Category: Fiction

In yesterday’s article, I suggested three ways to pick stories from everyday life. Today I am going to talk about how to develop them into a stories.

You have to keep in mind that this form of storytelling is different from plot-driven storytelling, where the plot thinks for you.

There is basically only one plot in all plot-driven stories, whether you consider Christopher Booker’s Seven Basic Plots or Georges Polti’s Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations.

And that plot is — there is a central character who wants something intensely and goes after it. He struggles and faces obstacles after obstacles, leading him to climax, after which he either wins or loses.

In this format of storytelling, the plot leads you to the considerations such as theme, setting, point of view, structure, narrative arc, etc. Plot-driven storytelling works well for anything above 5000 words.

Usually, stories from everyday life events are written as micro-stories (300 words or less), or flash fiction (up to 1000 words), or short stories (1000–2000 words). Anything longer than that, you need to follow plot guidelines.

Now that we have got plot-driven stories out of the way, let’s concentrate on non-plot-driven stories.

There are five elements to consider while writing stories from everyday life events. They are:

1. Emotion
2. Characters
3. Conflict
4. Scene
5. Insight

Emotion

Emotion is the most important consideration to write everyday stories.

When reading a story, readers want something to touch their hearts. They want to feel something — love, compassion, hatred, pity, anger, wonder, surprise, fear, sadness, disgust, hope, trust, joy, shame, envy, anticipation etc.

In the short form, you can’t have too many emotions. So you need to concentrate on one.

Find the key emotion; this may be all you need to find your short story. — F. Scott Fitzgerald

Characters

Stories are always about someone. Micro-stories or even a story of few paragraphs has a character. Even the stories about animals, vegetables, or machines have central characters.

One of the main characteristics of a story is that the lead character goes through some form of transformation. However small, but the transformation is there. It doesn’t even have to be a positive transformation.

Long-form fiction has several characters in it. You do not have that luxury in short stories. The more characters you have, the more words you will need to describe them and their relationship and interactions with each other.

Keep the number to as few as possible. Two are ideal. Three or four are permissible. Anything more and you will end up writing a novella or a novel.

Conflict

conflict is the breeding ground from where the stories emerge.

It could be an internal conflict (conflict happening in the protagonist’s mind, also depicted as man vs. mind) or external conflict (man vs. man, man vs. nature).

Since the short stories don’t have much space, they mostly start when the central character is at the end of the road—a desperate man taking desperate measures.

Once you have chosen the key emotion, elaborate on the conflict around it. Make it simple and focused. Narrow down your ideas as much as possible.

Think of all the things that can go wrong for your character. Everything you don’t want to happen to you or your friends should happen to your character. The only conflict is interesting. 

Scene

When you write a story, you have two choices. You can show, or you can tell. If you are showing you are writing a scene. If you are telling you are writing a summary.

A scene is vivid and intimate; a summary is distant and efficient. The scene is where the writer engages the imagination and the emotions of the readers. Everything important in your story should happen in a scene.

You now have a key emotion, one or two-character, and a conflict. Next, think of a scene where this conflict unfolds.

You start writing from the middle. When the action is over, and the aftermath is unfolding. Suppose it is a story about a long-standing marriage in trouble. You don’t need to write about the years of prosperity and bliss.

Insight

When does an anecdote become a story? When there is an insight.

Stories from everyday life are reflective. The writer examines an event or a memory to draw home a message. Sometimes the message is explicit, other times it is implied. But it is always there. Without a message, a story has no reason. 

When reading a story readers are on the lookout for insight. It invites them to introspect and examine their own thoughts and beliefs. It is through insights that readers build a connection with the writer. 

When the readers feel the same emotion you as a writer want to convey and get the same insight you want them to get, you have succeeded in writing an emotive story.

Here is a story by Nardi Reeder Campionthat appeared in Readers Digest a little while ago to illustrate the significance of insights in everyday stories.

Nardi describes a time in her life when she was down in dumps when she discovers a diary that had been kept more than forty years by a maiden aunt who had gone through some bad times herself.

Aunt Grace had been poor, frail and forced to live with relatives. 

“I know I must be cheerful,” she wrote, “living in this large family upon whom I am dependent. Yet gloom haunts me. Clearly, my situation is not going to change; therefore I shall have to change.”

