My identical twin sister and I are now authors and our love for storytelling has only grown. We continue to think about the relationship between reality and fiction and look back at our stories from when we were younger. We decided to “reverse engineer” what we all do when we are young, using emotions and memories and fictionalizing them consciously, not only as a filter for our emotions, but as a way to create new story ideas. Here is an example:
I found a quiet place and brought with me a piece of paper and a pencil. I thought back to a defining memory and tried to visualize it in as much detail as I could.
THE CARDBOARD BOX
I wasn’t as nervous as I should have been. The hill was large and I was very small. I was only ten years old then, but even for a ten-year-old I was smaller than most. My friend and sister had already done it and nothing went wrong. Clearly I had no reason to be afraid. My sister handed me the cardboard box and I sat inside. She pushed the box and I went sliding down the hill. For the first couple of seconds it was fun; it felt like a roller coaster. But the dirt, rocks, and leaves were making the box swerve back and forth. I tried my best to keep it straight, but the more I kept pulling on the box, the more unstable it became. The sides began to fall off, and I was left holding onto the bottom of the box, screaming at the top of my lungs. When it came to a stop at the bottom of the hill, I was so afraid I just sat there for a minute in shock. If the box had rolled over, I would have scraped the side of my body on sharp rocks. I never did it again, and I am still wary of large hills.
I wrote down my answers to these questions on my piece of paper.
1. Why did I choose this memory? I chose it because it helped me realize that I was mortal.
2. How did it make me feel? At first I was a little worried but I ignored the fear. When I started down the hill it was exciting, but it soon became terrifying.
3. What did it teach me? It taught me to think through my actions and to not ignore my gut feelings just because other people say there is nothing to be afraid of. It also helped me understand there were repercussions to my actions.
Now I fictionalize that story, using my memory and my answers I wrote down as a source to create something new. I enjoy science fiction, so my story will be set in the far future in space.
THE SPACE SHIP
Ten-year-olds had no right flying spaceships. She knew this, but that didn’t stop Anna. Her sister and friend had done it, and they said it was fun.
The space station where she lived was located next to an asteroid field. In school all children learned how to fly spaceships and were given their own little spaceship to practice with. But they were only allowed to fly their ships under adult supervision.
All the children had their ships parked next to their bedroom windows. So Anna took her new hacking skills she learned earlier that day and hacked into the console to open the window to her small access tube. She climbed through it and into her ship and turned it on. She felt uneasy, but she decided to ignore it and to keep going. She took a deep breath in and flew toward the asteroid field.
The asteroids were large and jagged. At first it was fun flying in and out of the asteroids, but the asteroids began to move. Two large asteroids on either side of her ship began to move toward each other. She tried to accelerate her ship but it wasn’t fast enough. The asteroids crashed against the sides of her ship. The metal screeched and the emergency oxygen mask came down from the top of her ship. She quickly put on the mask and kept accelerating. The asteroid punctured holes in her ship, and it was about to crush her. She barely made it out the other side before the asteroids slammed together. She sat for a minute in shock and then flew back to the station. She never flew in an asteroid field again.
EXERCISE
Get a piece of paper and a pencil and find a quiet place to write.
Now close your eyes and think of a defining memory in your life. Visualize it in as much detail as you can. After you have chosen your memory, ask yourself these questions.
1. Why did I choose this memory?
2. How did it make me feel?
3. What did it teach me?
Write your answers on your piece of paper.
Now fictionalize your story, using your memory and the answers you wrote down as a source to create something new.
It must be a genre you enjoy writing in.
Close your eyes and imagine a scene in your genre of choice. Get in touch with your inner child and get lost in the world you are creating. Then write your scene down. Keep dreaming and writing.
DEVORAH CUTLER-RUBENSTEIN
Giving Sentience to Ordinary Objects—An Object’s Purpose
DEVORAH CUTLER-RUBENSTEIN is an adjunct professor at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. A former studio exec, she began her career helping supervise Roger Zelzany’s DAMNATION ALLEY for 20th Century Fox, and co-wrote the horror thriller ZOMBIE DEATH HOUSE. Recent credits include writer/producer/director on Tattoo-U for the FX Channel and co-writer/director “Peacock Blues” for Showtime’s Stories from the Edge.
As children we plagued adults with endless “what if” scenarios. What if the sky fell? What if the ocean dried up? What if my dead parakeets buried in the orange grove came back as zombie birds?
My first poem at age nine was a classic case of what if: “Pink Cats with Purple Tails,” which I recited to an enthralled audience of two: my parents. By eleven, my parents divorced and everything got a bit darker. My short story about an unhappy rebellious boy who turns his strict parents into butterflies beat out the adults in a citywide competition. A little encouragement goes a long way, and for better or worse I continue the tradition by helping others, hoping to ignite that childlike spark of imagination. Living inside all of us there’s an unbridled kid genius posing the big “what if.” What if every day can be a play date with our imagination?
