News-worthy so Worth a Story

My parents have a Saturday morning routine that hasn't changed as long as I've been alive: wake up and have a cuppa; then go off to the village shop and get the papers; section by section, devour those papers by poring over every story from world news to economics and entertainment. Every article gets guzzled. I never understood it myself as I found most news tedious. I'd flip through and ignore a ton of stories and just read the odd one or two.

Now I love the news and reading about the world, excepting still the economics section which bores me to tedious fact-clobbering death. Some news moves me so much that I've even had to stop reading some news articles on the way to or from work in case they flood the bus in tears. The news is full of terrifying amazing and again terrifying stories of real humans and the world they inhabit, all designed to tug at our emotions. A journalist might work on the reader's worries or fears or indignation or empathy or nostalgia through their presentation of stories. If these real life stories can evoke these feelings in the news-reader, something inspired by them and capturing part of the real world feel of them too can maybe do the same for the fiction-reader.

The news is full of possible inspiration and a few of my story ideas were triggered by the reading of a true story in the paper. However, there are some dangers in this type of inspiration. Take for example this story:

Narendra Dabholkar: India's Maharashtra state bans black magic after killing

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-23776406

I found this story fascinating and it led me to read more and more on the idea of modern day black magic and superstitions and the various crimes that came hand in hand with them. Tiny bits and pieces of different stories ended up rolling around together and forming a tiny nugget of an entirely new story. In the end, the final story ended up being nothing like the original inspiration but the thought process of researching this story had led me to create a whole other one.

Despite the story having changed so much, I felt caution was needed when using any idea formed from a true life situation that had actually happened to an individual and a community and a country. I worried that if the story were too close to reality, it could somehow offend or hurt the people who lived it or be seen as theft of someone's own life story. These worries floated round my mind:

• Any story inspired by news is more than just a story as it has actually happened to someone, so it must be dealt with sensitively. In this story, a man died and a family lost a family member. Also, a community struggled with this violence and the social implications of these changes. It would be horrid for them to feel like their personal tragedy had been abused or misrepresented or stolen. I decided then that any inspiration that came from the news would focus on the situation, never the person.
• Also, this story was connected to people's religious beliefs; always a sensitive topic. Therefore, I felt that really in-depth study around the article and the background of the story and the society it was set in was essential even if that information or that story itself might not be used. To avoid causing offence, I felt that I needed to really understand as much about the real story as possible. This could hopefully help avoid giving accidental offence as well as help me write a more authentic situation.
• And more than anything else, I tried to remind myself that this news story was only an INSPIRATION, a trigger to my own idea rather than a taking of someone else's idea. And that I had no right to take an entire story or an entire situation and transfer it to my story. The news item was the centre of my brainstorming but never the centre of my newly-created story. It was important to remember that I was still creating my own fiction, not stealing someone else's biography.

So...keep your eyes open and your news-brain well informed. 

Other than the economics pages, the news might just inspire you.

How NOT to End a Book

I discovered that I wanted to write when I was about 6 or 7 and my mum had just finished reading 'The Hobbit' to me and my brother in nightly installments, complete with an excellent Smeagol voice and sound effects for fish slip-slip slithering down Smeagol's throat.

I started writing around then and still do (if somewhat sporadically). I drew elaborate maps and plotted out stories and made character profiles, even then trying to whip my world into order by over-plotting. That hasn't changed, but the ways that I end my stories certainly have. 

Meet Pip, aged 8: Fantasy enthusiast with an obsession with knights, wizards and dragons.

TYPICAL ENDINGS: "And the knight killed the dragon and the princess escaped from the mad wizard and they found each other and they alllllll lived happily ever after. Except for the poor dragon that is. The End."

At the time, this seemed like an excellent way to end a story with the knight conquering his foe and marrying a princess. Disney loved it so I did too! NEVER AGAIN.

Pip aged 13 or 14 went through a rebellious phase: Keen on horror now and a lover of dystopian futures, all the endings changed. Dramatically.

TYPICAL ENDINGS: "And everybody DIED! Everybody! Even, no ESPECIALLY, the orphan girl begging on the street corner. Stone cold dead. Add a widow weeping over there in the corner. And how about a massacre? Happy endings? They're for the weak and predictable!"

I had read 'Ender's Game' and had been in awe of the boldness of the ending. I had read 'Little Women' and remembered the shock and impact that one little death had had on me and decided to magnify that shock tenfold! No one was safe because I was on a mission to surprise and affect my readers in the same way. NOT THE WAY TO GO.

< BRIEF INTERLUDE FOR UNIVERSITY AND ALL KINDS OF DISTRACTIONS >

At the grand old age of 23ish, there was a SLIGHTLY more mature Pip: A fan of the anti-hero and characters with heroic flaws. The endings became a little more balanced but still a bit glum.

TYPICAL ENDINGS: "And the hero saved the day at great personal cost to himself which he never really recovered from and he then led a lonesome life while the people he had saved lived out their lives happily, except for that ONE character that died and we still miss."

I had read 'Hamlet' at school and fallen for him. And don't even get me started on Heathcliff. My characters mostly lived but were doomed to an isolated and unhappy fate without hope of resolution. NO MORE.

And now at the even grander old age of something that shall not be disclosed, I finally feel happy with my planned endings and I hope my future readers will too. I hope to leave my characters (and therefore readers) SATISFIED. 

- I aim to at least have some closure on one part of the character's story and struggle, but to still have plenty more story left to live after the cover is closed, because that's life. 

- There should be a cast of varied characters who all have some flaw or other, because who doesn't but we can all work on them. 

- No one needs to shoulder the whole burden of saving the world all alone because that just makes them irritating. 

- No one is left ultimately happy but no one is left irredeemably broken either, because your reader needs a little sprinkling of hope but it must be hope that they can believe in. 

- Some people live and some people die but every character moves at least a little closer to a resolution. 

That's all I've learned so far - not particularly epic advice, but it's what I aim for.

I can happily say that I have at least never ended a story with "...and I woke up and it was all a dream!"