Catching A Story

I have a specific experience of getting a story idea and then committing that story to tangible form.

And it’s just my experience. For as many different writers as there are, there are just as many experiences of writing and the process of writing.

But, for me, when I get an inspired idea and begin to write that inspired idea, it’s like “catching a story.” Like catching it out of the air.

Lately, I’ve used writing prompts to start all my stories. So first there’s the experience of finding, or being lead, to a story prompt.

For instance, I write a story (free) every month for my newsletter. This month when I sat down to write my story, I considered my favorite prompt sources and used my intuition to be pulled toward one of the sources.

I first checked out my Twitter Prompts list, which has been a good source for me lately, but wasn’t really feeling anything there. But I was feeling drawn to a list of Erotic Story Word Prompts, even though I wasn’t going to write anything erotic (this is for my newsletter after all). I figured I could pick a few off the list and write a PG-13 or below short romance story, which is what I did.

So now that I had my words/phrases for the story, I let an idea start coming to me. I didn’t force this idea or try to have any kind of an agenda with it. It feels very much like receiving to me, rather than a more active crafting.

I tend to think of it like this: The story exists somewhere in the story realm (wherever that is) and I simply spot it and allow it to tell itself to me. Or, in other words, I catch it. 🙂

There’s also a timeliness aspect to catching a story. I used to write batches of short stories for my newsletter at one time, like maybe 6 or so. Then when it came time to send one out, I had a story ready to go. But I changed this recently. Now, I’m writing the story the week before I send out a newsletter, so that the story is “fresh.”

I made this change partly based on this idea I heard in blogger Steve Pavlina’s Deep Abundance Integration course. I’m paraphrasing, but it goes something like this: Inspired ideas come from picking up on “signals” from other people. And when I say signals, I don’t mean body language or words or anything tangible, I’m talking about signals that can only be picked up intuitively. Like, if you were to sit at your desk and “tune in” to what’s needed right now with just your intuition.

But there is very much a timing aspect to this. So a signal that you get might very well be needed now or soon and if you wait too long, it gets stale. I liked this idea and thought it was interesting, hence the change in how I write newsletter stories.

Now, of course, a longer fiction project like a novel needs more time (for me it does anyway) but I find novels have their own timing rhythms. Maybe I’ll write more about that in a future post.

But for today, I just wanted to share what my process is here. And also, while I was waiting for my lunch a little earlier, the phrase “Catching A Story” came to me, and I thought, “Signal?” 🙂

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Amanda Linehan is the author of North, about a young woman on the run from her past, the law and an old adversary out to get her. Her newest release is Bored To Death: A Vampire Thriller, about a 300-year-old vampire trying to restore the balance between life and death. She has published five novels. Get a free short story every month when you sign up for her newsletter.