Sara Shepard and the Story Pitch
How a Hollywood-style pitch led to a spark which led to a novel
Last month, I made a crack about how my life is so very different from Irene's. She was born into wealth, escaped the Bolshevik Revolution, came of age in Paris and proved herself a brilliant novelist only to be forced into hiding by the Nazis who would murder her. I, on the other hand, grew up on the west side of Cleveland and moved to Michigan, where I work in insurance.
Two weeks ago, a man with a gun murdered three students and critically wounded five others on the campus of Michigan State University. It was one of America's all-too frequent mass shootings.
MSU's campus is only a few miles from our home and we visit there, or nearby, weekly for events, shopping or restaurants. MSU is the cultural heart of mid-Michigan.
With every mass shooting, I'm reminded how we are invaded by an army of racists, transphobes, and delusional men. We have too many guns and not enough mental health facilities. We have hatred from the right spouting a reactionary agenda.
Sadly, life here has become a question of when, not if, another attack will come. In that one regard, our lives here in America are all a little bit more like those hunted and killed by the Nazis. For instance, gun violence is the leading cause of death for kids aged 1-18 (NY Times).
There's hope, of course, but the trauma is real.
Processing Trauma
I mentioned to a friend of mine that I find it difficult to write after these events, that words escape me in the grief and worry that follows.
She happens to be a (successful) novelist, and lives very close to the shooting site. She reminded me that telling stories is how we process trauma. Telling each other what happened is one of our fundamental human activities.
In the immediate aftermath, the local news interviewed several students who were in the two buildings where the attacks occurred. They breathlessly told the story of what happened, what they saw, what they were thinking. They expressed their relief of escape, and the regret for those injured or perished.
Even in a state of shock, they told their story to help themselves process the trauma.
Suite Francaise
I hadn't connected Irène Némirovsky's novellas written in hiding as an act of processing trauma, but I'm certain that was a part of it.
Sara Shepard in CrimeReads
In an article titled Finding the Spark on CrimeReads.com, Sara Shepard tells the story of her latest novel. Near the end of that article is a perfect Story Story for this newsletter.
I tried to track her down, but she's so successful that every avenue passes through her publisher. So I decided to quote the heck out that article, kind of like Maria Popova does in The Marginalian. (If you haven't heard of Maria or her website before, you're welcome.)
The Story Story
Sara describes the impetus of her latest novel as having been given to her as a pitch, kind of a thing that agents, producers and screenwriters do in Hollywood every day.
That pitch sparked her interest, and she took the challenge, writing up sample pages based on the spirit of that pitch. When she showed those pages to her agent, it was a "meh."
Knowing she hadn't connected with the characters, she took off on a tangent from secondary characters, and tried again. Once more, it was a "meh."
The story didn't have a life of its own yet. The characters weren't living and breathing in her mind, and animating them was like moving paper cutouts around on the desk.
In her words:
...I hadn’t connected to the characters yet. I didn’t know them or what they wanted.
Thinking about the situations facing the characters in the story, she made a connection with an experience from her own life. Then:
...once I cracked Casey, and what she was about, and how I could connect with her, the rest of the story fell into place.
Writing is Therapy
Read the original article because it's helpful to remind ourselves that even the most successful novelists struggle with each story (at least a little).
Sara went on to describe how writing this new story connected to a difficult time in her past helped her work through difficulties that had been left unresolved. For her:
"...writing is therapy."
Going Forward
If you have a story-story to share, send it my way. Just a couple hundred words on how you turned the spark of an idea into something you could write as a first draft.
Thanks for your time. Now get back to your desk and type faster.
All the best,
Mickey