“If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.”
― George Bernard Shaw
A writer once said that anyone who survives to the age of twenty has been provided with enough material to write for the rest of her life. Every family has secrets, eccentric relatives, strong personalities, people who are generous, sensitive, thin skinned, vicious, prejudiced, unforgettable in some way.Anyone who survives to the age of twenty has experienced joy, pain, betrayal, love, hate, jealousy, ecstasy, depression, danger and the situations that cause them. These are the raw material of any stories. Tragic stories, humorous stories, fantastic stories,.
Seeking for material for your writing, you need not look any farther than your own life, your own friends, your own family. This doesn't necessarily mean that you ought to alienate the people in your life by exposing their secrets, (although many a writer of memoir and autobiography has done that).
To me it means finding situations and models from life. As a writer I can rework the family stories told over the years. I can combine the stories of two great aunts who were dramatic and unusual or were in love with the same man. I can imagine the life of an uncle who went to seek his fortune and disappeared forever. Naturally I change the names of everyone. Even when I write the truth as I see it, others seldom recognize themselves as the model for my stories. By the time I've crafted their lives and mine into fiction a strange alchemy has transformed them into something rich and strange. Don't be afraid to look for ideas close to home. WRITE ON!
Make your skeletons dance! Why not?
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