The Creation & Anatomy of a Story Pt. 1

It seems that I have outsmarted myself and ended up with a commitment to write a particular story.  This story must contain a unicorn.  It isn’t for a particular market, though I’m working on that, but there are caveats.  I can’t write a fluffy stupid unicorn story, because in the words of my own challenge, it has to be “real” and powerful.  A story, in other words, of the first magnitude I’m capable of.  That’s a serious undertaking, as this means this story will become a part of me – of what I stand for – and of what I’m known for.

I’m not alone in the challenge, and I’ll get into that, as well, but I thought I’d share the experience.  People are always asking me, and other authors, for that matter, about the process and experience of writing.  I know that the way I write wouldn’t work for everyone.  In fact, I’m sure it would drive a great many more organized souls batty.  Still, since some have asked, and I find myself with a story imminent, I thought … why not document the process?

I even considered making the writing of the documentation the actual story, but that is too contrived for me.  It might be fun, or informative, but I would not come out of it with what I need.  I need to write a story.

So, my first step was to sit back and think about unicorns.  There are a lot of stories, movies, legends, etc. about unicorns.  I found that the original wasn’t even a horse, but had the hindquarters of a stag and the tail of a lion.  I know that one-horned goats have been passed off as unicorns in fairs, and in the circus.  As I thought about unicorns, I found myself noting that they were almost always white.  This led me to the thought that the symbolism of the white horse has been used in slang to mean heroin.  I thought, then, that it was odd a unicorn had a horn, so much like a needle.  This led me to thoughts of addiction and obsession.  That led me … to penguins.

See, I told you it would drive you crazy.  I’m going to end this first post about the story with a story.  I’m like that.  When I was in the US Navy, I had a friend named Brian Massatt.  Brian was an artist.  He had a fiance named Susan, and we had a little group of oddballs who spent time at things like King Richard’s Fair, a local Society for Creative Anachronism event.  I was the minstrel in the lot – playing guitar, writing ridiculous ballads.  In any case, that’s not what the story is about…the story is about penguins.

Brian drew cartoons of penguins.  He drew them in sailor’s hats, in police uniforms, in knight’s armor, fighting dragons.  He liked penguins, and it wore off on me.  I started, at some point, collecting penguins.  What I collected were odd birds.  Funny ones, very strange ones, very old ones, anything that caught my eye.  That is when I developed David’s Law of Penguins.

The law goes like this – if you let people know that you collect something, you will regret it.  It becomes the easy gift on birthdays and holidays, even when the person bestowing the gift doesn’t ‘get’ it.  You end up with cutesy penguin statuettes, ornaments, t-shirts, hats, every freaking penguin thing in the universe, except for the ones that you wanted to collect.  I can bury the real collection, if you don’t find a way to keep the two things separate…

And then, again, I thought of unicorns.  My protagonist, then, is an expert on unicorns.  He has studied their lore, collected books, manuscripts, oddities – because he is on a quest. Those around him, those who live in a material world where the only allowable obsessions are music, sex, and next week’s fashion trends, find it quaint and superficial.  They give him crystal unicorns and unicorn swizzle sticks.  He locks his obsession away, and shared it with no one…

And somewhere in and around that point is where my story begins…

-DNW