To help her hold her fragile world together, Aunt Grace resolved to do six things every day:

1. Something for someone else

2. Something for herself

3. Something she didn’t want to do that needed doing

4. A physical exercise

5. A mental exercise

6. An original prayer that always included counting her blessings

The rest of the story described how these six steps help change Aunt Grace’s life.“Can life be lived by a formula?” Nardi asked herself. 

“All I know is that since I started to live by those six precepts, I’ve become more involved with others and less ‘buried’ in myself.” Instead of wallowing in self-pity, I have adopted Aunt Grace’s motto, “Bloom where you are planted.”

“It is extraordinary how extraordinary the ordinary person is.” — George Will

And even more extraordinary is the number of stories they’re carrying around — waiting to be written.

Now write the first draft.

Write the story as it comes to you.

Remember, it is only the first draft. The aim of the first draft is to find the story.

Don’t worry about polishing it or introducing various storytelling elements to it. All that can be done later. Don’t worry if you can’t take it to a conclusion either. Take it as far as you can.

When you get really stuck, use the TPIOM technique.

TPiOM is the refined version of James Altucher’s Idea Machine technique for fiction writers.

TPiOM stands for Ten Ideas in One Minute. If you can’t figure out what bad thing will happen to your protagonist, list ten possibilities in one minute. You must write ten doesn’t matter how unlikely they are to happen, and you must write them quickly before your left brain gets a chance to interfere. 

Then chose the most unusual one and proceeded with it. 

Don’t worry about the word count.

Write as many words as you need to tell the story. 

Don’t worry about bringing it to a certain length. 

If your story is about a conversation you had over coffee, capture as many details as you remember — describe the cafeteria, the smell of coffee, what your friends were wearing, the waiter in the background, the crockery. Try capturing dialogue as best as you can.

Once you have done it, put it aside and pat yourself on the back.

Today’s work is done.

Your draft is rough, but we can smooth it out in revisions.

Because stories aren’t written, they are re-written.

——-

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Everyone likes stories. Stories are how we communicate. But, the best stories are the stories that are close to home – stories from everyday life.

Storytelling is important not only for fiction writers but the non-fiction writers too. What makes non-fiction interesting to read is the stories.

One way to practice storytelling is to write short stories based on what happens around us. There is a story in practically everything. You need to develop a knack to pick them up.

Getting good at writing short stories can set you up for success in other writing ventures as well.

Even if your end goal is to write a novel, you should learn how to craft solid, captivating short stories.

If you think writing short stories is easier because they are short, you are mistaken.

Writing short stories is hard.

The truth is to tell a story in a limited number of words takes more skill than writing a full-length novel or a nonfiction book.

And writing short stories from your life is even harder. Mainly because you are too close to the incident. But stories from your life are more impactful and insightful. They relate better.

There is an art to writing amazing stories. I am going to write a three article series on how to write stories from everyday life.

Today’s article is the first one of the series where I will suggest how to pick ideas for stories.

There are three ways you can pick stories from around you.

Be on the lookout for something unusual.

Out-of-ordinary things are happening around us all the time.

A next-door neighbor whom you know like the kind and docile man turns out to be a crossdresser.

A couple you know as an ideal couple divorced after twenty years of marriage.

The well-dressed old lady at the end of the street is a shoplifter.

We see and hear about these things all the time, but instead of making a note of them, we dismiss them.

If you take a moment and start thinking about them, each one has the potential to become a story.

Take the crossdresser man, for instance. How did you find out he was a crossdresser? Was he embarrassed? How often would he have felt that embarrassment? What does his family think about him? How made him a crossdresser? What would his world be like? What he really wants in his ideal world? Of course, you don’t know the answer to all these questions, but that is exactly the place to develop your fiction writing skills.

A non-fiction writer will try to find the fact and write the story from the factual aspect; a fiction writer will fill the details from her imagination.

Another source to pick unusual events or things in the newspapers, TV, magazines, or even other fictional stories. Start collecting them as you come across them. For example, a young man jumping from the Sydney Harbour Bridge is a story. Two drunken young women arrested for revealing themselves also is a story.

Keep the cuttings in a folder, and let them rest there for a while. Then, when you take them out months later, you will be able to see them with fresh eyes and weave a story around them.

