Tell me your story...

Everybody has a story…

Are you one of the people who think that you have no story to tell? I’ve heard so many times in my life from many different people in many walks of life, "Have I got a story to tell you!" Me, being a writer has the urge to say, "Do tell!" But more often than not I just listen.

Listening to people tell me of their day, their past, their hopes for the future all spurn in me ideas to write. Normally I think to myself, ‘What if this were to happen or what if that were to happen?’ and then I go to my keyboard and write.

Writing for me has become my right arm, without it I’d be a hopeless mess. I take all the whispered tales I hear and turn them into my own. Not necessarily using the persons entire tale but I gather a moral from the story, write about it putting in my own characters and from there the idea has spawned in me the ability to build a story.

Every story should have a beginning, a middle and an end. It is a little like building a house out of brick instead of straw. If we construct the story from a sound foundation and build it layer by layer (the structure, the outer walls, the inner walls) we can finally conclude that we have sealed our story with a firm design and are ready to show it to the world. That would be after we furnish the house (story) with lots of imagery using our senses!

We have five senses to display in our story (some use six.) We have sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, and the sixth being the unknown! In the construction phase you want to SEE the house being built, what sounds do you hear while it is being shaped? Do you smell sawdust in the air? Apple pies being baked at the neighbors, wafting by tickling your nose? Can you almost taste the newly lain sod? Will you explain how the new carpet feels under your bare toes?

Now dapple in the unknown elements, mix it all together and you’ve built a house (story) out of brick! Leaving all of these integral elements out of your story, you will see a house made out of straw and slowly thread by thread it will fall apart and never be seen by anyone.