Where do stories come from?

This was originally posted on my Patreon, back in January 2019. Most of my blogging is now over there; this week I'm musing on what it takes to coach effectively and how this is its own kind of story. For as little as $3 a month you can get all the great content you're used to, fun rewards, and the satisfaction of knowing you are helping me create more art and making your appreciation tangible.

Almost every writer and storyteller I know has heard, "I would love to do what you do, but I don't have any ideas. Where do your stories come from?" Science fiction writer Barry Longyear published the collection It Came From Schenectady as a tongue-in-cheek response, saying that he subscribed to a mail order service based in Schenectady and they sent him ideas monthly. I sometimes long to be as snarky, but the answer is a lot more complicated.

I find inspiration for stories in all kinds of places, from existing works to the overheard, from my life to the odd reaches of my own imagination. Sometimes these ideas bloom into stories with almost no effort. Other times it takes real labor to figure out what it is I really want to say. And every so often there will be an idea that lingers for a long time until it turns into something unexpected. It's this last kind of story I want to think about with you, today.

One of my favorite of my own stories is called Blood Woman. It's a dark, first-person fabulist tale that explores love, domestic violence, and what we might do to protect those we care about. The protagonist is a woman who bleeds rubies and cries diamonds. I don't tell it often because it disturbs audiences, but it has become a part of my Haunted: Stories for the Brave of Heart show. I love this story. I love the character, the images, the places it lets me go. It took years to uncover and I am so glad I gave it time to emerge.

Blood Woman and a few others are what I call "pearl" stories because, like a pearl, they start with a small irritant and take time to form into something meaningful. These are stories that start from a single, powerful image. The image stays with me for a long, long time and, if I'm wise and mull on it, it will emerge into a story in its own time. The narrative needs to slowly accrete around the image. The precipitating image in Blood Woman was a girl's arm with a scratch, nothing serious but the kind of wound she might get while playing, with a few drops of blood. A single drop falls from her arm and lands on the ground, shimmering. The image always included the sound of bells and the taste of salt.

Had I rushed the narrative I probably would have come up with something interesting, maybe a fairy tale about a spunky girl who finds her fortune, but because I waited I found a much more powerful story. It's one that took time to craft and create. Had I rushed, the image would have been a nice one, but not the central theme.

This isn't the only time I've had an image haunt me. I wish I could say I gave each lingering image time to become a pearl story, but I haven't. When I haven't the story is inconsequential and I often end up removing it from my working repertoire. When I do let the image take its time as it grows into a story, it might become something special.

This is, of course, not the only way I develop stories, but it is one of the more interesting and mysterious. The creative process requires us to trust ourselves and our instincts about our work; I can think of no better example of this than pearl stories.

Have you ever had a similar experience? What happened? I'd love to know!
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