For some writers it’s an image: A grief-broken man cradling his dead son. For other writers it’s a sentence or a title: “The Time Traveler’s Wife.” For yet others it’s a character, or characters, who pop into your head all at once. They’re all the sparks that ignite the creative process of writing a novel, and what they share is persistence, the feeling that these sparks will keep burning until they’re allowed to roar to life.
George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo, published in February, was inspired by a story Saunders heard 20-plus years ago about Abraham Lincoln and his son Willie, who died in 1862 at age 11. The story (reported in some newspapers but never verified), said that after the funeral Lincoln repeatedly went back to his son’s crypt in Oak Hill cemetery. An image of Lincoln holding his dead child emerged in Mr. Saunders’s mind and stayed—until it became a novel.
The title The Time Traveler’s Wife came to Audrey Niffenegger one day while she was drawing. She wrote it down and “began to turn it over in my head. The title contained two characters, the time traveler and his wife. It seemed that it might be rather trying to be the wife. I imagined her waiting. Then I had an image of an old woman in a bright room, waiting, and I knew that was the end of the story. After that it was a matter of figuring out who these people were, and how that woman got to that room.” (From a 2009 interview with She Knows )
And then there’s Joanne Rowling, who was sitting on a delayed train from Manchester to King’s Cross station in London when Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger appeared “fully formed” in her mind.
As writers, we all know those images or words or characters that inspire a story. The thing is, how do we know which of those have the staying power to fuel an entire novel?
The answer, I believe, is the ones that carry an emotional truth, something you may know in your bones well before it’s present in your conscious mind.
Saunders wasn’t sure if his “idea” was a novel or a play or a short story. But as he wrote, the book materialized—a world of wraiths reluctant to move on, a grieving father and a boy who can’t tear himself away, bits of history stolen from newspapers and diaries—and turned into a mediation on grief and compassion. Over the course of the book, as Lincoln’s grief threatens to unhinge him, he comes to realize that “though on the surface it seemed every person was different, this was not true… Whatever way one took in this world, one must try to remember that all were suffering (none content; all wronged, neglected, overlooked, misunderstood), and therefore one must do what one could to lighten the load of those with whom one came into contact.”
JK Rowling’s greatest fear is of someone she loves dying, she told The Telegraph in 2006. “My books are largely about death. They open with the death of Harry’s parents. There is Voldemort’s obsession with conquering death and his quest for immortality at any price, the goal of anyone with magic…I so understand why Voldemort wants to conquer death. We’re all frightened of it.”
And that’s the thing to feel for when that image, phrase, character pops into your head—what is this telling me? Why is it important? What is the thing here that says something about human nature? For Saunders it was the universal experience of wrestling with grief, and the ways in which loss can lead to greater compassion. For Rowling it was facing the fear of death head on. And just as those images, titles, characters appear unbidden, the emotional truth or theme or whatever you want to call it that makes that story compelling will unfold as you tell the story.
My third novel began in an offhand remark my agent made to me, about what if a woman gave birth to a baby and then left it behind in the hospital. As a parent who adored my babies, this was inconceivable to me, but I couldn’t let it go. What if she was a woman like me who truly wanted and loved her baby? What would make her leave it behind? And as I followed that image and that story and those “what ifs” my book unfolded, and the emotional truth behind it turned out to be what it means to have integrity, not just being honest and moral but also in being whole. What makes someone feel whole? What makes people betray their own morals? That was worth exploring.
So welcome those images, those random phrases, those characters that arrive. Sometimes they come in droves; sometimes sparingly. Some you’ll set aside; some you’ll discard; and some won’t let you go until you follow them down to the raw truth beneath.
What was the spark that inspired your latest story? What’s the emotional truth that keeps that spark alive?
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About Kathleen McCleary
Kathleen McCleary is the author of three novels—House and Home, A Simple Thing, and Leaving Haven—and has worked as a bookseller, bartender, and barista (all great jobs for gathering material for fiction). A Simple Thing (HarperCollins 2012) was nominated for the Library of Virginia Literary Awards. She was a journalist for many years before turning to fiction, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal, and USA Weekend, as well as HGTV.com, where she was a regular columnist. She taught writing as an adjunct professor at American University in Washington, D.C., and teaches creative writing to kids ages 8-18 as an instructor with Writopia Labs, a non-profit. She also offers college essay coaching (http://thenobleapp.com), because she believes that life is stressful enough and telling stories of any kind should be exciting and fun. When she's not writing or coaching writing, she looks for any excuse to get out into the woods or mountains or onto a lake. She lives in northern Virginia with her husband and two daughters and Jinx the cat.
An image that bears emotional truth. Huh. Hadn’t looked at it quite that way before.
My WIP started with an image. I’ve mentioned it here before. It’s a small town summer carnival, a boy and a girl at the top of a Ferris Wheel. The girl correctly foretells something that will happen to the boy. He realizes that she can see the future.
So, what’s the emotional truth in that? Perhaps its being at a high moment, way up in the air, when you realize that someone you love, and who loves you, knows you truly and deeply in a way no one else possibly can?
(This being a love story, naturally things must go wrong. The girl’s psychic gift brings trouble and tragedy. She disappears from his life. As a young man he searches for her, a journey through an underground America just bizarre enough to be real.)
To be truly known and understood by another is a powerful thing. We need that and seldom get it. It’s what’s wrong with our whole country, in a way. Everyone is screaming because no one is listening. No one understands.
So, hmm. For my WIP, what I’m taking away today is that I can reinforce the special bond between the boy and the girl. They truly understand each other. Ideas percolating! Thanks!
