The Inquisitive Inkpot
Exploring Tales and the Art of Telling
Songwriting and Storytelling
Songwriting, as we know, is just another form of storytelling. But what can writers learn from both art forms?
Turns out, a great deal. Songwriting has, in fact, been one of the more recent demands that has kept me from blogging over the last couple of months. Let me be clear: I do not consider myself an expert musician, composer, or lyricist of any sort. But, in response to outside requests, I have had to wear the songwriting hat quite a bit over the last year—and I must say, it has enriched my understanding of what makes both stories and songs work and what makes them lame.
These observations will not apply to the mass-produced, run-of-the-mill stories and songs that play to audiences primarily seeking predictability. Instead, I make these observations about stories and music that defy the well-worn three-chord structure that we have all become so familiar with. This is not because these works have no place, but rather because I suspect most of us in The Inquisitive Inkpot community are interested in content that stimulates and moves us to a more fulfilling, more satisfying place.
So how do we get to that place?
First, we have to suspend tension.
If we have no conflict, we have no questions. And if we have no questions, we have no stakes. And without stakes, we have no reason to keep reading, watching, or listening. Stories and songs alike must create emotion, and in order to do that, we must build tension. If all conflicts in a story got resolved in the first chapter… would we keep reading?
This is why the three-chord structure in songs often falls flat (pun intended). If we have introduced and resolved musical tension within five seconds, landing right back on the major chord we started on, there’s not much emotion we’ve given the audience. The stakes can only be raised so high in the first five seconds, which is why we need to prolong that exploration of tension and keep them waiting for that resolution.
Practically, this means that you as the songwriter have to steer away from simplistic, familiar territory. You might even have to grow uncomfortable waiting for your own resolution. Revision will help you avoid extremes, but if you are trying to create something fresh-sounding, it’s better to err on the side of deferring resolution.
Second, we have to introduce unexpected twists.
It’s not enough to keep the audience holding their breath—there need to be moments where we actually take their breath away. Every interesting story has plot twists where we’re forced to admit, “Wow, didn’t see that coming!” The element of surprise isn’t exclusive to thrillers—it’s shared by every story with dynamic characters and events.
In songwriting, this is where we as composers show the audience all the different places we can go musically and thematically before landing on resolution. We take them on a journey, where they don’t know the next note, chord, or sequence waiting around the corner. We don’t have to jostle them around constantly, but we should play our cards gradually so that once they’ve heard the full verse, they don’t automatically know the first line of the chorus. And once they’ve heard the chorus, they know there’s something more ahead than just a repetition of the first verse and chorus.
Third, we have to avoid predictable resolutions.
Simply put, we cannot take our audience on a riveting adventure only to end the story or song with a sequence they could have spotted miles away. Otherwise, we have a product that, if the middle gets trimmed out, flows like one of those mass-produced works we tried to differ from. Even if the ending is happy, the characters must be different than they were at the beginning. Even if we end on the original major chord, the notes preceding that chord must take a dynamic path to reach that chord.
In other words, if we have spent the previous two hundred pages, two hours, or two and a half minutes delving into complex emotions and themes, we cannot cheat at the ending. We have to deliver the promised resolution in a way that leaves the audience satisfied. Now a satisfied audience in this case doesn’t have to be a cheery audience or an audience with no further questions. In fact, some of the most powerful stories and songs are those that leave us wanting more. But there must be some level of catharsis, in which the audience receives the answer to the most pressing question.
The degree to which a story becomes compelling relies heavily on the stakes and on how long we are forced to wait for that final resolution. And the cathartic “aha” moment will be that much greater, if we’ve taken the audience on a wide and deep emotional journey in our novel-writing, screenwriting, or songwriting.
As with any art form, different genres have different conventions and audience expectations. I don’t think any one genre has the corner on fulfilling, engaging stories/music, but one of my constant sources of inspiration is film scores. Many songwriters tell stories in which only their lyrics really speak— the words are otherwise cliche and unmemorable. Film scores remind me of how loudly music itself can and should speak. Woven together, lyrics and music can wield a unique power.