Add something unusual to every day happening.

Not all daily happenings are out of the ordinary. But they still can be turned into a story with a bit of imagination.

Three friends driving out of town to a winery for lunch is hardly an out-of-the-ordinary event. But with some imagination, you can add something unexpected to it.

They can meet an accident where just the driver survives, and the other two are killed. The driver holds herself responsible for their deaths because he knew it was his fault.

They can meet an extraordinary woman in the winery whom all three want to be friends with, so they toss a coin.

The winery could be closed due to renovation, but they decide to poke around and find a stock of bottles. Seeing no one around, they decide to steal a few boxes.

Imaginary stories have been used in non-fiction writing too. They can become hypothetical scenarios.

Write it as it is but give it an insight.

Some events are complete stories in themselves because they hold meaning in them. You don’t need to do much with them other than highlight that insight.

Have a look at the story below:

One afternoon, Martha Sweeny, was in a coin laundry outside her hometown of stonewall Texas, when half a dozen young motorcyclists suddenly roared up to the gas station next door.

They were all a boisterous, rough-looking lot, and one of them — younger than the other, no more than seventeen — was the loudest and roughest-acting of the bunch.

With several of his friends, the boy entered the laundry, and then something happened when he looked around this small, rural town laundry and, especially when he notices this older woman observing him.

In one of those revealing moments we’ve all lived through, Martha made eye contact with the boy and saw him hesitate.

Later after his friends had gassed up their cycles, he told them his starter was on the blink to go on without him. He said he’d catch up.

After the others went roaring off, the boy brought some dirty clothes into the laundry. “His shoulders sagged as if he were terribly weary.

Dust and grease and sweat-stained his shirt and jeans. A beginning beard faintly shadowed his chin and lean cheeks. He turned, briefly, our eyes met again. Emotions flickered across his face. Doubt, longing, pain?”

Moments later he ran his clothes through the washer and dryer, then disappeared into the men’s room.

When he emerged ten minutes later, he was wearing clean pants and shirt and he had shaved his scraggly beard scrubbed his hands and face and even combed his hair.

He now grinned in Martha’s direction and jumping on his motorcycle, zoomed away.

Not following the others, but going back the way he’d come. Back towards home.

I read this story in a Reader’s Digest years ago (unfortunately, I didn’t note the writer’s details). Every time I read, it gives me a lump in the throat. And that is the point of the stories — to evoke emotions. 

The insight here is highlighted by a single line ‘He now grinned in Martha’s direction and jumping on his motorcycle, zoomed away.’ It gives you hope that a single moment can change the course of your life.

I have published some stories on Medium The Flight, Aunt Olivia, A Christmas Wish, The Blessed, and The Goddess based on observation of everyday happenings in life.

I wrote them six to seven years ago and haven’t done much with them since. I am trying to get back into fiction writing, and this is my way of revising what I learned about story writing years ago.

In the next article, I will explore how to develop stories once you have collected some ideas.

Photo by Silas Tolles on Unsplash

Three years ago, we moved to Darwin with my husband’s job during the famous build-up season. He had been offered a project manager position with a housing development project for the indigenous community. Since our kids were young, we decided to use the opportunity of living in a small town with warm tropical weather. We were given a company house to live in for the tenure. Aakash joined the work straight away and left me with the responsibility of setting the house and finding the school for our kids.

We did not know anyone in Darwin and I was overjoyed when driving back from the local grocery store. A car followed me and pulled out in our driveway right behind mine. Out came Vasanthi, a tall, slender woman with a long black braid. Accompanying her was her daughter.

“I saw you at the supermarket and called you, but you didn’t see me. Are you new to Darwin?” asked Vasanthi.

Vasanthi lived on the same street. Her daughter Sonali was five years old, a year younger than our daughter Richa and a year older than our son Karan. She invited us for dinner that night and soon our families became inseparable. Her husband, Nilesh, was an accountant. A self-conscious man with distinct South Indian features. Nilesh developed an instant liking for Aakash. They had plenty to talk about from the beginning, even though it was evident that Nilesh was a quiet fellow.

