What’s Your Story?
Posted by Joanne Rock in Joanne Rock, tags: creativity, storytelling, writing
I hope you don’t mind if I put you to work today. But I have a question and I hope it’ll be a fun one. I’m teaching a class called Writing Popular Fiction this fall, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot today. I’m asking the students to write an opening chapter and a synopsis during the course. It’s a task that sounds fun to me, but I know there might be a few who weren’t expecting to wade so deeply into storytelling during an undergraduate course.
Still, I’m convinced that there’s a story inside us all just waiting to get out. Maybe most people don’t have twenty or thirty or a hundred the way some prolific authors do. But I think we all have at least ONE.
Some people don’t have the desire to tell the story, of course. I know some folks flat-out don’t enjoy writing. That doesn’t stop the story from lurking inside us! Haven’t we all thought at some point, “That would make a good story.” It seems like everyone I meet—who isn’t a writer—tells me at some point that they have a great idea for a book. The writers I know, of course, have ideas for books too but they keep them for their own Muse to work on.
One of my favorite authors, Clarissa Pinkola Estes wrote a book called Women Who Run With the Wolves. As a cantadora, or storyteller, Estes talks about the story as medicine and our need to carry on the storytelling legacy. She writes, “Although some use stories as entertainment alone, tales are, in their oldest sense, a healing art.” Look how much we learn about life and ourselves from stories. And frankly, I think some of the stories that are fore entertainment are healing in and of themselves since occasionally we crave the total escape that only fiction can offer. That ability to travel into a book is one of the most healing pastimes I know.
Assuming we all have a story to tell, what would yours be? That’s my question today and I hope you’ll take a moment to think about it. Maybe you’ll shout out the answer the moment I ask the question because you already have an idea for a self-help treatise for people married couples or a memoir about your childhood in a foreign country. But if you haven’t already got a book idea brewing, what kind of fiction story would you tell if 
you had the talents of a writer at your disposal to put the idea on paper? They say the best story to write is the one you want to read. So maybe you can ask yourself what kind of book you’d like to read in order to answer the question.
I know I’d like to read something historical and paranormal. Something involving magic and romance. I’d also like to read a great twin story in Blaze… maybe as an Encounters. So… what story ideas are brewing in you?
**I’m giving away a copy of any book from my backlist to one random poster today.
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(D) I litterally met my hubby in a bar 19 1/2 years ago. I went out dancing with my best friend and her boy friend at a country western bar. I left my 18 month old daughter with a sitter. I was still celebrating my new divorice of only 3 months from a bad marraige that had ended over a year earlier. Anyway I was sitting with my friend at the end of the bar that overlooked the dance floor. I had commented that I thought the guy in a brown cowboy hat with long curly hair was cute. He had been sitting there for at least an hour ignoring every woman who tried to get his attention and just watched my friend and I. When I got up to go to the bathroom my friend took it upon herself to approach him and tell him that I would like to dance with him. Keep in mind I NEVER said that. I come back and within five minutes he approached me and asked me to dance with him and I found myself dancing all night with a great looking guy with his name on the back of his belt and a pair of snake skin boots on his feet. He danced like a dream and I took him home and never looked back.
Now that’s what I’m talking about! What a great story, Patsy. I think the fun thing about a barroom meet is how you can pick out the one with the right chemistry in a room full of dozens or a hundred. Isn’t that a cool concept? When it’s right, it’s right!
Good Morning Joanne! I love this topic. I really wish I was in the same place you are so I could take your class. Since I am an aspiring author hoping to at some point join the ranks with all the other awesome Blaze authors, this is easy for me. I have a note book that I keep handy so everytime I come up with a new idea I can write it down. At the moment I have about 25 ideas. I also have one book finished and another one started. My ideas tend to have to do with a man in uniform, whether he be a Marine or a fireman or a cop, they are all good, lol! And of course a kick butt female who wont put up with male macho crap. I also really like series, brothers or sisters or best friends. They all work. I just like seeing how things with all the characters progress through the series.
I love your books and I cant wait to see what you come out with next! Have a great day! (*)
Thank you, Alina!! And I remember the days where I had a notebook full of that many ideas. After 40 some books, my stash is getting thinner :-). But it’s still so much fun to sit down and think about new ideas. Those are some of the most fun days in writing, I think… the brainstorming and dreaming about what you could do.
I’m starting a new Uniformly Hot, BTW. Decided I need another one of those men in uniform myself. (H)
I absolutly love the Uniformly Hot books! They are the best!! I had wanted my first book to be about a hot Marine, but this damn fireman got stuck in my head and wouldnt leave me alone till I wrote his story, lol! But I will get to the sexy Marines in time!