For anyone straddling multiple forms of creative writing, I encourage you to think about the areas of overlap between specialties. You never know what insights from one might apply to the other. 😊
Before you go, I invite you to do the following:
- Visit and subscribe to my new YouTube Channel for creative writing insights
- Sign up for my author newsletter (infrequent updates about upcoming releases)
Overcoming the Research Roadblock
Research can either make or break a story, so we writers have to get it right.
Time periods, cultures, social/government systems, technology—anything in your story that ranges beyond your area of expertise is going to require some intensive research.
I learned this the hard way, but thankfully I learned it early. Since practically every story I’ve ever written takes place in a historical setting, I’ve grown used to the obligatory research process that precedes and continues throughout the writing process. If you’ve ever attempted to write something outside your range of experience, you know how overwhelming this can feel.
Where do I even begin?
How do I find out the scope of what I don’t know?
How much detail do I need before I can start writing?
This last question tends to plague me the most. I often think I need to know every detail of my story’s setting before I can start experimenting with characters and dialogue. My reasoning goes something like, “If I don’t know exactly how the world looked and sounded, how can I possibly write a successful scene?”
Can you relate?
Research is crucial—but research is not a one-time accomplishment. We can’t sit down in one session and immerse ourselves in everything we will ever need to know for developing our story’s world.
Research is not a tidy little box that we can check off at the very beginning.
Instead, it’s an ongoing process that takes shape as we write and discover the aspects of our story’s world that need more detail. If there is one thing I have learned in writing historical fiction and period dramas, it’s that I will learn as I go. Certainly, we need a general understanding of the setting before beginning. And certainly, spending immersive time in research before we start will get us off on the right foot. But we can’t expect to solve all our problems before we even come to them.
Nor should we let the fear of discovering unexpected problems create paralysis.
I can’t tell you how many times I have procrastinated working on a script or manuscript because I felt I “didn’t know enough to keep going.” Rather than freezing up in the face of some daunting research, we need to take each problem as it comes and tackle each topic as it arises. If writing about a Renaissance painter, you don’t need to know everything about your setting’s art and politics and economics and music and societal norms and clothes and food and housing before you write your first scene. All of those will become relevant, but don’t let your lack of universal expertise cripple your creativity. Start with what you do know, and fill in the gaps as you find the need to incorporate those other facets of Renaissance life.
This article is a sermon to myself as much as to you. Just this week I found myself staring down an intimidating research roadblock as I realized there is way more about 1640s England that I don’t know. So, one thing at a time. Each scene in my television script will no doubt throw some new hurdle at me, but as long as I address each research topic in stride, it remains manageable.
For my fellow writers who bravely sally forth into worlds and experiences unknown to them, my word of encouragement is simple. Write what you can, and only pause long enough to plug up the research holes that are immediately problematic. There will be a time for holistic and extensive revision, but not until you have a complete draft.
Remember: one thing at a time.
Before you go, I invite you to do the following:
- Visit and subscribe to my new YouTube Channel for creative writing insights
- Sign up for my author newsletter (infrequent updates about upcoming releases)
How to Improve your Writing: a recent discovery
This is not a 3-step plan to improve your writing in three weeks.
If you’ve followed The Inquisitive Inkpot for any amount of time, you’ll know that I am not about providing formulas—I’m about suggesting concepts. And when it comes to improving your writing, I’d like to share with you the most recent discovery I’ve made.
Ready?
Get your hands on other people’s work.
I don’t mean published works or produced scripts. Those are absolutely helpful if you want examples of a finished product, but reading through them is a fairly one-sided activity. What you need is an up-close look at someone else’s ongoing process—a sneak peek at a creation in the raw.
Writing is like baking.
You can admire a beautiful cake and even eat a piece of it without knowing the recipe. This way, you enjoy someone else’s product but are no closer to creating your own. Or you can memorize the recipe but never see the finished product, so you don’t know what a successful cake looks and tastes like. This way, everything remains theory in your head with no living example.
