Q&A: Jordan's Question - IDEAS

#2 how to develop fiction

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Continuing to work with your Questions!

From Jordan: I’ve been writing short essays on my Rocky Point Substack. Do you have any tips for ways I can switch my non-fiction, observational mind into a fiction engine that can create short stories and novels? Plot ideas escape me. Thanks!

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Frank, Terry, and Rosy have all contributed valuable thoughts on this—do check out!

Some writing creates challenging shifts. I’ve been thinking over this question since first reading it here. It’s such an enduring basic. That is, it’s always with us as creatives! Whether we’re new or “old” at this. It was good to read others’ responses.

I’m on the road, so I don’t have a copy of my short fiction collection on me. But was mentally reviewing how many of those story ideas came about.

In variably, they started off with a question. For instance, one is about loss and grief. And its genesis was when I encountered a neighbour, a person I had never met before, out on a walk, and somehow we fell to talking. She mentioned the loss of a “house-mate,” and something in her tone, and in her facial expression really hit me in the gut. It occurred to me that this was no regular “house-mate,” but a same-sex life partner. (This was back in ’94 or so. My goodness, I’d like to think things have changed!)

And it came to me: the pain in not being able to grieve and mourn in any public way. It became a huge question in my mind.