One of the best ways to get ourselves “imagineering” is to engage in a slightly modified version of the “what if” game, looking at the purpose underlying your central character—a central character that’s not necessarily or always human. How do you take an ordinary person, place, or thing and imbue it with believable supernatural powers, horrific potential, or otherworldly properties?
Successful stories have a main character with a strong sense of purpose. In speculative fiction it’s often pretty simple—two opposing forces duke it out for power over the world they inhabit. Not surprisingly, underneath this massive power play there’s an even larger purpose, almost spiritual or anti-spiritual in nature. This “super objective” is the hidden fuel that drives any great story forward. If you can identify that purpose—constructed from the agar of your big idea—your story suddenly has legs, eyes, maybe even sharp teeth.
My exercise is about giving consciousness to an ordinary object and figuring out the inner purpose of the now-sentient object. What does it want? What would be the most interesting thing it could possibly want? What might it want that surprises and excites you? What could it want that we’ve never seen on a page, stage, or screen before?
To give an object special properties for horror, sci-fi, or fantasy, you as the writer need to hook into your own passion or curiosity about an object you might pick up from a sandy shore or out of a dusty drawer. Wherever your object comes from, it should have some kind of “pull” for you. Your fascination doesn’t have to border on obsession—plain ol’ curiosity works.
For instance, I love microscopic or invisible worlds. When I look at anything normal, I wonder what I am not seeing. A few years back I heard about a special rock you could buy for your aquarium, an X Rock. It arrives sealed in bubble-wrap with a birth certificate from the UACA (Unique Aquatic Creatures Association) assuring you that your X Rock has a multitude of sleeping creatures in its nooks and crannies—much like Magic Monkeys—just add water and watch as strange, odd-looking shrimp and one-eyed kelp appear. I am sure your imagination is already going into ov
erdrive.
The “what-if + purpose” game in speculative fiction is especially critical. It’s a necessary component to exploding open your imagination. It allows your mind to surf the logical or illogical extremes of a thought . . . to skateboard down the alleyways of your mind and step into an altered universe of your object’s unstoppable desire.
Let’s put some sentience into the mix. What if the rock is a creature, an alien, or perhaps just another type of consciousness that can worm its way into the mind of its host? And a psychotic-symbiosis between creature consciousness and host slowly begins to take over the host’s life—like any scary modern-day virus story. Could its purpose be to drive its host insane to the point of forcing its own liberation? Or did it just need the arms and legs a human could provide, that its existence trapped in a rock shape denies?
Why does one person choose a particular person to paint and another a landscape? It doesn’t matter. It’s your imagination calling. Whether this exercise leads to a new story or you use it to practice warming your imagination by the fire, if you’re sitting in a café in Paris just remember, “what if . . .” What if the Eiffel Tower was put there by aliens as a guiding rod? And your character has to find their hidden GPS before Earth is destroyed? Cliché? Maybe. Keep working it. Have fun and don’t forget to pack your imagination.
EXERCISE
1. Take an ordinary object from your home, school, office, local antique store, nearby landfill, or pond. Choose something that seems innocuous and forgotten, but for some reason you are curious or attracted to it.
2. Next, on a piece of paper, do a timed writing exercise. Take at least ten minutes and describe what it is very simply. What is the material it’s made out of? Does it have sharp or dull edges? Round or square shape? Color or gray toned? Textured or smooth? Smell. Weight. Size. Be specific. What is it normally used for? Set this aside because your imagination is collecting paint on the divine palate of your child genius brain, which it may or may not use.
3. Next, sit somewhere comfortable and let your mind wander. Imagine what could happen to your object if it had a purpose other than the one it seems to have been designed for. For instance . . . what if an ordinary fork was a lightning rod for a dark and invisible force? What if it was the opposite—it had the power to heal with one bite? What if this antique fork (make it unusual with its own backstory or future story) seems to be a portal for some sort of agenda? Perhaps you discover, going back centuries to the metalsmith in Salem, Massachusetts, that it was made using Satan’s spit. Perhaps it taints the food that comes in contact with it, turns it black, singes it, smokes it . . . Take your “what if” and twist it and turn it to surprise yourself with the possible variations just by changing its divine (or evil) purpose. Now, what could go right? What might take the curse off a cursed fork? Or, if it is a healing fork, what could go wrong? What or who could have had first contact with it, and what legacy or curse needs to be undone, or what lesson learned? NOTE: In order for your choices not to be cliché, continue to think about why you like it . . . what attracts you to the object? And besides what could go right or wrong, to create further complications, ask: What possible problem could your character-object have that develops, builds, and progresses? The purpose can grow and change too.
4. Now write down a few ideas you liked from the exploration you just did. You may have the beginning of a story—just based on an ordinary object that you chose moments ago.
5. Before you lock in on it too quickly, allow yourself to think genre too. Add that to the blend. For instance, if you are doing horror, that has one flavor to it. Or if you do a mixed genre, horror-comedy for instance, that has a different application. Each genre offers a different tone to the object’s same purpose—just with a different spin.
Here is the equation: Object + What If + Purpose = STORY-SQUARED!
