Story Starters

Chapter One: What if With my publisher's blessing, I am pleased to offer a lifetime gift' certificate to all readers of Story Starters. The boon, a staple in every author's repertoire, has a touch of magic and has been known to help many a blocked writer to wiggle out of a jam. The present is a phrase: 'What if." Don't lose it!

What if you have always wanted to write fiction, teachers have given you good marks, friends tie a blue ribbon around your letters, even your grumpy boss praises your reports, but you look for a subject only to decide your life has the sparkle of a dreary day in March? Change the script. The college prof who told you literature mirrored reality only meant your work had to be credible. Without an imaginative touch up, most of our days would play like movies in very, very slow motion. Someone wise, whose name I've lost, said, "There is no such thing as life. We make up ourselves and others. There are only stories. Storytellers can make reality what they want it to be. Others must lie."

If there hasn't been a message on your answering machine for five and a half days, you did not get a raise but Peter did, and even your cat won't cuddle, don't write about that. If you prefer action, dream of romance, thrive on mystery, or long for an intellectual challenge, play "what if." What if things had turned out differently? Writers can make things whatever they want them to be.

Here how it works:

Last winter, I was on a long bus trip from Auckland to the Bay of Islands in New Zealand. After a couple of hours, rolling along in the middle of nowhere, the driver announced we would stop for a twenty-minute refreshment break, but there would be several coachesin the lot, so he warned us to be sure to listen for his call.

A scruffy kid with freckles on his nose and no laces in his boots and I did not hear the driver announcing it was time to reboard. He bounced on down the road with our luggage. After a moment of turmoil, I found the boy a ride with a family going in his direction, and another bus driver agreed to detour off his route to pick me up. By midafternoon, I was checked into a charming resort. I had my bags. All was well.

Except ... I couldn't stop thinking about the boy on the bus. He could have used a pair of shoelaces and a good scrub ... maybe a friend. . . .

"What if" the woman qnd the boy had not arrived at their destinations? What if, on a whim, they had set out on an adventure? I had talked to the lad only long enough to learn he was sixteen, through with school, and was on his Way to visit his mum. Why only "visit" his mum? Why had he quit school? I could not find a switch to turn off the story. Everywhere I went I saw them-the woman and the boy who seemed to want to become my characters. I heard them talking, telling each other their back stories. By the time I had returned to the States, I knew why they did it, where they went, and how their odyssey ended. I put aside what I had. been working on before the trip.

The Kiwi boy tells me his name is Trevor Jones, if you, can believe it. His friend calls herself Cassie Prince, but that name doesn't match the one on her driver's license issued in Chicago, Illinois. She wears her hair in a long, Smooth black braid, just the way I always wanted my curly hair to look. Cassie chose Mad Money as a title for their adventure story. They think I'm slow, and I admit Ican't type as fast as they talk, but we should finish a draft before Christmas.

Robert Cormier taught me how to play "what if." Before the success of The Chocolate War allowed him to write full time, he had been a newspaper reporter raising a large family and writing fiction when he could steal the time. Then one night his fifteen-year-old son said it was time for the kids to sell candy to raise money for the school, but he didn't see how he could spend the time when he was already having trouble keeping up his grades and playing sports. He asked and received Cormier's permission to talk to the priest about being excused from the chocolate sale. The next morning, Cormier dropped his son off at the school but didn't drive away. He watched the boy walk up a long flight of marble steps and thought, "What if.

What if there were an evil priest waiting up there? His son's priest didn't make him sell the candy, but at the top of those stairs Cormier's character, Jerry, meets Brother Leon and a school bully named Archie. All hell breaks loose.

Now you try it. What if there were a message on your answering machine such as:

Story Starters:

You can have the promotion, but you will have to relocate to L.A.

Your Uncle Charlie died. His lawyer would like for you to be in his office Wednesday at ten A.M. for the reading of the will.

Dumping you on graduation day was the worst mistake of my life. Shelia and I didn't work out. I'll be at the Colony at eight. I asked the chef to prepare a lemon souffle and to put white tulips on the table. I hope you still like them, but mainly I hope you will show up.

Some maniac at the Lincoln Elementary School Cafeteria laced the tomatosoup with poison this morning.

For authors who have the passion and energy to write fiction, but have trouble finding an idea and getting started, writing instructor and author Lou Willett Stanek shows how to get inspiration from neighbors and strangers, reshape classic tales, cull current events, and use other tricks of the writing trade so effectively that the reader will soon be brimming with ideas, imagination revved to its full potential.

What If . . .

. . . every classmate passed the bar exam — except one?

. . . the killer left a calling card — the ace of spades?

. . . she was a sleeping beauty —

but it wasn't prince's kiss that woke her up?

. . .he had history of obsessive behavior--

and then he developed a passion for. . .

Thousands of Stories Are Just Waiting to be Told — By You

If you have the passion and energy to write fiction, but have trouble finding an idea and getting started, this is the perfect book for you. Lou Willett Stanek has helped scores of new authors in her acclaimed writing workshops--and now she shows you how to look and listen, how to find stories and begin shaping them like a writer.

Here's how to find inspiration from neighbors and strangers, reshape classic tales, cull current events and use other tricks of the writing trade so effectively you'll soon find yourself brimming with ideas, your imagination revved to its full potential. Begin with a snippet of overheard conversation, an unexpected event, a simple character trait, a place, a problem--Ms. Stanek teaches you to get past "what really happened" and reinvent reality in ways that will astound and delight you, and hold a reader's attention.

Here too are hundreds of "what-ifs," simple situations you can guide to endlessly different conclusions--and use to learn new ways to fashion plot, describe character, develop conflict, paint with language, create a setting, employ flashbacks, build suspense, and much, much more. For every writer who could use a jump-start, from novice to pro, here is a book that will help you keep the faith and. . .

Get Started!

Lou Willett Stanek, a novelist, critic, and teacher, practices what she preaches. She bases her workshops on the theory described in this book. Dr. Stanek earned a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, an M.A. at Northwestern, and a B.A. from Eastern Illinois University. She also served as a trustee at Millikin University. A Midwesterner, Dr. Stanek now lives in New York and teaches writing at The New School of Social Research.