May Inspires Your Story Characters – and You. May represents rebirth. Fertility. Anticipation of something new. Here it comes. The start of something. A surge of excitement. Listen. Your writer’s heart is beating faster. May is Inspiration. Let’s get inspired!!!
All Things Seem Possible in May (Edwin Way Teale – Author). Let’s create some possibility. Take advantage of the spring weather. Go somewhere public. Pick a person – or a victim – from the crowd. What do they inspire for you as character material?
Spring is When Life is Alive in Everything (Christina Rosetti – Author). Life is alive in this person you have chosen to observe. Life is alive in your writer’s imagination. Let’s imagine. What are they doing here on this particular day at this particular time? As a storyteller you need conflict and complication. Something is upsetting them today? Why are they upset?
May is the Month of Expectation, the Month of Wishes (Emily Bronte – Author). Let’s explore that upset. Give your subject a name to make them more real to you. Call them Jo. Jo has a dream. Something very dear to them. What is that dream? Why is it so very dear?
May More than Any Other Month Wants Us to Feel Most Alive (Fennel Hudson – Author). This dream makes Jo feel wonderfully alive. Let’s make Jo the hero of your story. That means their dream is most likely something you can root for and want them to achieve. Jo’s dream makes you as storyteller wonderfully alive also – ready to soar.
Spring is the Time for Plans and Projects (Leo Tolstoy – Author). Let’s get intense. Jo hopes hard for this dream to happen. Jo desperately needs that or Jo’s life will go terribly wrong. You as storyteller must be a troublemaker. Plunge Jo’s dream into trouble. Make that trouble dire. Disrupt Jo’s plans. How will you do that? Let your wicked imagination fly.
Hope Sleeps in Our Bones Like a Bear Waiting for Spring to Rise and Walk (Marge Piercy – Author). Jo makes a hero’s choice to rise up and fight the trouble you have created. Jo is a bear rather than a bunny. Jo’s story ignites. Struggle erupts. Jo’s desperate need to succeed fuels the flames. Your storyteller’s appetite has a page-turner on its menu for May.
You Can Cut All the Flowers but You Cannot Keep Spring from Coming (Pablo Neruda – Author). Do you write popular fiction? Is your goal a story lots of readers will read and not be able to put down until they reach the end? If so – make that ending a triumph for Jo. By the skin of their teeth after a flat-out exhausting battle – but a triumph all the same.
May is a Month of Magic (Me). Hey. Is that you the storyteller still sitting on your observer’s park bench or wherever? Get on home and start writing. Jo and your imagination and the mighty month of May have given you a smashing story tell. I hope you took good notes. May Inspires Your Story Characters – and You.
You possess storytelling magic. Keep on writing whatever may occur.
AliceOrr. https://www.aliceorrbooks.com. Teacher. Storyteller. Former Editor and Literary Agent. Author of 15 novels, 2 novellas, a memoir, and No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells. Blogging here for writers. “What A Character! How to Create Characters that Live and Breathe on the Page.”
Alice’s Memoir is titled Lifted to the Light: A Story of Struggle and Kindness. At the beating heart of this moving story a woman struggles. All her life, she has taken care of herself. Now she faces an adversary too formidable to battle alone. Available HERE.
Praise for Lifted to the Light: A Story of Struggle and Kindness: “I was lifted. I highly recommend this book as a can’t-put-down roadmap for anyone.” “Outstanding read. Very, very well written.” “Honest, funny, and consoling.” “Ms. Orr is a fine, sensitive author and woman. I have read other books by her and am glad didn’t miss this one.”
All of Alice’s Books are available HERE.
Ask Alice Your Crucial Questions. What are you most eager to know about how to discover the strongest story characters you have in you? Ask your questions in the Comments section at the end of this post. Alice will answer.
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Alice:
Take good care.
I enjoy your newsletter.
joan
Dearest Joan. Thank you for your response. I am pleased to hear that you enjoy my blog (newsletter). My most recent blog incarnation is titled “Oh No I’m a Caregiver – Dementia – Our Cautionary Story.” These posts are of extra-special significance to me. Dementia appears to be a reality destined to assault all of our lives in one way or another eventually. I believe that the story I have to tell – through this first post – and others yet to come at https://www.aliceorrbooks.com – has valuable insights to offer. For this reason, I hope you will pass it on to others in the hope that they might benefit from what I am learning.
For example – my husband Jonathan is actually quite fine at this early stage. He is engaged in lots of cognitively powerful activities. He writes original memoir pieces that are very good and says this is the result of sitting in on so many of my writing workshops over the past forty-five years. He now finds more joy in writing than the drawing and music that were his usual creative pursuits in the past. This is good because, as you know, portraying characters and composing scenes require a deep level of focus and detail concentration which is very beneficial for him. He also loves jigsaw puzzling – the 1500-piece variety. Again much concentration is required plus he has fond memory associations of doing puzzles with his mom when he was a boy. He also reads a lot – challenging books as well as his favorite New York Times articles. He has also begun gardening at our church which has a large planted space in sore need of attention. Medically he is taking a basic drug that has disappeared his brain fog.
Dementia is not like the tv commercials portray it to be. Their purpose is to ramp up fear and sell very expensive, very dangerous drugs. There is a long and gradual period before extreme changes begin and the aggressiveness these ads emphasize can often be mitigated with simple mood medications that are harmless and affordable.
Meanwhile there is a real-life story to be told here of real-life experience. I hope you will continue to read and share it. Dementia is a reality for many of us. Truth is our best armor against being cast into despair by the prospect. I hope to add a little to that reassuring truth. Dementia is one of the many ways all of us will evolve from this life into whatever may lay beyond. Passing on is our universal destiny. Some of those passages involve discomfort and unpleasantness. We can perhaps be a bit better prepared if we understand realistically what to expect.
That is what our story – Jonathan’s and mine – is meant to do. Help others – in an honest and caring fashion – to be prepared. Love and Blessings. Alice
I love this quote: Cut All the Flowers but You Cannot Keep Spring from Coming