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Short Saturday: Story Ideas

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I am always interested in interviews with authors, especially when they’re as interesting as this one at the Harper’s Magazine blog is. It’s a chat with Christopher Beha and concerns, mostly, his second novel, Arts and Entertainment.

We’ve talked a lot about story ideas in this spot, and I love what comes up here when Beha is asked where he got his idea:

What I’m aware of is hitting upon a decision that a person might be faced with and working out the consequences of that decision. In the case of Arts & Entertainments, this decision came from a short story by Edith Wharton called “That Good May Come,” which is about a failed poet, unable to sell any of his poems, who is given an opportunity to sell instead a piece of gossip about a married woman. It’s a great example of Whartonian melodrama, and it inspired me to start writing my own short story, about a failed actor who is given a chance to sell a sex tape. (This seemed to me the obvious contemporary analog to the predicament Wharton describes.) Probably I wouldn’t have been interested in updating the story if it hadn’t already seemed to speak in interesting ways about all sorts of cultural phenomena that we think of as particular to our time but that have been with us forever. That said, it wasn’t until I really got into the writing of the thing that I understood what a great vehicle a sex tape provided for talking about issues that are of great importance to me. At that point I realized the short story I’d started was going to be a novel.

I love his comment that a story written by Edith Wharton in 1894 features “cultural phenomena that we think of as particular to our time but that have been with us forever” (emphasis mine).

There are other topics here of interest to writers, notably POV, theme, including religion in fiction, and the difficulty of writing a good novel. It’s a good read, and not long. Enjoy!

Tweet: I am always interested in interviews with authors. Here’s a good one from Harpers.
Tweet: Where do you get your story ideas? Here’s an idea from author Christopher Beha.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”


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