alice in Wonderland and Alice and the Looking Glass.
At the time, I had no idea that I would be living with the story for much of the winter. My twins’ elementary school is getting ready to perform Wonderland. My boys, Thing 1 and Thing 2, make spectacular Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum! They practice their musical number of The Walrus and the Carpenter ‘round the clock! (It’s adorable – but I’m biased.)
Over the weekend, I went to see Tim Burton’s new Alice In Wonderland movie in IMAX 3-D. I absolutely LOVED it! And I went in with a negative attitude because I HATE wearing those silly glasses [wink}.
I’m not tired of the tale – contrarywise. It might be recurring again and again – stuck in my head, even. But I’m looking for themes, comparing interpretations, and thinking about crafting a story where the show within the show might symbolize a coming of age. In this plot, what happens in between to propel the main character through obstacles and what the main character’s goals will be are still under development. However, these three Alice’s spark an idea for a structure or a symbol of the passage of time.
Perhaps, a bedtime story could mark the naïve beginning of the protagonist’s childhood. As a teen, the protagonist could prepare to perform a starring role in a school play of the same story. Perhaps, as a symbolic ending to the story, the protagonist watches a film interpretation of the childhood favorite.
Just pondering and brainstorming… Who knows what I’ll make of it!?
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
www.LLLeibow.com
Fodder For Fiction First Friday Writing Excercise: March 2010
This month’s writing exercise is kid’s stuff! I thought it would be fun if we all tried our hand at Madlibs Online. Complete the form here. Press the “generate Madlib” button, then copy and paste the result in the comments section below. It will be fun! You don’t have to stop there. You can use the silly result to inspire a new story.
Best to you!
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
www.LLLeibow.com
The Invisible Menace
by Jane Toombs
My brother, twenty years older than I, had a cottage on Lake Superior with dense woods between the lake and the highway As a teenager, I often visited in the summer. One day I was alone there, walking along the damp sand near the water, looking for agates all the way up to the river that flowed into the lake. As I turned to go back, the hair rose on my nape. Something or someone was watching me! Nothing moved, yet I knew it was there. Any animal could be in that woods, including a bear. What if it was a person, instead of an animal? Even scarier, what if it the watcher was neither? I raced along the sand back to the cottage and locked myself in. But I never forgot that weird feeling. I’m not saying the experience is the reason paranormal is my favorite genre to read and write, but–who knows?
Jane Toombs, award-winning author of eighty plus published books and over twenty novellas, lives on the south shore of Lake Superior with the Viking from her past and their grandcat, Kinko.
Jane’s website is: www.JaneToombs.com
Valentine’s Day Flew With the Greatest of Ease!
I had a different post planned for today, but I had to share this! Last summer, when attending an event in downtown DC at the vacant lot where the old Convention Center used to be, I saw people swinging from a trapeze. Fascinated, I watched as one woman climbed up the ladder, grabbed hold of the bar, and started swinging. We were in a hurry to get to a tennis match, so I couldn’t linger as long as I wished. However, I vowed to find out more about what this trapeze was doing in the middle of the city.
Once we got home, I did a little research. Laughing, I said to my husband, “Can you believe that’s a trapeze school? Who ever heard of such a thing? It looks like a blast!”
Well, yesterday was Valentine’s Day. Hubby is a hoot! Tucked inside of my Valentine’s Day card was a listing of the class offerings and a promise to send me to the Trapeze Class of my choice. This is the next best thing to Clown College! Some might say it’s a step up from my law school days! I haven’t decided when I’m going to begin my lessons, but I’m certain there’s got to be some fodder for fiction hiding in this impending experience!
Wish me luck on this upcoming CRAZY trapeze adventure!
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
www.LLLeibow.com
WHAT MAKES A FAMILY?
A family need not be a mother, father, sister, brother. Thankfully, we live in a diverse world. Today, in any random-neighborhood, suburban street, or city block, a single mother with three children, might live next to a couple who, married for the second time, blended their families like The Brady Bunch. Across the street might live two, happily-married, gay men with their four-year-old, adopted daughter. Three houses down, a dual-income husband and wife have been married for years but struggle with infertility.