He was very much in awe of his wife’s beauty. Vasanthi was the kind of person in whose presence everyone else dimmed. At five feet eight, she towered above all of us. Dove eyes, long hair reaching to her waist. Her curvaceous body was perfect for the sari. Like Nilesh, she had South Indian features except for the complexion. She was fairer than even north Indian women. She was the kind of woman about whom it is said men want to own her and women want to befriend her.

Vasanthi made friends easily. Half of the town knew her. For the next few months, she became my companion and guide. She showed me where to shop for ethnic vegetables, whom to call for house cleaning, and which playgroups were more tolerant of multicultural children. All this time telling me stories from her life.

“I was barely twenty years old when I got married. I was in the second year of college when my father passed away.”

“Would you like to resume your studies?” I inquired sympathetically.

“Oh, I am. I am finishing my classical dance degree soon.”

“Classical dance degree? Here in Darwin?” I asked incredulously.

“I go to India each year, for three months,” she added in a matter-of-fact tone.

Aakash and I started walking with kids in the soft evening breeze of Darwin beaches. On weekends we took them cycling around the park. When the build-up season came, we joined the crowds to see the lightning on the Nightcliff beach.

Soon my days got filled with the children’s outings and craft get-togethers. Three days a week swimming, two days decoupage, in-between scrapbooking and glass painting.

When school started, I met other mums and with stay with them to help the teachers in the classroom.

Even though we lived in the same street, I didn’t see Vasanthi that much. Whenever I went to her house unannounced, she won’t be home. Nilesh would inform me that she was out, either organizing some fundraising event or helping someone with a wedding or birthday celebration.

On most of these occasions, I would find Nilesh either doing dishes or vacuuming the house. Vasanthi hated the housework. She cooked whenever they were entertaining. For the rest of the days cooking was Nilesh’s responsibility.

It didn’t matter how busy Nilesh was at work. He would never skip taking their daughter to various classes her mother had enrolled her in.

***

When she was not home late at night he would read her book and put Sonali to sleep. Sonali was always dressed immaculately. Like her mother, she had expensive tastes. Like her father, she was quiet and lacked confidence. For her mother, she was a living doll whom she could dress as she pleased. Every time Vasanthi went to India she brought back dresses worth seeing.

Nilesh and I often met at the park at the end of the street where my kids loved to play. Whenever we got there, Sonali would also come with her father.

“She loves the swing. She has been coming here ever since she was a toddler.” Nilesh would sit patiently on the bench equipped with a water bottle and peanut butter sandwich.

“You must feel lucky to have such a lovely child and such a lovely wife. He blushed. After a bit of hesitation, he shared the story of their marriage. “When her parents brought her proposal to my mother, I couldn’t believe my luck. She could have married anyone. I mean, I used to watch her in the college, from a distance. Every boy wanted to be her friend. Wanted to marry her. Boys much more handsome than me. Much richer than me. I indeed am lucky.”

***

Each year, when Vasanthi went to India to continue with her classical dance degree, she would take Sonali with her. Nilesh would be by himself. We often invited him to have dinner with us. Aakash and Nilesh would watch footy over beer, while I would cook Indian meals while keeping an eye on kids playing in the backyard.

Occasionally, Aakash will offer to do BBQ to give me a break from cooking. Two men will go to the local shops to get fresh fish, marinate it in lemon, ginger, and garlic, wrap it up in aluminum foil and cook it on the charcoal grill. I would heat frozen chips in the oven, and we would eat outside along with garden-fresh salads and relishes.

This year we went to Bali for a holiday. When we came back, I reminded Aakash to ring Nilesh and invite him over for dinner. But he got busy, catching up with work and I with unpacking and bringing the house back in order.

It was almost the end of February. On a Saturday morning, Aakash was buried in the newspaper. I was thinking about what to cook when I realized we hadn’t had BBQ this year.

“Aakash, how about inviting Nilesh and Vasanthi for BBQ tonight. Vasanthi must be back from India. Kids can play together while we can catch up.”

“That reminds me.” Aakash looked up from the paper, “I saw Nilesh at the shops the other day. He looked… disheveled.” He paused before continuing, “When I shook hand with him, he looked the other way. He had a brooding expression on his face. As if he was trying to avoid me.”

“Did you ask him to come for dinner?”

“No,” Aakash got buried in the newspaper again, “It didn’t feel right.”

“Maybe you should ring him, just to find out if he is OK.”

