Writing Stories

"No story is a straight line."  Pat Conroy

I write stories like the pieces of a puzzle.  I write different parts of the story, in what may seem like random order, and I let you put it together.  Most of my readers seem to get it and even to appreciate my style.  Others are put off by it and don't understand why I don't just start at A, then proceed through the letters to Z.  I don't write that way  because the stories aren't created that way.  Also, I can't just regurgitate letters onto the page that tell the story all at once.  I start with a thought. Then I have to place the twenty six letters at the top of the page and pull them down to my palette one at a time. I then form words which form paragraphs which complete my thoughts and tell the story.

To  quote Pat Conroy puts me at an  incredible disadvantage.  Conroy in my opinion is one of the greatest storytellers to have ever lived.  When I finished his novel The Prince of Tides, for example, I laid the book aside and simply basked in the wonder of it all for several minutes before I did anything else. Those characters and that story had become more real to me than anything in my walk around world. I read that book over thirty years ago and those characters are still very real.  When I finished reading the novel I  gave it to my best friend to read.  A few weeks later when he was through reading it, he said, "Helms, there needs to  be an 800 number to call to talk to somebody." So to place my letters and words in the same body as those of Pat Conroy is quite presumptuous.

But I think we all do this to some extent with our own stories.  We compare the daily events of our own lives to other lives, especially  the lives of "the rich and famous" and feel that our stories don't matter as much, or matter at all. I can remember when I much younger feeling this way. I thought for my life to have meaning and for me to leave a legacy I would have to become one of "the rich and famous", or at least become one or the other. The irony is that when I ceased trying to become either one, I became both.  I am rich in more ways than I can describe. I'm listening to incredibly beautiful choral music via my new Sony Bluetooth noise-cancellation headphones. The music includes modern composers and composers from as long ago as the 13th century. Upstairs my wife is playing cards with our ten year old guest. I can't imagine being more happy or content. And I'm famous to the hundred or so people who know me. "Big Dave" is known from Georgia to California.  These people have allowed him to tell them stories and to make them laugh. One of my favorite fans calls me "Bihbave".   Hollywood has never called, but this two and a half year old seems to think I'm pretty special. I think he's pretty special too.

I write stories like the pieces of a puzzle.   The  first paragraph is one  piece.  The next is another. When I'm finished writing there are eight or ten pieces for you to assemble,  for you to make a picture. Feel free to assemble them any way you want to. The story you read is unique to you because my pieces get all jumbled up with yours and  the story you discover is completely unique.

Tomorrow a story begins.  We have been planning this story for over six months. We know the characters and the plot, but we have no idea where the story will take us.  And we don't want to know. We just want to be there when it happens. Each moment of each day will be like the pieces of a puzzle.  And we won't know for years what the picture looks like. Five main characters will be in that picture, but years from now for each of us it will look completely different. We will each have our own picture to treasure. We will each have a different story to tell our grandchildren. Unless, of course, our grandchildren are making the trip.

"The geometry of a human life is too imperfect and complex, too distorted by the laughter of time and the bewildering intricacies of fate to admit the straight line into its system of laws." Pat Conroy. Yeah, that's what I was trying to say.