How You Got That Story: Thoughts for the Writer Seeking It

 

The house stood in the middle of Jerusalem more than 2,000 years ago and was owned by a priestly family known as Katros. When Romans destroyed the city in 70 CE, the house burned to the ground, like many others. Archeologists who discovered it in the 1970s called it Burnt House, and I first heard of it on a trip to the city in my twenties.

The story itself was intriguing, but what attracted me most was the idea of using the archeological site surrounding the house as a setting for a new play. I thought about it the entire day after being there, and when I came home, I started writing dialogue.

My story went its own many-tentacled way beyond the facts, but Burnt House offered a rich background for the tale I wanted to tell — which was about a family in our own times. I know I wouldn’t have even thought of it without discovering the house. As a writer, I’ve learned to look for moments like these because they spark our creative storylines in unexpected, out-of-the-ordinary ways.

While travel is one of the best ways to encounter story lines, there are plenty of them waiting for us at home. I was visiting a friend’s church once at Eastertime when his daughter noticed a woman ahead of us in a black blazer. A white thread was spread across her back, curving at one end. The woman was completely oblivious to it.

My friend had the perfect answer to his daughter’s questions about the blazer and thread. “Maybe it’s something you can write a story about when we get home,” he said. “Think up reasons for how that thread got on there.”

That’s how you can tell if someone is a great writer, I thought. It isn’t just about being observant of what’s around you. It’s about having the ability to imagine what happened before and after you encounter any given moment where something new is presented — and preferably, that something is surprising and unusual.

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Care Full

This morning my brother in law shared photos of a basement he restored with used lumber from a 100 year old garage. He saved the floors and joists, using a few of them, he says, to tease the eye into thinking a basement ceiling and floor were flatter than they were. 

Using LED lighting, he was able to dado the lights in. I had to look up the word dado, which (I think?) means he was able to place the lights in along the lower part of the wall. 

According to my brother in law, dado is "rabbet's" cousin, which involves a groove cut into the edge of a piece of machinable material (usually wood).

I'm sure you've already guessed what an idiot I am when it comes to construction, but I love hearing about it from people who know what they're doing. I'm sharing some before and after pictures here so you can see how things began and where they ended, and why that's so impressive. 

My sister in law said, "Mother Earth rewarded your dedication to reusing her trees with a work of art." I think she was right, though the artist himself deserves much credit. 

The project reminds me of how Stephen Sondheim describes the artistic process in Sundays in the Park with George. You start with a blank page or canvas and then are challenged to "bring order to the whole, through--

"Design

Composition

Tension

Balance

Light and 

Harmony."

Waking up to texts about this project seems perfect for an early spring morning and the season of Passover and Easter. What strikes me about all this is how many of us get up and wonder if what we do every day matters, and though we may not think so, it does.

The work my brother in law did here was about care and being care full; intentional about what he was doing and why and working to enact a vision that has all the components Sondheim wrote about in his play. It makes me think about how easy it is to take life for granted, and how much better life is when we don't.

Which also makes me think of what Flannery O'Connor said about writing artfully.

“You do not write the best you can for the sake of art, but for the sake of returning your talent increased to the invisible God."

Tall order, certainly. 

Luckily, my brother in law just gave me a superb example of how to start.