Examples:
A Rock + Can Think + Wants to Control Its Owner.
A Rock (meteor) + Can Make You Hear the Truth (when you touch it) + Frees People to Do What They Are Scared Of.
(The latter was the basis of Starfall, the first story I got optioned by NBC’s Operation Peacock, and it got me my first agent!)
Variation: Have someone choose an object and put it in a paper sack where you cannot see it but only feel it. Set the timer for five to ten minutes. Write about what it makes you feel as you begin to guess what it is—and what it might do to you once you figure it out.
WENDY MEWES
Leaping into Landscape
WENDY MEWES has written numerous books and articles, including Discovering the History of Brittany, a travelogue Crossing Brittany, and the Footprint travel guide to the region. Her most recent work is Legends of Brittany. Her two novels are Moon Garden and The Five of Cups. Current research is for a new work, “The Mirror of Landscape.”
I’m on the side of legend although history is my day job. I filter ideas through the landscape, that great melting pot of man and nature. Legends grew from the need to come to terms with our environment. It’s a way of controlling fear of the unknown, by leaping right in and reinterpreting the world in a new guise. Mysterious lights on the moor at night, the flicker of movement half-seen in the forest—we give these shadowy presences identity so we can meet them in our minds and devise strategies for dealing with the threats they pose. The most compelling fantasy is only just beyond the tipping point of reality: The two need connection.
Here in Brittany I live at the heart of Celtic legend, tales springing from forests and moors, rocky crags and misty marsh, landscapes that breed all manner of creatures in the imagination. A skeletal Ankou searches for souls to seize for Death, huge black dogs roam lonely paths, and at their peril do travelers respond to the call of nocturnal washerwomen . . . For malignant beings peopling harsh, eerie vistas we have only to think of The Lord of the Rings, where Tolkien raises landscape almost to the level of character.
Currently I’m working on the concept of the Mirror of Landscape. Legends emanate from somewhere beyond the surface reality of man’s land management: To reach those recondite layers you have to look through this mirror, to a place where our own psychological reflection meets the source of ancient creativity. It’s archaeology of the imagination.
Take forest, with a dual personality fruitful for fantasy. Both dangerous and protective, it harbors hermits and monsters, criminals and refugees alike, light and shadow are its essence. Shelter becomes concealment, and the forest’s semi-magical powers of transformation and regeneration challenge our very sense of self. Hidden from the sun, we literally lose direction and the balance of life suddenly shifts.
In the fourteenth century, Dante offered the first literary midlife crisis with this metaphor: “Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a forest dark / For the straightforward pathway had been lost.” The sudden descent into fear, confusion, and helplessness fits the often-bewildering geography of forest, with its twists and turns, narrow views, and unknown edges. Forest also dwells within.
The primitive aspect of forest stirs an instinctive response: Before civilization was forest. It represents something outside normal values, the haunt of giants and savage beasts. Dark Age monks cleared the land of trees to establish organized communities. This felling is symbolic of control, destroying the old pagan beliefs with stories of saints driving out evil monsters from their land. Good and evil play out in the landscape.
Forest is full of fantastical tales, from tragic Babes in the Wood to Shakespeare’s light comedy of tricks and disguise in the Forest of Arden. Merlin’s magic was powerless against the wiles of Viviane in Brocéliande, and knights who had been unfaithful to their lovers found themselves trapped by walls of air in the Valley of No Return. Such tales enhance an already exceptional landscape: They spin fantasy from Earth’s layers, forging a connection between Nature and the world of man.
Forest is never destination, but a step on the path, a
setting for adventure and challenge. We all need to be lost from time to time.
EXERCISE
Get in the habit of observing landscape and your own reactions to different environments. How do your moods relate to your surroundings? Watch for movements of all kinds and the changes wrought by the seasons. Keep notes and photos, think colors, sounds, and shapes.
Create fantasy characters to represent different elements in the landscape. Start with keywords that are simply descriptive (mountain—tall, forest—dark) and then try to make psychological links, something that reflects your own experiences and instincts—water may be inviting and relaxing or dangerous and unpredictable, and forests may be deeply peaceful or unpleasantly confusing.
Let’s go into the forest and think about turning your emotions into situations and characters.
1. You find yourself tree-locked under a thick canopy that cuts out much of the light. Start by writing a physical description of your surroundings.
Move on to show how your own feelings are reflected back from the forest. Does what you see make you calm, anxious, or frightened? What are your instincts about this situation?
Suddenly there’s a mysterious noise and you sense movement nearby. What can it be? Rationalize. What do you fear it is? Imagine.
Describe your attempts to find a way out of the forest. How do physical obstacles translate into emotions? How does your body react to the situation? What do you hear and touch and sense? Are you really alone? Maybe you hear voices. Do you seek help? Will you survive?
Conjure up a fantasy character that represents forest (not a tree!). Give a detailed physical description and character analysis. Then use this in a short story called “Death Comes to Dragon Forest.”
Now Write! Page 19