“I guess I should,” Aakash mumbled from his paper. I got busy mopping the floors and cooking. The suitcases from the holiday were still needed to be put away. I got Aakash to put them on the top shelf of the wardrobe.

A couple of days later, Aakash mentioned that he rang Nilesh a couple of times, but there was no response.

Weekends passed and so did the weekdays. Children’s school was going to start on Monday and after the Saturday morning cleaning regime, we took kids shopping for school supplies.

A few hours later, we headed towards the car park with a trolley full of bags from Big W and K-Mart promising kids dinner at Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Rather than eating at the crowded shopping center, we drove to the one by the lake. At the car park of the fast-food restaurant, Aakash spotted Nilesh’s car. Like us, he might have also brought his family to the fast-food joint to mark the end of the holiday.

I got excited at the prospect of catching up with Vasanthi after her trip from India. We always had a lot to discuss when she came back from India, starting from the well-being of the family members to the latest fashion and shopping spree she would have had.

We didn’t find Nilesh inside the restaurant. We ordered the food and waited in line for our food to be ready. There was still no sign of Nilesh. We picked up our tray and sat down near the window overlooking the lake when Aakash spotted Nilesh. He was sitting on a bench in the park overlooking the lake. He was alone. Kids ate their meal while Aakash went to say hello to him. I watched from the window. Aakash was right. I had never seen Nilesh so disarrayed. Hunched at the shoulders, he had the posture of an older man.

Aakash tapped him on the shoulder from behind and offered his hand, which he shook, sitting down. I watched Aakash sitting next to him and put his arm around his shoulder. They talked for a while, or rather, Aakash talked and Nilesh nodded.

“Mum, she is eating my chips,” Karan whined.

Richa made a face mimicked Karan.

Children’s bickering brought my attention back to the room. I separated their chips. A sickening feeling arose from the bottom of my stomach. Something was not right. When I looked up Aakash was back. I raised an eyebrow and he nodded. ‘He will come tonight.’

At home, I prepared a simple meal while Aakash helps the kids prepare their school bags. We decided to feed the kids early so that they could sleep early. By half-past eight, both of them were in bed with their neatly ironed school uniform hanging from the wardrobe handle.

The doorbell rang faintly and only once. Aakash opened the door and brought Nilesh in. I greeted him. He nodded. Aakash handed him a glass of whisky when he slumped in the lounge. Both men sat down and I went to the kitchen to heat the food.

His hair was long and badly needed a cut. His face was unshaved at least for a week. It seemed like he had been sleeping in the same clothes he was wearing now.

He stayed silent and so was Aakash. The only sound in the room was of me putting the food on the table. I wanted to announce that the dinner is ready when I caught Aakash’s eye. He indicated I come and sit with them.

I sat on the lounge in front and waited. As if it was the cue Nilesh was waiting for. He hadn’t touched his drink. Rolling the glass between his hands, he leaned forward and said in a faint voice, ‘I did everything. Everything I could.’

We both remained silent.

‘Even when I couldn’t, I did whatever I could. But I should have known. She was too good for me. I didn’t deserve her. She was meant to have a better life. A life I could never give her.’

I couldn’t stop myself and asked, “What happened, Nilesh?”

“She is gone. She is gone,’ he looked straight at me with his red eyes, ‘apparently, he was waiting for her since high school. Never married because of her. And now he is a millionaire in America. Owns a hotel chain there.”

Aakash put his glass on the side table and reached forward to place his hand on Nilesh’s back.

‘She took Sonali with her too.’ And he broke down crying. His body shook with the violent sobs which came from deep within where it hurt the most.

© Neera Mahajan, November 2015

Photo by Saksham Gangwar on Unsplash

Aunt Olivia looks forward to the arrival of the community carer Lara who comes three times a week to help her with the shower and other little things she can’t do herself after her hip operation.

Twenty-three years old Lara is the only human connection Aunt Olivia has left with anyone other than her two nieces who take turns in dropping food. Their trips are short, conversation to the point and often loaded with instructions on how long to heat the food and what to do in case there is an emergency. It is Lara with whom Aunt Olivia gets to have a chat she so much needs.

‘While you are here would you mind rubbing some cream on my legs? They are prickly like cactus.’ Lara, a second-year nursing student, who works as a carer on the side, obliges.