As the infertile couple works with a doctor, they are likely to investigate the myriad of options available for them to start a family. They might look into domestic and international adoption, they could try artificial insemination, or more invasive procedures, like in vitro fertilization. If the husband learns he has problems with sperm morphology or mobility, they might look into obtaining donor sperm. If the wife’s eggs are not viable, they might consider donor eggs. They might even begin to investigate opportunities to obtain donor embryos.
If successful, either in adopting or giving birth using assisted reproductive technologies, the infertile couple may raise a child not biologically-related to one or both of them. Back to my initial question: What makes a family? Certainly, biological relation does bind some to their families. However, it need not be a factor. To me, it doesn’t matter how the family came to be, unconditional love, support, a sense of belonging are the hallmarks of family.
What’s striking about my novel, Double Out and Back is that it explores from a literary perspective, some of the social issues faced by a generation that has more options than ever when it comes to starting a family. What fascinates me is that when it comes right down to it, even with the technological advancements in reproduction and healthcare, families still must rely on one another to thrive.
Special note: I love the new show Modern Family! I think the photo of the fantastic cast perfectly illustrated this article!
Best to you!
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
www.LLLeibow.com
On Men and Monsters
In fiction, there is often no question as to the significance of monsters used in a given story. Monsters represent that which is dark and evil in humanity. We write and read about them to acknowledge their impact on our lives and to define the very real monsters that exist in our world. While many writers are vague about their influences or base their writing on secondhand experiences, it is important for me to share about my past encounters with real human monsters and how they have influenced both my life and my fiction.
I come from a family of vampires—not the immortal, blood-sucking creatures of lore, but rather psychological leeches who thrive on the undue, often negative, attention of others. For many years, I also contributed to the dysfunction, continuing the cycle of harmful behaviors and self-destruction by partnering myself with abusive men. When I finally did break the cycle, the reality of my family’s energy sucking behaviors was both sobering and unsettling. I had just left my fiancé, who had left me with a cracked skull, torn rotator cuff, split lips, and bruises from head to toe, and I had temporarily moved “back home” to regain my bearings and start over my life. After years of living hundreds, sometimes thousands, of miles away from my parents and siblings (they moved often), I had not realized that the family from which I came had striking similarities to the man I had just escaped.
I learned that my mother and youngest sister, like a number of other members of my extended family, suffer from a type of personality disorder that makes it nearly impossible for them to empathize with others. Even worse, their worlds consist of one drama after the next, leaving heartache and destruction in their wakes. They live to gain attention from others, no matter how their actions might affect the people around them. Moreover, they achieve varying levels of pleasure in causing others pain. As I came to identify the darkness within my family, I began to identify that darkness within myself—and I began to distance myself from both. As I did so, I was able to see it with even greater clarity, and the more I distanced myself from them, the more they worked to reel me back into their dysfunction.
I now live free of my past monsters, but it has been a long and painful journey to get to where I now stand. My past has left me with much to share, and so I write about the people I have left behind: they are the monsters in my horror, the aliens in my sci-fi, and the dark shadows in my literary fiction. They are the creatures from the furthest depths of my imagination, and they are the lessons I hope I never have to repeat again. In writing about—and overcoming—them, I offer a slice of reality and hope to my readers. After all, the only way to destroy a monster is to expose it the light.
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Lisa Lane lives in Las Vegas with her husband and their two cats. She has authored over a dozen novels and screenplays, as well as numerous short stories and essays, and she prides herself in her ability to move between different genres and formats. Her literary influences include Olaf Stapledon, Kurt Vonnegut, and Anne Rice.
