There’s a new segment joining the blog.
Do you ever have an interaction, or see an object, or hear a sentence out-of-context, then let your brain run wild with possibilities? What if something were slightly off about it? What if the obvious reasonable explanation really isn’t the explanation at all?
What if?
Writers think like this all the time, but for comparison, instead of “what if this object were a different color?” we go straight to “WHAT IF IT EXPLODED AND THE SHARDS GOT ABDUCTED BY AN ALIEN RACE THAT ACTUALLY WASN’T SUPERIOR TO HUMANITY, BECAUSE THAT’S SO OVERDONE, AND THE SHARDS INTEGRATED INTO THE ALIENS AND GAVE THEIR PLANET THE LONG LOST THING THEY NEEDED?
Yeah, that’s how writer brain works.
One of my writing friends and I do this a lot to each other. We’ve been known to preface elaborate stories with just the words “writer brain,” to which the other nods sympathetically, listens with rapt attention, and oohs and aahs over the crazy directions the tiny story-let goes. Are most of them good story ideas? No. Are they entertaining? Almost always.
Case in point: the friend mentioned above recently went to look at a new house. Ignoring the red flag that the place had a panic room, the basement had some . . . distinctive remodeling aspects. Like an entire chunk had been just walled off with no access in or out.
And it was leaking water, because we’d gotten a ton of rain.
And there was a strange smell.
Naturally, my friend left this house convinced that there was a dead body back there. The event is going in one of her future suspense novels. As for the actual fate of the basement, we’ll never know, but isn’t it fun to imagine?
All this to say, I have plenty of these odd observations in my daily life (albeit usually not as interesting as the one described above). I’d like to share some of the better ones. Tell me what you think as they start popping up in the weeks to come!
Calley Jones, Author 