What’s something that happened in real life that made you think…

@kathleenramm That’s such a fun story!

Other than people that would make good characters…

On the first day of one of my classes this year I was heading in doors to the place where we hold our co-op, and anyways, while I was still outside in the parking lot, this car just drove by in front of my, crunching this safety cone (which are indestructible, technically) and after it drove by there was a guy standing on the other side of it, tall with a hoodie up, and we met eyes and basically were just like, “Did- did you see that car – ”

Anyways, I haven’t found a chance to use this in a story yet. Maybe one day.

@kathleenramm

That is so incredibly cute! And I think we need a sequel to that short story about the janitor 😛

Occasionally little things I’ve experienced make it into stories of mine, but one thing that happened actually made it into the work I am possibly most proud of, a short story I wrote a few years back. Essentially, my family had lunch with a few other homeschooling families on a Sunday afternoon after church at the local park (which is incredibly beautiful, with lots of big old oak trees and green grass, huge for a rural Australian town :P). One of the boys in the group, who I think would have been around 12 at the time, made an origami animal (unfortunately I can no longer remember what sort of animal it was, but he is very good at making origami animals, so it literally could have been anything) and gave it to my sister. I thought it was so sweet and cute that I immediately started brainstorming a story about a boy giving a girl origami cranes in a park. I adore that story to this day 😀

@kathleenramm I actually did write a story based on it 😀 a little bit loosely albeit, but here it is if you’d like to read it 😀 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oa-DrOTBmcNVHcn3DZbgjPmYM1qNDuKPzyE_u0AWeaA/edit?usp=sharing

@Kathleenramm

That is an incredibly cute story! And you added ghosts? How does that sound amazing!:)

As for me, this happens a lot. I see things in real life and -this is why I carry writing supplies everywhere, even just around the farm- jot random things down from a man riding out of a grocery store on a shopping cart to a boy and girl that bicycle through town in the summer.
I remember one happenstance that I had turned into an actual story once. It was an extremely windy day on the farm, so much that you literally had to shout for anyone to hear you even if they were a foot away. And on this particular day, all the horses but one got out and were fleeing across the fields. Neighboring farmers had come to help and it turned into a full-blown manhunt… uh, horsehunt that is. We chased them for almost three different landowners’ fields (no short jog that’s for sure) and eventually we chased them right through a neighborhood where they decided the neatly mowed grass looked worth grazing. They stopped in front of this one house and a little girl, probably six, in a pink fairy dress I think it was, came up to the window and flattened her face and hands against the window. The look of enthrallment on her face as she watched the horses in her backyard, made me wonder if she was thinking all her wishes that she ever wished had come true for a moment before we started herding them back out of the neighborhood. We got the horses back eventually (eventually a.k.a. an exhausting chase. Which is strange because, in all these years, that was the only time our horses pulled that little stunt). But anyway, the whole thing stuck with me and I never forgot the girl against the back window door watching the horses graze on her lawn, and of course I had to write the story.
And now I might even dig up that old draft of mine and rewrite it:)

@seekjustice

Aw, I love that memory 🙂 It reminded me of my own origami memory a long time ago. A boy from my old church, who had a chronic disease, had made an origami dragon (he was great at it), and I still have it actually.
And so when I read that, I had to read the story you said you wrote and girl, that was nothing short of beautiful. The imagery and story and characters, Annabelle and Colan, were so real and during the last six pages, I lost a few tears. Have you ever tried to publish it? Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I thought it was amazing:)

@devastate-lasting

Maybe one day you will get to make a story from it:) Because that totally sounds like it would make an epic one 😀

@abigail-m Very much looking for an opportunity every chance I get. It’s just too good to pass up.

@lewilliams I’m with Kathleen on villainous ice cream trucks. You should definitely include it in a story. Like, where do ice cream trucks even come from? Are they even stoppable?

@relia Ah, yes, I’ve done this myself several times. It’s awesome, isn’t it? Because then you have a real-life basis for a character, making them somehow more developed. And it’s easier.