LOL…I have no stories in me, but, obviously, I wouldn’t be taking a creative writing class, either. I leave the writing to the professionals as reading is my escapism.
I think it’s a great idea to have your students write a chapter.
Thanks, Katie! And when I was in college, I would have never pictured myself as a creative writer either. (Something about the word “creative” in partictular scared me. Never saw myself as terribly creative!!) It took an amazing romance novel to make me think how fun it would be to write one– mostly because I wished I could stay in that fictional world *forever.* You know how it is when you finish a book you loved and don’t want to leave?? That was really what made me decide to write. I figured if I made the world, I could hang out as long as I wanted
. I didn’t count on the fact that writing a book is a bit more work than reading it, but can’t complain as it ended up being a really fun job!
Which romance novel Joanne? Just curious.
Peace and love,
Paula R.
Elizabeth Lowell’s Untamed… a medieval historical. Loved it!!
I like Elizabeth Lowell. I have some of her books.
Peace and love,
Paula R.
Hi, Joanne! I’m currently working on a book titled Loving
in Lostwood. It’s the first book in my series called Legends of
Lostwood.
Lostwood is actually a ghost town in North Dakota which I’m rebuilding for my novel. I get to create the entire town and its people. It’s new and exciting and the words are flowing really well.
It’s kind of my version of the American dream…people going someplace where everone is virtually new in town, can mix and mingle and are able to start life anew, no questions asked.
I get to rebuild the town from scratch except for a boarded up
schoolhouse in disrepair and a Lutheran church, which still in use apparently.
What do you think?
There’s always something exciting about moving to a new city! Sounds great, Lorraine.
Hi Joanne, I love this writing exercise. I have something in mind that hit me a couple of weeks ago. A title popped into my head, and I am still trying to figure things out. The title is “Forget Prince Charming.” So far what I have is the heroine is sick of waiting around for Prince Charming to find her and she decides to get on with her life. She believed that if she waited long enough he would show up on his white horse and sweep her off her feet, at least that was what she was told. Now she is in her mid to late 30s and he still hasn’t shown his handsome face. So she picks up and moves on. Yep, she stayed in that little small town and decides to find life elsewhere. I haven’t figured out whether elsewhere is big city U.S.A or in International waters yet. It is just something I am letting percolate in my head right now.
Peace and love,
Paula R.
Or something like “Who needs Prince Charming”
Either title is awesome! I do think it’s very true to life that we most often find love when we are not looking for it. I can’t wait to read it.
I hope I get to write it. I can’t start it until I am done with the other two, or maybe I could do it as a way to just let my mind go…sort of refill the well…hmmmm.
Peace and love,
Paula R.
WOW sounds like a great story waiting to be written…
Thanks Patsy….It’s been brewing for a bit now. I need to get two others out of my head first before I can tackle this one.
Peace and love,
Paula R.
I know how you feel. I have so many floating around in my head at any given time I have to put them down in a notebook to look at later when I have time.
I have lived in the same house for 30 years. My mother and I owned the house together. She passed away several years ago. I have had many paranormal experiences in my home, both before and after my mother passed away. The first experience was to glance over at a living room window late one night and see the “Scream” face looking in! I rushed to the door and turned on the front porch light, and not a “soul” was about! Another time, on Halloween night, I heard distinct footsteps on the wooden floor of the upstairs hallway. My mother and I were both downstairs and no other “human” was in the house. One night, I went upstairs to my room without turning on the stairway light. When I got to the doorway of my room, a large misty shape moved from the area of the doorway and went across the room and out the window. One bright Sunday morning, I had overslept, which is a rare occurrence. A voice from the doorway of my room said: “Are you getting up?”. I looked over through sleep-filled eyes and saw the blurred image of a large friendly blonde woman dressed in red and royal blue. I answered, and then realized it wasn’t my mother! The “woman” was twice the size of my mother (who was actually downstairs in the kitchen). Since my mother passed away, I have noticed unusual scents in the house. I have smelled my grandfather’s pipe tobacco, my grandmother’s lily of the valley, and my mother’s fingernail polish remover. All of these people are deceased, and none of those items are in the house! The time that I was the most afraid was when I came home to find my house almost in a vacuum state. There seemed to be no air, no sound, and no smell of any kind in the house. My cats were in hiding. I don’t know what had been in the house, but it had some kind of mojo! I lost my job the first week of November of last year, and since then I have been house-bound. The strange this is, everything settled down and became very peaceful now that I rarely go out. No other-worldly occurrences! :-[
Cool!! You should write a memoir for the house, Virginia! Research who lived there and tell their stories. People love ghost stories. Was your mom sensitive to these occurences, or just you?
