Dear Friends,
Have you ever wondered where authors come up with their ideas for stories? Ideas come from everywhere such as reading an interesting article in the newspaper that sparks the imagination, a person’s own experiences, and hearing stories. Last week, my husband and I were up at Tofte, MN on Lake Superior. My mother owns a house on the lake and it’s a good place to write while listening to the waves crashing into the rocky shoreline and enjoying the peaceful setting. A blanket of freshly fallen snow covered the ground.
One day we walked to a nearby art gallery. The artist, Ron, who owns it is a friendly man and shared a bear story. He lives north of Tofte and one day he was putting food in the bird feeder near his house when he turned around and there was a black bear right in back of him. I make note of stories like this as you never know when they might come in handy. I’ve used He had a pan in his hand so he smacked the bear with it and yelled. The bear ran off. But then it stopped and turned to look at him. They stared at each other for a moment, then the man started yelling and banging his pan against the house and the bear ran off. Since then, the man has frequently seen the bear around. I’m thinking. “Dude, get rid of the bird feeder!” You don’t want anything around that attracts bears. I learned that when we were camping this fall in Glacier National Park.
I use my own experiences and encounters with bears and other wild animals as the basis of scenes in my books. Even though I write science fiction, I use real animals on Earth for ideas in creating an alien animal. There are some pretty amazing animals on our planet.
In my most recent novel, Call of the Eagle, in one scene the main characters, Fawn and Baymond, are alone in the wilderness and have an encounter with an animal. Here is a short excerpt from the book showing how I took some of my own experiences with bears combined with stories I’ve heard to create a scene.
The aroma of the fish cooking filled Baymond’s nostrils and his stomach rumbled. It would be the first good meal they’d had since leaving the space station. The thought of eating the fish was pleasantly rolling through his head when he heard a deep growl followed by Fawn’s scream.
Baymond’s eyes flashed open as a large snarling beast ran toward him. Before he had a chance to move, it sunk its teeth into his thigh. He cried out in pain and blindly struck out at the animal with his fists. He started to rise, but the creature swatted him, ripping his jacket and shirt to shreds, and knocking him to the ground.
Fawn grabbed a branch from the fire and began hitting the beast with the burning end. The creature rose onto its hind legs, towering above her, and snarled. Fawn grabbed a branch from the fire and hit the beast with the burning end. The creature rose onto its hind legs, towering above her, and snarled.”
The next time you read a book, you might want to ponder what experience led the reader to write that scene. Or if you’re a writer pay attention to a unusual experiences you can use in your novel.