Wizards, Giants, and the Collector’s Curse
My Number One Son is an athlete and sports fan. This lucky kid owns spectacular sports memorabilia. Some came as gifts, and he even caught a ball or two at baseball games. His most prized collectibles include an autographed jersey of his favorite football player, a baseball autographed by his favorite baseball player, and a pair of basketball shoes autographed by his favorite basketball star. You might say, this kid has the best collection in town! Only, the series of unfortunate events that followed the display of each of these prized items in my home leads me to believe that there is some kind of dark magic afoot. Because of big trouble, this display at my house is transformed from a wall of fame to a wall of shame?
Who are these troubled fallen heroes?
1. Giants player Plaxico Burress, who is currently serving a prison sentence for carrying an unlicensed gun that went off and wounded him at a Manhattan nightclub.
2. Yankees player Alex Rodriguez, who is now infamous in the steroid scandal.
3. The Wizards player Gilbert Arenas, who was arrested, pled guilty and is now awaiting sentencing on felony gun charges.
Since this is ‘real life’, I’ll chalk it up to coincidence, or the skyrocketing odds of a professional athlete descending into trouble. However, as a writer, who loves to spin a tale, I can’t help but to imagine scenarios where the a Sports Collectible shop is located on some sort of ancient burial ground. The ghosts look to the inventory of the store for haunting assignments, causing any athlete they haunt to become reckless and paranoid enough to resort to firearms, even shooting themselves in some instances. Or, where a teenage boy with a fantastic autographed baseball card collection stumbles upon an old book of voodoo curses in his grandfather’s basement and begins to read. Unbeknownst to him, the ingredients for assigning the curse – the reading of the hex aloud in the presence of a personal item and an authenticated signature spell disaster for the original owners of those items.
I love it when my creative juices get going. Tell me what you think of those ideas. And, I’d love to hear about strange real-life coincidences you’ve encountered.
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
www.LLLeibow.com
P.S. Don’t forget! There’s still time to complete this month’s writing exercise “The Photograph.” Anyone who posts that they have completed the assignment is entered into a drawing to win a free e-book of Double Out and Back and an e-book Cookbook, Kissin’ Don’t Last Cookin’ Do
http://llleibow.com/blog/2010/01/07/fodder-for-fiction-first-friday-writing-exercise-january-2010/
LISA’S MONTHLY RANT: This Girl Passes On TV’s That Need Glasses
Recent media reports promise three-dimensional images will jump out of movie theaters and into living rooms sometime this year. (e.g. CNN) According the linked report, Sony and Panasonic say they will release home 3-D television systems in 2010; Mitsubishi and JVC are reported to be working on similar products. Is this really as a simple as the switch from black-and-white to color television and the shift from standard- to high-definition images?
I’m less than enthusiastic about this new technology. Don’t get me wrong. It would be cool to watch the tube and have football players appear to jump out of the screen during live 3-D broadcasts, or watch the Discovery Channel and feel like I’m standing next to an African Elephant in my living room (sure to freak out Bosco the family dog if we could fit him with glasses).
The above parenthetical brings me to the real topic of this rant: GLASSES.
You see, this 3-D gimmick requires a new television, broadcasting content, and 3-D glasses. I have spent the better part of my life trying to avoid wearing glasses. In elementary school I ‘lost’ them on a regular basis. As soon as I was old enough, I switched to contact lenses. With each new development in optometry, I advanced to wearing my glasses less and less often – soft contact lenses by day, and glasses only at night, extended wear contact lenses worn for a week at a time, with glasses worn only while cleaning them, and disposable extended wear lenses that allowed me to avoid having to wear glasses during disinfecting-time. Finally, ten years ago, I underwent LASIK surgery. I’M FREE!! But I have this 3-D TV technology promise looming large in the future.
Vanity and convenience aren’t the only reasons I’m against needing 3-D glasses to watch television. I also hate the fact that I’m inundated with umpteen remote controls, video game controllers, and other gadgets to add to the clutter, to misplace, and to confuse. Add a pair of glasses for every member of the family as well as a few extra pairs for guests, and that’s a dozen more pieces of stuff I didn’t want around my house in the first place!
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Womens’ Fiction
www.LLLeibow.com