Mom never reported any supernatural experiences. Apparently, they have all been directed toward me. They seem to be quite happy that I am now at home 99% of the time! Should I be flattered??? :-S
>>Should I be flattered???>>
Absolutely. And no wonder they like you around… everyone likes to be noticed!
I have a great imagination, but no ability to put it into words… I am more creative with drawing…
I have been thinking about a storyline lately with a guy that wants to have kids… his clock is ticking… what would he do… I love thoughts that pop in…
<>
Me too! During the time I lived in NYC, I spent all my subway rides figuring out the backstories for everyone around in the seats around me. Beware us quiet types… you never know what we’re thinking .
I’m a huge fan of Agatha Christie, so if I had the creativity to write fiction I would want to write a murder mystery.
That reminds me that I must read her! I remember watching a couple of the books turned into movies and really liking them. So how much better must the books be, right? Must write this down before I forget.
i like murder mystrary that sounds good
i like best freinds theme
hot cover
congrats on teh book (Y) (L)
Thank you! And I’ve only written one best friends book that comes to mind– Wild and Wicked– my best selling Blaze ever. You’d think I’d get smart write another!!
That sounds like a great assignment for a creative writing class.
I’d like to write a suspenseful story. Now I need a storyline, setting, characters…and probably more.
>>Now I need a storyline, setting, characters…and probably more.>>
Yes to the “probably more” . It’s astonishing to discover how much you need to consider when writing a book. I vividly recall– upon starting my first novel– telling my brother that I simply couldn’t manage all that I had to do. I had no idea how to start in the middle of things and fill readers in on all they needed to know about the characters to bring them up to speed. My attempt to fill them in took pages upon boring pages. And I knew it wasn’t right, but there was virtually *so* much to accomplish that I could only write it out in the LONG-winded way that came to me and I went on to figure it out better later. How does one cram so much into a beginning??? I was befuddled, but it was the kind of mystery that you feel committed to conquering and I was eager to test my skills on this every time I opened a new book. It was a battle, and took many books to get an opening right, but sometimes the only way to learn a skill is to see what *doesn’t* work.
Or maybe it’s only me that learns by profuse failures first!
I am at this point right now Joanne, so you are not alone.
Peace and love,
Paula R.
>>Now I need a storyline, setting, characters…and probably more.>>
Grinning at the “probably more” . It’s astonishing to discover how much you need to consider when writing a book. I vividly recall– upon starting my first novel– telling my brother that I simply couldn’t manage all that I had to do. I had no idea how to start in the middle of things and fill readers in on all they needed to know about the characters to bring them up to speed. My attempt to fill them in took pages upon boring pages. And I knew it wasn’t right, but there was virtually *so* much to accomplish that I could only write it out in the LONG-winded way that came to me and I went on to figure it out better later. How does one cram so much into a beginning??? I was befuddled, but it was the kind of mystery that you feel committed to conquering and I was eager to test my skills on this every time I opened a new book. It was a battle, and took many books to get an opening right, but sometimes the only way to learn a skill is to see what *doesn’t* work.
Or maybe it’s only me that learns by profuse failures first!
In early 1989 I decided I’d had enough of life and took a bottle of pills. After going to the hospital, getting my stomach pumped I was asked to sign myself voluntarily into the Psychiatric hospital. Soon afterwords I met this guy nine years older than me that did the same thing. We were both depressed and just understood what the other was going through.
We become friends and after several months in the Psychiatric Hospital and lots of therapy we got out and started dating. Even though all our doctors and therapists told us our relationship won’t work, we knew it would.
A year later we visited our doctor’s and therapists with our newborn baby, everyone seemed very happy for us but we are still afraid we might have problems with our depression. We had a lot of ups and downs but we made it through.
It’s now 2010 and our baby daughter is almost 19 years old, and the couple who met in the Psychiatric hospital have been happily together for 20 years.
You see, this is a true story…it’s mine and my husband’s. I found my soul-mate all those years ago in the last place I ever thought I would find him. We completed each other in a way nothing else could and we’ve never been happier.
If I were going to write a story, it would be that one.
(C) Morning! I have to run to a hoop tournament for my boys this weekend or I would have chatted more today! I do have a ***winner ***and it’s katie! Congratulations! Just email me an address and your choice of backlist book at jrock008@gmail.com and I’ll ship it right out to you.
Thank you to everyone for sharing your story ideas!
Congrats katie! (*)
Congrats Katie! Enjoy.
@Joanne, have fun at the basketball tourney.
Peace and love,
Paula R.