In order to truly improve your writing, you need more than just a model and more than just a recipe—you need an interactive process that allows you to engage with the development of a story as it is happening.
What better way to do this than by reviewing others’ content?
As you likely know, I have recently pulled back on my blogging regimen in order to devote more time to scriptwriting and videography. And while some of that time has been spent on writing my own scripts, the other half of it has gone to reviewing the scripts of people I admire who are kind enough to involve me in their creative process. Until reading their work, I had no idea how much I needed to learn. Even so, their scripts are not in the final stage. We’ve had conversations about their scripts and what needs revision, elaboration, or the good old red pen. I get to see the way they approach storytelling, and that informs the way I approach it. There truly is nothing like sitting down with another writer and asking them questions about their work and why they made the choices they did.
For some of you, this might mean joining a group in your quest to improve your writing. You will see all levels of writers and get plenty of practice sorting through material. For others, this might mean trading work with one or two close friends.
In either case, you need to be around writers who are more advanced than you. Writers whose habits and knowledge you want to rub off on you. I cannot say how privileged I feel to be working with some of the individuals I am right now, but they are doing the same thing. They too are surrounding themselves with writers they admire, and that’s how they got where they are. And that is how we can all get where we want to be.
Before you go, I invite you to do the following:
- Visit and subscribe to my new YouTube Channel for creative writing insights
- Sign up for my author newsletter (infrequent updates about upcoming releases)
“Teenage Chronicles”: Meet the Author
What better way to resume the blogging regimen than by showing you a recent interview with a young author!
Earlier, I wrote about the young author Saania Saxena’s upcoming book Teenage Chronicles that was to be released this summer—and it is now in print! I had first met Saania online through her thrilling blog, Fun with Philosophy, and early on learned that she was working on publishing a book… at 16 years old. This is not your standard teenage fiction. In fact, it’s not even fiction at all.
Teenage Chronicles is an insightful, sensitive exploration of the challenges young adults face as they transition from childhood into maturity.
What stood out to me from the excerpts Saania initially sent me was the sheer amount of research she conducted prior to writing. Teenage Chronicles bridges the gap between the purely scientific, the philosophical, the personal, and the practical in a way that I haven’t seen before—let alone coming from someone so young.
In fact, I think the fact that Saania is such a young author sets her up in a unique position of influence for her peers, who are wrestling with the very scenarios she addresses.
For this reason, I want to share with you the full interview I conducted with her, as well as give you the link to order the book internationally. Pardon the funky audio on my end—Saania’s side is completely clear, but my old computer’s speakers left a lot to be desire. Said computer has since been replaced. 😊
Enjoy!
Before you go, I invite you to do the following:
- Visit and subscribe to my new YouTube Channel for creative writing insights
- Sign up for my author newsletter (infrequent updates about upcoming releases)
Taking a Break
Taking a break is usually hard for writers.
I think it’s especially hard for bloggers, because taking a break means interrupting whatever publishing rhythm you had going. It was a tough call for me, but recently I have realized that is what I need in order to prioritize some more pressing, intensive projects.
Previously I wrote about the pros and cons of juggling multiple projects—and while I do believe there are benefits, right now there are two related endeavors that are demanding more focused time because of their nature.
So yes, I am taking a break from the weekly posting schedule. However, before I retreat into the secret recesses of my creative life, I want to let you in on what these projects entail.
1) Turning a stageplay into a miniseries screenplay
I’ve already shared with you some of the scriptwriting journey so far, but that is about to ramp up. While submitting my 2-hour historical drama to playwriting contests, I am also working to transform the script into a television series—which is not as easy as it sounds, although several authoritative sources have told me the story is better suited to the screen. And when you consider that my About page has named screenwriting as my ultimate goal literally from Day One of this website, you can imagine how excited I am for this. This is actually my most immediate impetus for taking a break from the weekly blog, since I am aiming to have the pilot episode script completed before the second week of August.
