Learning Story
Happy Summer Solstice!
Change
It’s Monday, hot and humid here on the East Coast of the USA. The falling sun turns honey gold as it slips beneath the horizon. A white butterfly zigzags past my window and disappears. Change is everywhere. And, as many of you have already noticed, the title of my newsletter is now Phantoms, Foxgloves and Fiction (it’s long, so I cut the address to simply: https://foxglovesandfiction.substack.com). This title better represents what I’m offering, and gives me room to expand as I journey forward. Besides, I think the other title sounded like a skin art newsletter, and while I like tattoos, I won’t be talking about them here, unless one of my characters gets one. :)
As always, thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy this week’s installment.
Learning Story
When I wrote my first story I was obsessed with theme. I wanted to know how other writers imbued their words with philosophical thought, hidden beneath character, description and dialogue. Because of this my early attempts contained long screeds on love, justice and acceptance of others’ differences. I didn’t know what to do with all of my pent up feelings and ideas, which, to me, needed exorcising and expression. One day, a very clever teacher of mine said, “Don’t worry about theme. Just write the story. The theme will emerge.” He was right.
People love reading stories because they’re curious about what happens next. It doesn’t have to be grand action, smaller character actions are perfectly fine. Action propels the story forward, otherwise no matter what a writer wants to communicate, the reader won’t care. This seems like an obvious point, except when I’m in the middle of writing my story or novel. Then, somehow, it gets lost in my sea of opinions and philosophies, leaving me with the question, How do I untangle this mess?
Every beginning writer eventually learns about three act structure: a beginning, middle and end. Within this framework are myriad plots, subplots and twists from which to choose. But even the basic structure of beginning, middle and end is harder to accomplish than it seems, especially when concentrating on theme. One way to practice storytelling is to write the action first, leaving out thoughts, feelings and philosophies. My mantra lately has been “What happens next?” If I want to remember a certain character’s thought or feeling at a certain point in the story, I either make a note of it in my writer’s notebook or I enclose it in brackets right in my document. This keeps my fingers and imagination moving. From this perspective, the shape of the story blooms on its own, and keeps it exciting for me and, hopefully, the reader.
Stream of consciousness writing always gives me fresh ideas when I least expect them. Theme lives in the dark recesses of the subconscious, so even if I start out with a theme in mind, by the end it will shift, take on a new shade of meaning or become weighted in an unexpected way. The actions of my characters will also reveal theme: character one punches a racist in the face, while character two ignores her and quietly walks away. Each of these scenarios could reveal something different about my theme, depending on how I shape the rest of the story.
When a story rolls from my fingertips to paper or screen, apparently whispered by the Muse, it’s a gift! Most of the time, it’s a push and pull between stream of consciousness writing and outlining. And sometimes while outlining, a theme will dawn on my Marblehead. But I’ll file it away for later—it’s too early in the process. At this stage, remaining unattached is crucial. It’s more important to let ideas breathe. By using a combination of outlining and writing whatever comes to mind, patterns develop. The story accumulates heft.
And suddenly a theme is born.
Until next time, let theme reveal itself!
Jan
Upcoming Issue: My short story, The Seed. *Stay tuned for a piece of my original paranormal fiction!