The other night, hubby wanted to go out and eat to celebrate
his first day of school. While we were
eating, the staff sang happy birthday to a guy who’d arrived with several of
his friends. Right when they finished,
another group announced that they were there to celebrate a birthday too –- a group
of girls. The staff and her friends sang
to her, making sure that their volume and enthusiasm exceeded that of the guy’s
birthday song.
As we were watching the dueling birthdays, my husband leaned
over to me and said, “Wouldn’t it be a cool story if after dinner they talked
and then connected? Years from now, that
could be the story of how they met?”
I agreed that it would be quite a story, and then I started
thinking about the NaNoWriMo story that I’m working on for November. I hadn’t quite figured out how my two main
characters, a husband and wife, meet. As
I thought about it more, I realized that my husband had given me a perfect
backstory for my characters.
Makes me wonder what would have happened if we hadn’t gone
out to dinner that night. What kind of
alternate story would my characters be experiencing in November? It’s great to be in my own brain, coming up
with characters, situations and even settings, but there are moments that
living in the world and watching real people can give even more insight.
Have any of you used real life inspiration recently?
Yeah, I do that occasionally. It kind of makes the story more real for me sometimes. Cute picture of you two!
ReplyDeleteThanks! It's from a few years ago, but I thought it still applied.
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