2) Starting a videography business
Or rather, joining an existing business and taking it in a new direction. One of my friends from long, long ago reached out announcing that he had his own videography business that he wanted to expand into something more—something that services other businesses with video marketing plans. So, after months of research and preparation, we have finally begun the consultation process with prospective clients.
As many of you know, I am also preparing to release my second children’s book this summer, Bertrand the Bashful Bumblebee. Most of the legwork is off my plate and in the hands of the illustrator and interior formatter, but some final logistical touches are required before the book hits the press.
So… taking a break?
… Ehhh…
But in the meantime, my library of articles is all yours to peruse and comment on at your leisure. I will keep you updated as things progress, and I will certainly still be managing comments and responding. I might even just spend a bit catching up on your blogs as well, since I haven’t had the time to do so lately.
Onward and upward!
Before you go, I invite you to do the following:
- Visit and subscribe to my new YouTube Channel for creative writing insights
- Sign up for my author newsletter (infrequent updates about upcoming releases)
Watching a Character Change
Watching people’s character change can be either delightful or utterly devastating.
At its best, change can lead a person to a completely positive transformation, where their best qualities are ever more radiant and their inner demons are defeated. At its worst, change can turn someone we knew and loved into someone we barely recognize, by eroding their character from the inside out.
We’ve all seen friends and family members change, either for better or for worse. We know the joy over seeing someone excel and the pain from seeing someone plummet. In both cases, though, our relationship with that person is inevitably affected. Their character change will either enable us to connect with them more deeply or it will sever the connection we once shared.
One of the mystifying aspects of stories is their ability to draw us into one character’s perspective through the power of identification.
In the world of narratives, identification is the degree to which we audience members relate to a character on an emotional level. We want them to succeed. We hate their enemies. We celebrate their victories. We mourn their losses. We even care for the people they care for.
Consequently, we grieve with them when a loved one dies in the story. This is perhaps obvious, but I want to point out that there is a different kind of loss that our favorite characters often face, with which we as the audience are also capable of empathizing. Not only can we grieve their losses, but we can also grieve their broken relationships. We witness it when they, or someone they love, undergoes a destructive character change that severs a relationship.
In some cases, we are watching the main character on a downward spiral—which can certainly be sad in its own way. But when someone they love changes beyond recognition—perhaps a character we liked on their own merit—this can hit us emotionally on two levels.
First, we mourn the objective tragedy of that character’s negative outcome. It is sad to watch someone make choices that harden their conscience, darken their hearts, and cloud their judgement—no matter who they are. Seeing a character we once liked fall into this trajectory is regrettable.
But this sense of pain is amplified when the character on the downward trajectory is someone our main character loves. It could be his or her family member, friend, or love interest. As long as the relationship is affected negatively by this character change, we are supposed to mourn that pain not only through our eyes as the audience, but also through the main character’s eyes. Executed properly, this aspect of the story will produce in us a two-sided sort of empathy in which we feel both the objective sadness of a character’s choices and the subjective sadness of the resulting broken relationships.
Why do I write about this?
While there is nothing we can do to actually change anyone or stop them from changing, I think there is something interesting about this two-sided empathy.
It gets us to consider people from multiple angles, not just our own. It is easy to regret another person’s choices or changes when it hurts us—after all, we are by nature very selfish creatures. But in our grief over our loved ones’ negative changes, we should not only think of our own pain, but also of the objective damage they are doing to themselves and to others. After all, if we truly love that person, their well-being is just as important to us (if not more so) as our own. So we would do well to remember that the deeper tragedy is what that person is doing to himself or herself—not just what they are doing to us.
I think that this outward-focused mindset—if the person begins coming to their senses—will prepare us to reconcile much more easily than if we get caught up in our own pain.
What do you think?
What are some films or books where you were genuinely sad over how a character changed?
What kinds of character changes do you think are the hardest to watch?
Before you go, I invite you to do the following:
- Visit and subscribe to my new YouTube Channel for creative writing insights
- Sign up below for my author newsletter (infrequent updates about upcoming releases)
Children as Props
What happens when lead characters have children?
