(Writing Talk will be a new type of short-for article centered around conversations about various aspects of writing/authorship. These probably won’t be long reads, but I think it’ll be fun to jot down some of my thoughts about the writing process as someone who loves the art of it all.)
I wanted to talk today (in this inaugural Writing Talk article) about the concept of a Spark Scene. And while I’m sure my fellow authors out there know what I’m talking about in theory, my silly little nickname for this phenomenon has probably presented a bit of a mystery. Allow me to explain.
I work in a library, and one of my tasks is to check-in books that have been returned from the book drop. On a simple day in the early Fall of 2021, I was flipping through a returned book that had a hook that interested me. It was something about a small town near some woods, an unexplained murder, and a private detective and cop who team up to try and solve the case. Intrigued, I dug a bit deeper and read a more detailed plot synopsis.
(Yes, that means I spoiled the story for myself, but this was at a period of time where I had a pile of books to read that was a mile-high, and I was also preoccupied trying to think of what to write for the upcoming NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) deadline. This second point will be pertinent in a minute.)
Regardless, I fell in love with the final twist of the novel, but also couldn’t help but ask myself what I would do differently if I’d written a similar story myself. All of a sudden, it was like my brain went into some sort of fugue state, and a scene began to put itself together in my head. A Scene that had been Sparked by the plot synopsis I’d just read, if you will.
There wasn’t much context, and the characters didn’t have names, but it was enough. I could imagine it so fiercely it was like I was visualizing something that actually existed, and not just figments in my brain that had just been born. Character A was doing this, and Character B was doing that, and then right before Character A achieves victory, Character C comes along and…oh, yeah. It was all coming together perfectly.
In the blink of an eye, and seemingly out-of-the-blue, I had a brand new story idea perfect for the upcoming NaNoWriMo challenge!
To put it simply, Spark Scenes are how all of my stories come to be. Usually, it’s when I’m currently engaged in some form of participation with the medium of art and entertainment (reading a book, watching a movie/show, playing a video game). Suddenly, the art I’m experiencing will meld with my own inner creativity, my past experiences (both lived and fictionally enjoyed), and the ever-present question of ‘What if I created this work myself?‘. The result of all those disparate elements will form together and create a Spark Scene.
As I mentioned above, these Spark Scenes usually lack context and names for characters, but they feature the characters themselves and some sort of dramatic action unfolding. If the scene plays out in my mind well (sometimes I have a few dud Spark Scenes that don’t pan out), I’ll devote more mental energy to crafting names and context. If I think I’m onto something, I’ll jot it all down in a Google Doc, like I’ve done countless times before. If the idea still appeals to me, I’ll expand the notes documents with extra characters, settings, and a synopsis of where I think the plot could go, building a narrative around that initial Spark Scene.
From there, lengthy chapter-by-chapter outlines, and then eventually a finished novel. That last step is tricky, though. I have three finished novels, after all, but over twenty different stories still in the notes document stage!
Honestly, I couldn’t count the number of times some of my biggest and proudest stories came to me in the form of a Spark Scene. My gargantuan (and still in the chapter outlining stages) fantasy epic came to me while watching a television show. My second murder-mystery novel came to when watching a movie. My current novel came to me as I was reading a book (and a fair few notes-stage stories also came from Spark Scenes generated by books).
I find it really fun to craft a story around a Spark Scene. Maybe I just get lucky, but most of my Spark Scenes tend to be either the end of (or the near-end of) a story. As such, it makes it quite simple to build a story that leads up to that Spark Scene, since I now know how the story has to end thanks to my Spark Scene. It feels like it gives me extra power in the story-crafting stage of the novel-writing process when I can just play around with the pieces as long as they end up in the spot needed for the Spark Scene!
It would not be an exaggeration to say that Spark Scenes are the heart of the novel-writing process to me. These scenes stick with me so much that they are sometimes singlehandedly the reason I push myself through the writing process so that my audience (primarily friends and family) can read my books and see those scenes that helped to forge the very DNA of my novels.
So, now that I’ve broken it down, can any of my fellow authors relate? Perhaps you have your own catchy nickname for this phenomenon! Or maybe you’ve got the superpower of crafting a world and its characters all from scratch, or from a story prompt. If that’s you, that’s awesome! Everyone’s got their own unique strengths when it comes to writing!
Keep on writing, friends!
The Contrarian Corner 