‘Tell me how that boyfriend of yours is going?’ Olivia asks enjoying Lara’s young finger massage her wrinkly skin.

‘He is doing fine. These days he is helping his dad repair their house in Braidwood. I hardly see him.’

‘Not good dear, not good. You two ought to get married by now.’

Lara smiles. Each week, at least once, the conversation goes in the direction of marriage. It seems that when old people have nothing left in their own lives, they start meddling with others.

But Lara doesn’t mind Aunt Olivia prying. She has a way about her that was nudging but not intruding. That is perhaps the reason why she is an aunt to everyone.

‘We have talked about this before, Aunt Olivia. We are too young to get married. Besides both, Alex and I do not have regular income yet.’

‘Too young,’ scolds Aunt Olivia, ‘how old you want to be when you have children. Thirty-five. Goodness golly! You two have been living together for five years. Didn’t you say that to me?’

‘Yes.’ Lara wipes the extra oil from Olivia’s legs with a towel and pulls the pyjama down. ‘But none of my friends is married yet. Neither is his. Besides what marriage has to do with having children?’

It takes Olivia a few moments to comprehend that piece of information. Then she responds with a sigh ‘You might be right dear. What marriage has to do with having children?’

Then in a lower tone adds, ‘In my days — everything. Having children outside of marriage was enough to ruin not only mother’s life but that of the child’s as well.’

She walks slowly with the help of a walking frame to the living room where Lara helps her to settle in her favorite couch.

Olivia asks Lara to hand her a decorated brown wooden box from the dresser. It has a pile of old photographs. Slowly she reaches to the bottom of the box to pull out an envelope with a black and white photo of a young man. She looks at the photo with affection before handing it to Lara. A tall young man in casual pants and checker jumper is staring at the camera half leaning against a wall. He has an air of carefreeness about him.

‘I left marrying to him too late. I wasn’t sure. I thought we were too young. He went to war. Before leaving he came one last time. He wanted to go to the war as a married man. But I wasn’t so sure. He never came back.’

The photo has turned pale with time. Its edges have worn out with constant handling. Lara stares at the photo for a while. The young man in it looks very familiar. As if she has met him somewhere but couldn’t recall where.

‘Did he die in the war?’ she asks knowing Aunt Olivia was not married.

‘He went missing. I kept waiting that one day, he will come back.’

‘You didn’t find anyone else?’

‘I got too old.’ Aunt Olivia lets out a laugh. ‘First I was too young and then I was too old. Some came forward, but I was looking for him in them. Obviously, there was no one like him.’

Lara looks up and Aunt Olivia holds her gaze. ‘There is an age to get married. My mother used to say and I didn’t listen to her. She said that if you miss that age, marriage has no charm.’

Lara nods and gets up to leave, the photo still in her hand. She asks Aunt Olivia if she can borrow it.

Aunt Olivia gives her consent with her eyes closed. Suddenly she is too tired, either from all the effort she has put in this morning or from the flood of memories.

Two days later Aunt Olivia hears a knock at the door. It is not her day for a shower and her younger niece has brought the food for the week already. Who can it be?Before she can shuffle to the door, the key turns and the door opens. Lara walks in followed by a young man.

‘Aunt Olivia, I would like you to meet my boyfriend, Alex.’

There is no mistake in the resemblance. The face, the eyes, the shape of the jaw, even the color of the hair is the same. Only that her John was a bit fairer. This young man is darker, perhaps from working in the sun. Aunt Olivia runs her hand on his face with tears clouding her eyes. While Olivia is inspecting Alex, Lara goes out to help someone else come through the door.

‘Aunt Olivia, this is Alex’s father.’ I drove to Braidwood yesterday to bring him here.’

Stands before her, a man slightly older than her. He is still tall. His shoulders still broad. His skin still fair. The face which is forever young in her memory in fact has aged. But it is still the same face. They don’t know how long they stand there looking at each other, not believing what they were seeing, unaware of the presence of others. Then Aunt Olivia breaks the silence.

‘I waited for you.’ She says.

‘Do you think you are ready now?’ John asks.

That week minister performs two weddings, one in the church and one in Aunt Olivia’s living room.

© Neera Mahajan July 2014

Photo by Damir Bosnjak on Unsplash