Obviously children can be compelling lead characters in literature and film. Just look at some of the most popular, longstanding works we know:
The Chronicles of Narnia
Harry Potter
Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn
Charlotte’s Web
Anne of Green Gables
There’s no doubt that a child protagonist can carry a story. But what about children that appear later in a story, as the offspring of the main characters? What do they contribute?
What I find shocking is how little such children often contribute to the larger narrative. Depending on the story and its particular medium, we might see cursory mentions of them in the text or witness them briefly on the screen—or they might become a central focus of the story itself. Whether or not the children of a lead character take the story’s spotlight, however, realistically they would play an enormous role in shaping the lead character moving forward.
Why then do we see so many shows where a main character’s children are little more than props?
This is not how real life works. Sure, not every parent spends a lot of time with their children—but whether they do or don’t has a huge impact on that parent’s identity. A father or mother’s degree of investment in a child always impacts his or her own character. Your style of parenting shapes who you are.
But instead, many children in cinema are born into a vacuum.
Their existence is little more than evidence that the lead characters consummated their marriage. Whoo-hoo. Their function throughout the story is often reduced to one of two things: a one-dimensional liability for the lead character (i.e. “I must protect my family!”) or a one-dimensional symbol of an idyllic home life (i.e. “I just can’t wait to come home every day”). Things get interesting when children take on their own personalities, but it seems this rarely happens when the children have been conceived and born during the timeline of the story. In my observation, children who are there from the beginning usually contribute far more than those that enter later on.
While we’ll never know what the writers have in mind, I suspect that prop-like children are the result of two possible causes:
1) Lazy writing
I believe this also accounts for the way that characters (especially in television) often vanish from a story without explanation. The writers want to implement a change of either adding or subtracting a character, but they don’t bother fleshing out its implications. In the case of children, the writers clearly want the lead character to produce offspring, but they devote little energy to showing the impact of parenthood on that character’s identity. In other words, they want the subliminal presence of children, but none of the strings attached. Sure, the lead character will grow and change as he or she takes on monumental obstacles and quests… but parenthood? Nah, that won’t change ’em.
2) Fear of Distraction
While some writers are likely too lazy to bother developing the parent-child dynamic, others probably fear that this added dimension will detract from the main storyline. They themselves are much more interested in the original plot, and they worry that adding domestic relationships to the main character’s life will shift the audience’s focus away from the central plot. To be fair, this can happen, and it takes strong narrative and character development to weave children into the plot in a meaningful way. But attempting to do so is better than asking the audience to forget that the lead character is a parent 90% of the time.
On a deeper level, though, it could be argued that this indifference to children is the result of a society that undervalues home life. I don’t know that I agree, but there are some who would suggest that the minimal impact children have on today’s lead characters is representative of what many parents desire: to minimize the changes that offspring bring with them.
Do you think this is the case? Or do you think the explanation lies in one of the two causes I listed?
If you see another possible explanation for this trend, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Before you go, I invite you to do the following:
- Visit and subscribe to my new YouTube Channel for creative writing insights
- Sign up for my author newsletter (infrequent updates about upcoming releases)
Getting a Script Noticed
Submitting a script for production and submitting a novel for publication require different things.
If you’ve read my article on making the “pitch” for a script, you already know this process can be uniquely intimidating. Impressing powerful people always is. Even so, there’s plenty a person can do to prepare for this in-person encounter with a producer, so thankfully you don’t have to walk in there with your knees knocking.
Your presentation, however, is only part of the script pitch process—and in some cases, you may not even make it to the in-person pitch. After two years of painstakingly revising a polishing a script for a historical drama, I recently began submitting this play to a variety of playwriting competitions across the country. The submission process reminded me very much of my querying days as an unpublished author: preparing files to look exactly the way gatekeepers want them, explaining the plot as concisely and tantalizingly as possible, and hoping that something I wrote will catch their attention.
That last part is exactly what I want to dig deeper into today: what does it take to get noticed?
