Hello everyone! I am happy to announce I will now be blogging on this fabulous website, Unruly Guides. I will share writing insights, read your work, and give you as many tips as I can.
First off, I’d like to introduce myself; I am Spencer Brokaw, author of The Impenetrable Spy available on Kindle, Nook, iBooks, and Smashwords. Paperback will release soon. I am 12-years-old and in the seventh grade. I have finished my second book and I am now working on my third. I enjoy swimming, playing the drums, writing, reading, and most importantly, learning. My favorite subject is Social Studies, because I love to learn history.
Getting ideas for your writing can be hard, but it can also be very easy. Writing varies depending on your imagination. I think its fun to watch people at the mall; it gives me a lot of ideas for my writing. Watching and reading the news can give you tons and tons of ideas for books. Several people have created books based on tiny things they see on the news or read about in a magazine. For my action series, I enjoyed going to different websites that had military gadgets to help give me ideas. For an example, I was reading a headline news story that said something like “Real Life Iron-Man Suit.” It was a military suit that gave the operator more strength and held several weapons. There is a similar suit in my upcoming book.
Not only can you get ideas from newspapers and watching people at the mall, but you can get plenty of ideas from video games and movies. Just make sure you don’t make the plot too much like the movie’s or video game’s. I got a lot of my ideas for The Impenetrable Spy from action games and movies. Anymore I don’t play video games as much, but I still get ideas from them. If you like to write, make sure you carry something to jot down your ideas, because if you don’t, you’ll most likely forget and will regret it later.
Below is an example of a short story based off of a picture I saw in a news article today**.
Jack Smith didn’t know that his day would end in terror. He had woken up and started his usual routine, making eggs and toast before heading out for a hike in the forest. He wolfed down his toast and sipped from his orange juice. When he finished, he walked outside to his car and began to drive to the hiking path. It was a cool Saturday morning and birds were chirping. He parked the car and walked outside. A gentle breeze was blowing as his phone vibrated in his pocket. Jack grabbed it and huffed when he saw who the text was from. It was from his boss, Frank Joseph. Jack hadn’t seen his face, only heard his voice. Mr. Joseph had started a small business 20 years ago, and Jack had been working for only a month. Jack had moved several times in the past year. From Florida to California, from California to Ohio. His life had been very busy, and very lonely. He was a busy man, so when he was able to take a hike, he took one. He had ran track in high-school, it was one of the many things he loved to do. When he moved, he found out there was a hiking trail nearby. He set out every Saturday to hike up the beautiful path.
But his day was going to change. He had never expected the following. When Jack reached his half-way point, he stopped and took a drink from his water. He put the lid back on and heard something in the distance. It was movement. He heard a twig snap and the lighting of a match. Jack moved closer as he tripped and fell forward. It was a mistake he’d regret. The man with the match turned and threw it to the ground. The dead leaves and sticks burst into flames as several more matches were thrown down. The fire began to consume trees as Jack was surrounded by flames. The man with the matches was long gone. Jack grabbed his cell phone and dialed 911. He immediately explained his situation as smoke filled his lungs. He grabbed his throat and dropped his phone into the fire. He screamed before looking at the tree behind him. He began to climb up as he rested his shoe on a branch. The branch broke beneath his feet as he gripped the tree clinging for life. He began to climb until he was half-way up. He leaped from his tree to another as he looked around at the burning forest. He was shocked at how far the fire had spread. He didn’t have time to react because the trees were on burning. He heard distant fire trucks in the background.
He leaped to another tree before looking below him. The fire was slowly moving towards him. He jumped and grabbed onto another tree as he began to slip. Fire engulfed his feet as he screamed. He thought he was going to die, but water began to pour over him. He heard a deep voice and turned around. His body hurt, but the pain faded away. He slid down the tree trunk and greeted the fire fighter. The fire was spreading across the forest, at an extremely fast rate. Jack looked up at a large plane. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The plane was pouring gallons and gallons of water onto the forest below. The fire was still spreading; Jack had to leave as quickly as possible. He ran into the street as four fire trucks arrived. Jack fell to the ground and began to crawl to a fire fighter. His eyes were closing, and he slowly made his way closer. He woke up the next day. He slowly looked over at the nurse in the room. She was staring at him. She ran into the next room and yelled for a doctor. A tall man came into the room and looked at Jack.
“You’re going to be okay,” he said.
“Thank you,” Jack replied.
He took off the breathing mask and walked outside to call a taxi. He smiled as he walked into his home. Jack grabbed the newspaper and stared at the headline “Forest Fire.” Jack looked at a picture, the picture of the man who had started the fire. It was someone he had seen before. He couldn’t figure out where he had seen the mysterious face before. But then he gulped as he read who the man was: Frank Joseph, Jack’s boss.
**NOTE: Due to copyright licensing, UG does not have free rights to use the image — View the photo that Inspired Spencer Here: MSNBC.com — Entitled “Extinguishing a Greece fire” by Sakis Mitrolidis / AFP – Getty Images
Very nice job of developing a story based off of a single picture. Very creative!
Thanks Spencer for this great article. I am always coming up with stories from photos or by watching people. My most vivid is the lay over in Salt Lake for a couple hours, so I people-watched. If you describe what you see, but with a “twist” it makes a very interesting storyline.
I wrote 100 pages, front and back, starting with the layover, and continuing through my entire trips. The story wrote itself, and what is truly amazing — I probably would never have remembered that trip, or those people… but they are forever engrained in my memory, and on paper. I’ll write it someday – has to do with a runaway teen, a large, sweaty man with a satchel, and an Indian Burial Ground in San Francisco. :)
— Suzanne