I love this, Benjamin. What a terrific image to launch a novel, and I love the way the idea of connection, the feeling of being “truly known and understood by another” is one of the emotional truths inside your story. It’s powerful and much-needed right now, as you say. Thanks for the comment.
Kathleen–
I’ve read your fine post while working on a critical emotional point in my latest WIP. In a story that starts as a comedy, a man is shunned by virtually everyone he knows. He is given a dog–and the dog turns out to be grieving over the loss of a best friend (yes, dogs have friends). Goodbye comedy, hello deep feeling.
No honest person can downplay or diminish the power of emotion in storytelling. Brain science reveals why: what we think of as dispassionate rationality is anything but. Sweet reason turns out to be awash in feelings.
That said, I do my best to stay alert for signs in my own writing and others of manipulation. I’m talking about work that tries to strong-arm the reader into feeling deeply. There is–for me–a yawning gap between honest, “earned” feeling in a narrative, and sentimentality. But it’s discouraging to see how often cheap tears and bogus derring-do are rewarded by the reading public. I can’t help thinking that the overwhelming power of visual media and their special effects have blown up the divide.
Or, it’s all a matter of taste. Thanks for your post.
You raise an excellent point about the difference between “earned” feeling and feeling for the sake of trying to evoke strong emotion in the reader. I wish I’d thought more on that and included that in my post. I agree completely that the emotional truths or themes or whatever you want to call them in our stories must spring from a deep well of honesty. That’s what makes them powerful. Good luck with your writing!
“The secret to a long life.” The phrase popped into my head while I was walking in the woods with my dog. It stayed lodged in my brain and when I got home, I sat down and started writing. I thought the phrase was a title, but turns out, it was a springboard for a story about all the small things that connect us to the Big Things. The phrase came with a palette of colors and moods and even music, and it has sent me on the ride of my life. Thank you for talking about his. It’s such a wonderful and inspiring topic!
What a phrase! And how rich an experience to have that phrase accompanied by colors and moods and music. I’ll be interested to read the book it all becomes. Good luck, Susan!
Kathleen, you may have seen this already but just wanted to bring to your attention (and readers) that George Saunders has won the 2017 Man Booker Prize for Lincoln in the Bardo. It’s a brilliant book, but very different. And innovative. His speech at the ceremony was inspiring. I loved your comment that “some (sparks) won’t let you go until you follow them down to the raw truth beneath.” It’s a rough trip to the raw truth, but worth it. Thanks so much for the post.
I believe! For me, there were a series of sparks. Or maybe that first one was a buried ember (a single origin). If so, it was one that managed to keep glowing… for 30 years! It was ignited by my sixth grade teacher’s gift of a boxed set of The Lord of the Rings, and his mentioning to me that the if fallen Gondor was symbolic of the lost glory of Rome, then the Riders of Rohan resembled the Goths. (I mean, come on. Good-guy barbarians? How cool is that?)
The stirring of the coals came in my early forties, when I read about how Alaric (of the Visigoths, who famously sacked Rome) had only marched on and besieged the capital to collect on an imperial debt. Seems he’d fought for the Roman emperor against a usurper, and he and his men hadn’t been paid. (Hey – an understandable motive for one of the most notorious events in the history of the western world… Maybe good-guy barbarians *did* exist.)
Another spark came with the idea of brothers, separated at birth – one as a slave within the empire, entering the service of the army to win back his freedom, the other growing up in “The Wilderness” of Germania, among the “free” Goths. (John Jakes, anyone?) The resulting flame kept me burning through a trilogy, culminating in a Battle of Adiranople-like face-off with the bros on opposite sides.
The embers glow on, as I’m now working on a trilogy that explores the brothers’ father, and how it came to be that they were born in two opposing worlds. I suppose at the root of it, I’ve always been interested in the line that supposedly separates so-called civilization from a tribal existence. Is there nobility to be found in man regardless of environment? When and how is nobility turned to brutishness? Is there ever a justification for savagery, whether or not it’s “organized” violence, regardless of our being civilized?
A dozen years on, I still dwell in that world, and I still find it satisfying. It’s offered me a place from which to explore my feelings on many others things—particularly love and loss. Thanks for reminding me to take a look back at the enduring fire’s origins. Here’s to the sparks that won’t die!
Kathleen, a fascinating post, and oh so timely!
The idea for The Crystal Pool came to me as a picture. I was six years old when I was told I was going to die. I was lying in my parents bed and I had pneumonia and I immediately thought; what would have happened if I hadn’t died? How would I have done things differently? We all know the consequences of making mistakes and how that plays out throughout our lives well past childhood manifesting itself in the choices we make as adults. If we made changes at pivotal points of our lives would our worlds be better? Would the world be a better place?
All best,
Rick
Hi, Kathleen:
I’m beginning a 4-week class this Sunday on novel-writing, and this week’s class is titled, “Finding the Compelling Story Idea and Maximizing its Potential.” I intend to provide all of my students with the link to this post.
I think your focus on the emotional truth of the core idea is exactly right. How many times do we have a great “idea” for a story or novel only to find ourselves running out of steam at some point. Absent that sense that the story speaks to some core truth, and the need to make the characters — and the reader — feel differently about themselves and their world by story’s end, we will most likely fail to engage anyone on a truly meaningful level.
Wonderful post. Thanks so much.
It may seem shallow, but the spark behind my nearly-finished WIP was the idea of a fairy-tale princess – raised an orphan in a castle on top of a mountain in a magic kingdom and all the rest of it – finding that life is not a fairy-tale, and being confronted with harsh political realities. How will someone raised with an unreal worldview deal with the real world she finds herself in?