The thing is, you can’t write a flashy synopsis if your story itself doesn’t have any flash to it. So what makes the script juicy? What is it that makes the producer or reviewing team pause and think, “Now that’s a story people would come to see”?
I’ve been reading a fantastic book called The Screenwriter’s Bible, full of wisdom about crafting a compelling script. It delves into the different layers of plot and character development, and how these two must express themselves visually in a screenplay if the movie is going to pack any punch. It was incredibly invigorating to see that this particular script I am submitting actually checks all of the boxes described in this book (based off of others’ feedback). It remains to be seen whether the script will in fact catch anyone’s attention, but in the meantime I find myself examining the story for all the features that could possibly attract or deter a producer.
Without spoiling too much, here are some things my script has going for it:
1) The two lead characters have tangible, competing goals
2) Both characters have a clear external and internal arc
3) The story connects contemporary readers to the past using relevant questions
And yet sadly, I am aware that there are some “desirable” qualities it lacks.
I write “desirable” in quotes because, while these traits seem to grace the overwhelming majority of professionally produced works, I will let you decide whether you believe these make a story production-worthy:
1) Overt sexual content
While much of the story hinges on sexual tension, the script is not packed with sex. Any sexual content is simply implied and done so in a non-sensual way.
2) F-bombs
Although this term could have appeared in 17th century England (yes, the word is that old) the script does not sport much profanity. By today’s standards, that might make a story downright boring.
3) Contemporary social agendas
Every movement has its roots and many movements are connected, but one thing I deliberately avoided was packing modern social issues into a historical time period. Today’s controversies were not the controversies of the 1600s—although many producers seem to think otherwise.
Why does my script lack these three “desirable” qualities?
No doubt it would have a better shot at pleasing a broader array of producers if it had these.
It all came down to what the story needed. Aside from any moral misgivings an artist may have with these three components, I think we should all ask ourselves what serves the story and what does not. I don’t mean what makes it flashier or sexier. I mean what serves the meat of the story, the core—what makes it compelling. Let’s face it: much of sex, language, and politics we see in today’s books and film does not make the characters more unique or the plot more memorable. If anything, it makes the story sound like everything else out there right now, because for some reason sex, f-bombs, and politics are selling.
Let me be clear: you must always work to sell your script. But let’s remember that there is a difference between selling your script and selling out. I hope we never are guilty of the latter.
Where do you draw the line between writing to please an audience versus “selling out?”
Do you feel that film and theatre have become overly sensual or provocative? Why or why not?
Newsflash: For you writers out there, be sure to check out my freshly published YouTube video on the pros and cons of traditional publishing.
Before you go, I invite you to do the following:
- Visit and subscribe to my new YouTube Channel for creative writing insights
- Sign up below for my author newsletter (infrequent updates about upcoming releases)
A Blogging Milestone: the 100th Post
Two years ago, the term “blogging milestone” seemed ridiculous—even pretentious.
The last blogging milestone I made a post about was the 30th one, in February of 2020, which was more like an announcement of The Inquisitive Inkpot’s identity shift. I don’t think even after thirty weeks of blogging that I understood how challenging the long-haul commitment would be.
People start blogs for all sorts of reasons, and their work can grow in any number of ways. That being said, I could never have known that my blog would turn into something other than a haven of historical fiction commentaries and writing excerpts. I could never have known that it would be something other than a platform for promoting my books.
As I look back, I realize how glad I am that The Inquisitive Inkpot became than a book-selling platform. Make no mistake—I always celebrate when I receive another book order notification! But if a blog were nothing more than an echo chamber of an author relentlessly plugging her own books, then how would that author grow from the blogging experience?
What I’ve learned over the last two years (and 100 posts) is that blogging should benefit two parties: the reader and the writer.
Every article should offer the reader something valuable—whether in the form of entertainment, information, thought-provocation, or discussion. Likewise, every article offers the writer an opportunity to stretch oneself, by requiring either research, a new perspective, or intensive revision. Some articles will require all three of these.
