Writers … Pay Attention To Your Life
By: Julia Amante
Tags: Using Life Events, Writers On Writing, Better Writing, Writing Details, Writing Ideas

Gorgeous fragrant orange groves used to blanket much of Southern California, specifically Orange County and the Inland Empire. The citrus industry dominated the area, but little by little the orchards were sold as the value of the land increased and it became less lucrative to grow oranges. The packing houses became empty buildings and eventually they disappeared along with the trees.

Homes now sit where the orange groves used to grow. When my husband and I first moved to our town, this area still had privately owned groves. Every spring evening, we were enveloped in the scent of orange blossoms when we stepped out of the house. It was heavenly.

Soon, those too were sold. In the neighborhood, we still have a couple of old homes with a few acres of orange groves, but not close to the numbers we had in the past.

A few years ago, the downtown area was zoned commercial and some of the older Victorian homes along the main road were demolished when the land was purchased by corporations like McDonalds.

Most of the owners sold their homes and moved, but one family decided that they wanted to preserve their home. It was built in 1907 and was a piece of local history, so they did sell their lot, and who could blame them; I wouldn’t want to live next to a McDonalds either. But they moved their house to a new location. I don’t know if the city agreed to move the house for them, but they did move things like streetlights to make it possible for the house to make the trek across town.

I remember being on my morning walk and seeing this humongous mansion making its way to its new lot. People followed and took pictures. I think Home & Garden television was even going to have a show about it.

I am not a historical author, but I am fascinated by local history. In my last couple of novels, I’ve used the local setting as the setting for my novels. The setting fit my main character perfectly, and I was happy to be able to pull from the nostalgia of the area to create the longing for the past that the heroine needed.

Something I encourage writers to do is to pull from their everyday life and to include interesting details in their stories.

I did not use the house in my book, but I could have. The house belonged originally to a family who own the groves in much of this area. It might have made a nice little story and shown the changes over time of families selling their home and their land to developers and businesses. Though I didn’t need to include this story in my book, it remains an interesting tale that I might use in the future.

Taking Notes and Keep a File of Ideas

Writers need to be observant and take notes of what is happening around them. An insignificant event or just an interesting happening could spark an idea for a subplot or a major book.

The notes could be in form of pictures or just notes organized in electronic files. I file things away according to topics like setting and plot ideas, but I’ve also had files for unique food, hairstyles I liked, parts of conversations, quotes. Anything that might be useful or spark an idea later when I’m writing a current novel or a future novel I save or jot down or take a picture.

Think of the Big Picture

Themes are also important to stories. Authors don’t always know the theme or larger idea of their book and that’s okay. But being aware of what things represent can generate an idea for a story as well.

The movement of the Victorian Mansion and disappearance of the orange grove industry signifies many things to me. One is the loss of our industries in America, another is the chasing away of the average person and small businesses as large corporations take over, another can be the preservation of history, and so on. We might see and be attracted to a theme and be able to use an event that has happened or that we have witnesses as an example.

Details Make a Stronger Story

When I was writing That Was Then, I brought a chapter of the book to my MFA class for my classmates to read. This is what we did, we workshopped each other’s work. Anyway, of my characters, Margarita bought her father a panini maker for Christmas. The professor said, “I like that detail. I don’t know why I like it, but I like it.”

The reason he liked it was because it characterized the father and the relationship they had. He liked to cook and he cooked for her when she was a kid. It was the only caring thing he did for her. NONE of that is revealed in that book, it’s part of the backstory that comes out in another book. But it felt real. The reason it felt real was that one year, I was Christmas shopping and a couple of girls in their twenties were in the houseware department at Macy’s. One said to the other, “I guess I’ll my dad an indoor grill.” Her friend said, “For your dad?” The girl shrugged and said, “He likes to cook. And he loves steaks.”

I filed that way in my brain. Now, when I wrote the scene for my book, it was nothing like that. Instead of George Foreman indoor grill, I changed it to a panini maker. But I liked the idea of buying a guy, your dad, a kitchen appliance.

And details, even if they seem insignificant, make stories come alive. The characters feel real. If nothing else, the reader has the same reaction the girl did in real life. Why is she buying her father a kitchen appliance? It’s unique detail.

We never know, as writers what will be used and what will not. So, keeping notes and filing away everything we can for later is always a good idea.