All writers use bits and pieces of
people they’ve known to create characters. Your mind “collects” memories,
scenes and bits of dialogue that show up when you’re in the middle of a story.
At least that’s the way it happens with me. I have a closet full of notebooks
with observations and people I’ve met throughout my life. If you want to write, start with a notebook.
For instance, here is a fragment
about someone from my army basic training days at Ft. Lee, Virginia, September
of 1950. Someday she will be in a book.
The Women’s Army Corps was still in its infancy when I joined. Recruits were women wanting something different, recently released from foster homes, or escaping poverty
or abuse and had nowhere else to go. Remember we didn't have the job opportunities available today. We were expected to live at home until we got married. This was before Ms. Magazine changed all that.
New recruits lived in old wooden barracks, one long,
narrow room, twenty-five cots on each side. No privacy. A recruit’s “area”
consisted of two feet on either side of the cot and room for a footlocker at
the foot. A short pole on the wall was
for hanging uniforms. The inadequacy of the housing, however, didn’t deter our
enthusiasm. Cultural shock is an efficient bonding agent. Most of us bonded
quickly. We looked out for each other. You need to know this to understand how
we all banded together for the “re-making” of Private Kierkgaard.
Alice was a Wisconsin farm girl, about twenty, who was
so shy she never talked. She was awkward, physically clumsy, knew nothing of
“female things” like ironing her clothes, shaving her legs, etc., and bathing.
We decided she must have lived in abject poverty because she had never seen a
flush toilet. She was terrified of the communal shower in the latrine,
convinced she’d drown under the water, and refused to have anything to do with
it. After about a week, this became a crisis. The whole platoon pitied her, and
six of us who had become good friends, decided to take her in hand. We assigned
duties: one would teach ironing, one bed making, one shoe shining, etc. It took
all of us to get her into the shower, kicking, and screaming, but we persisted.
A miracle happened. Once she felt safe, she gloried in the hot water, the soapsuds,
shampoo, the whole thing. She became obsessed, spending every available minute
there.
Our biggest challenge was teaching her how to march. Alice had two left feet.
We devoted hours to marching up and down the barracks, chanting, “left,
right,” but by God, we succeeded. By graduation Alice was a real WAC, and proud
of her new assignment as a cook. It was all she ever wanted.
Alice taught me a lot. I learned
about compassionate leadership, group loyalty, and never, never to pre-judge.
No matter how hopeless you think someone is, they have something of value.
When we were packing to go to our next assignment, Alice’s battered paperboard
suitcase was open on her bed. Inside were dozens of blue ribbons and small
trophies from state fairs—awards for baking. Alice was a champion pastry chef. Who knew?
So what’s the message here? The
possibilities of a novel about Alice are endless. The story of women in the
military has never been told, especially women in combat. We don’t behave like
men when we're in a group. I have dozens of stories from that period of my life that I’ll
never get around to telling.
Open yourself to the
people around you—at a party, a shopping mall, or a restaurant. Get inside
their heads. Who are they? Fantasize then write it down. Gideon, the hero from
my novel, Maddie’s Choice, is the result of thousands of conversations I’ve had
with men, in the military, on air planes, standing in line at the supermarket,
and memories of those days drinking beer at the NCO club. There are characters
everywhere. Find them, and then write the book.
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