Writing for a blog has not always been equally rewarding—I still laugh at the way my perception of a knock-out post differs from my readers’ perception. Some of my favorite articles get the least hits, and some of my least favorite ones get the most. You readers sure like to keep me guessing! 😉 In any case, however, the simple drill of planning, drafting, preparing, and publishing a new article each week has given me a type of structure my creative life has never known. There are times when I think my other creative projects would go quicker if I didn’t feel obligated to publish each week, and for that reason many writers take breaks from blogging. I may try that some time. But I do find that the weekly deadline has helped me sharpen my writing skills—or at least preserved them from post-college atrophy. Along with the deadlines, the habit of weekly publication provides a small, measurable accomplishment that really does boost my sense of productivity—even when it feels like The Muse has eluded me in other areas.
So on this blogging milestone, I would like to leave you with two things:
1) Thank you to everyone who has participated in the discussions on The Inquisitive Inkpot, and to those who simply drop by to read. Your time is valuable, and I am grateful that you choose to spend some of it here. I hope that this blog has benefited you in some way!
2) Let’s keep thinking critically and creatively. The Inquisitive Inkpot is all about asking questions of the stories we encounter and create, because there is always more than one side to a story and every story has implications on the way we interpret life. I love to hear your thoughts and to read your perspectives, whether in the comments section or on your own blog. The world could certainly use some more deep thinking.
Here’s to two more years and 200 posts!
What is one thing you have gained from the blogging experience?
If you have been following The Inquisitive Inkpot, what is one thing you have enjoyed or one way you have benefited from this blog?
Before you go, I invite you to do the following:
- Visit and subscribe to my new YouTube Channel for creative writing insights
- Sign up below for my author newsletter (infrequent updates about upcoming releases)
Nature has Drama Too
Nature can be equally refreshing and entertaining—as I was recently reminded.
Going for walks in nature is one of my go-to introvert activities, in which I can leave behind all technology, obligation, and mandatory sitting. (Side note: it perpetually frustrates me how sitting is the requirement for almost all social gatherings. The human body was just not meant to sit all day.)
In any case, the particular nature walk I am about to share with you happened a week ago and left me with an unforgettable impression. It occurred to me while watching these events unfold that this is the sort of drama that probably happens all the time in nature, but we just don’t pause to appreciate the comedy of it all.
And so, thanks to a recent writing prompt from Sam Kirk, I will recount the dramatic altercation I witnessed at my lake last weekend—brief, but memorable:
Mr. and Mrs. Mallard stroll down the dusky bank on a romantic Friday evening, their webbed feet in step with one another.
With a coy look in his eye, Mr. Mallard suddenly arises and flutters down into the water– an invitation Mrs. Mallard accepts.
The pair glide gracefully in the water for a moment, savoring the serenity of their solitude… until a third, lone female without a date joins them in the water with an abrupt splash.
ENTER: the third wheel.
For a touching moment, the couple swim towards the lone female, as if to welcome her and assuage her sense of isolation. (I must admit, my heart welled with warmth at this sight.)
But suddenly Mr. Mallard emerges from the water and spreads his wings with an indignant hiss, startling our lone female and sending her into flight! He pursues her up into the air, hurling insults and disdain at her intrusion upon the couple’s outing. At last our third wheel vanishes into the trees and Mr. Mallard descends back into the water, where Mrs. Mallard awaits.
With their privacy restored, the pair return to their intimate evening on the lake.
Sam’s prompt encouraged writers to examine their daily experiences for story material—anything that could lay the groundwork for an unusual narrative. Well, I confess that this took very little of my imaginative power, since it felt more like a scene from a sitcom set in wildlife. Aside from proving that perspective enriches our experience of life, this little incident also reaffirms the animal kingdom’s unique power to provide amusement.
If you are looking for a little drama to spice up your life, just try looking out the window or watching your pets. It’s remarkable how animal interactions resemble human ones.
Before you go, I invite you to do the following:
- Visit and subscribe to my new YouTube Channel for creative writing insights
- Sign up below for my author newsletter (infrequent updates about upcoming releases)
