Building a Mystery

A long time ago, I knew I wanted to be a writer. Of non-fiction. I understood language and grammar, and I could report and analyze facts, persuade if necessary. In my view, there was little emotion or imagination to writing non-fiction, which was fine by me because coming up with something entirely on my own was terrifying. It’s a narrow way of thinking on all fronts, I know. 

Fiction was just out of my grasp. I would always wonder, what would I even write about? What story would I tell? Perhaps it was a function of age. But as I’ve gotten older, fiction is all I want to write. Much like reading, writing fiction helps me enter worlds I can only imagine because who can fit everything into a single life. And I’m getting older.

Writing, to me, is never a linear exercise. Jack Kerouac sat at a typewriter and wrote On the Road on a single, 120-foot roll of paper from beginning to end in a matter of days. I start with brief scenes, brief conversations, brief musings. And then I build. I don’t know what the story is going to be, how it’s going to end, where it’s going to begin, or what characters might pop up. Sometimes I’m waiting for inspiration.

I love music, or maybe I should say I love lyrics. I always wanted to be in a band, write songs, play the guitar, and sing them (even though I can’t sing). I have read, watched, and listened to countless interviews with musicians who have shared their creative process. If I could only watch one show for the rest of my life, it would be VH1 Storytellers. Musicians get their inspiration from obvious places – their own life experiences, other people’s experiences, something they read, something they see, even the ether (Tom Petty). Art comes from everywhere, and what’s that old quote about everything already been done?

I’m going to use Sarah McLachlan as an example. She wrote “Angel” after reading about the heroin overdose of the Smashing Pumpkins’ keyboardist. She wrote “Sweet Surrender” after watching the movie Leaving Las Vegas, and she wrote “Possession” after receiving letters from an obsessed fan over a period of years. When I heard these explanations, it made me consider – why can’t I do what McLachlan does but in reverse? Take a line or two I’m inspired by in a song and create an entire scene or story, create a character, develop a setting. And so, occasionally, that’s what I do.

Writing The Setting Sun took me years and came from all sorts of inspiration, including my favorite music, some well-known and some unknown. Spending time with that novel taught me fiction has always been all around me, undeniably within reach.