They always tell us that ideas are everywhere. This is true, but at this time of year, ideas are abundant! I’m sure you all have special fall, Halloween, Thanksgiving, or Christmas memories from your childhood that you can turn into stories. Maybe you can turn that snowball fight that you had with your cousins on Christmas Day into a story? No? How about the year that you almost tripped over the ‘dead body’ on Mr. Smith’s front porch while trick-or-treating? Maybe taking a ride though the mountains to see all the colorful leaves? Do people do that anymore?
Even if they don’t, any of these ideas I mentioned above would make a fantastic story! If you write fantasy, you can really run with these ideas and take your characters anywhere.
“One of my sisters had recently married and became good friends with another couple. After a few years, the couple wanted to experience a ‘country’ Thanksgiving at our house. There were eight people in my family. This didn’t count the husbands, wives, or grandchildren. With my sister and brother-in-law’s new friends, we were close to thirty people there! Since there were so many of us, our visitors were VERY excited!
They told us how their Thanksgivings were celebrated when they were growing up. They were far different from ours since one was from a small family and the other was an only child.
We were all slowly finishing up eating. Most were completely stuffed! One of our visitors asked for another piece of turkey.
The turkey platter was by me. Was I polite and pick up the turkey platter and pass it down? NOT! I just picked up a turkey leg and handed it to the person sitting next to me! Down the table the turkey leg traveled, from one person to the next. It finally reached our visitor’s place. He was grinning from ear-to-ear. He never experienced that … ever. His wife thought it was the greatest thing ever and pronounced it just like the Walton’s TV show!”
I have no idea how to turn this memory into a publishable story. You see, I write for children. Not many kids pass turkey around nor do they have clean-up duty in the kitchen. I intend to try to do this, though. I think I could tweak it so it fits todays kid. I really have to think about this!
Whatever your special memories are, I hope you can think about them and are able to turn it into a story!
