Start Your Story with a Hook

If you spend time worrying about the best way to start a story, you may never write it. Your first challenge is to get it on the page in any form at all. But before you release it to readers, give your opening some thought so you sink a hook firmly into readers’ brains and guts.

I offer these Before and After opening excerpts of a story titled Missing Neighbor that’s based on a personal experience.

Before

You would not believe the adventure I had with my friend Ellie. We were scheduled to take her to the airport at ten. I texted her around nine-thirty, and she didn't reply. I tried calling a few minutes later. She didn't answer, but I assumed she was on the phone with her daughter. Her voice mail was full. Hmm. Shall I go over there now just to check? No ... she's a big girl ... I muted my ESP.

At ten I rang the bell. No answer. I rang again. And again. I pounded on the door. She's expecting us now. What the heck? I decided to call her husband, who flew east four days ago. Maybe he’d heard something.

“Bring me my phone!” I hollered to Ed, who was standing by our car watching.

Suddenly it occurred to me to try the door. She does often leave it unlocked when she's expecting people. Huh! It opened! I went in. The house was dark. And silent. I saw no evidence of life. Very creepy!

“Ellie? Ellie!” I made my way toward the back of the long everything room, noticing the door on the sun porch was closed. At the end, I saw her bedroom door was closed. What will I find if I open it? Is she sick Or worse? What if she's ... dead? I feel like I’m living the opening chapter of a thriller novel! ….

After

Something is dreadfully wrong! This thought roils through my head after I punch the doorbell five more times and pound on the door and get no response. I see no light behind the frosted door glass. She has to be up. Her plane leaves in two hours. What am I going to do?

“Bring me my phone!” I holler across the yard to Ed, who stands waiting at our car. I’ll call Chuck. Maybe he’s heard from her. No matter that Chuck is already in Boston, her destination today.

My eye lands on the doorknob. Of course! She often leaves it unlocked when she’s expecting someone. I press the lever and the door swings open into their huge, dark, empty everything room. Aside from a fan whispering on the ceiling, I hear no sound except my pounding heart.

“Ellie? Ellie!” My skin crawls as I creep slowly toward the end of the room. “Ellie! Are you here?” I call out over and over, but hear no response. My heart beats even louder.

Ellie can be ditzy, but this is way out of character. She’s been planning this trip for months, and I’ve been booked for the airport run from the start. Yesterday she was excited about the weekend wedding she’s heading for. I should have followed my hunch and come over thirty minutes ago when she didn’t answer my text or her phone. But hey, she was probably talking to her daughter. She doesn’t interrupt those calls. She’s a big girl. I’m not her mommy. I’d muted my ESP.

The door to the sunroom is closed. I reach the hall to her room. It’s also closed. Maybe she’s in the shower. But what if she’s sick? What if she’s gone? What if she’s … dead? I feel like I’m living the opening chapter of a thriller novel!”

“Ellie? Are you up?”

I hold my breath as I approach the door, reaching for the knob ….

~ ~ ~

You may not be surprised to learn that the Before version began life as an email, which is a great way to discover and develop a story draft. In fact, it’s just fine to send it as an email. Whether you send it or not, you may want to copy it out and develop it further. I decided to hold onto mine before sending it off and exercise a little creativity.

I realized that the creepy, horrified feeling I had as I crept through her house was the perfect beginning for a compelling mystery novel. Taking all the advice I’ve read from both fiction authors and experts like Lisa Cron in Wired for Story, I cut right to the emotion-filled point where my stomach began churning and let it build from there, looping briefly back to tell who Ellie is.

Are you curious about what I found? Was Ellie hurt or … dead? Mission accomplished.

Writing tip: write a new story or pull out an old one and find the juicy part. Rewrite the story starting with that.

Tell a Story, Change the World

Carmen Murasan changes hearts, and perhaps someday the world, by telling stories. She changed my heart as she spun stories about Romanian history, lacing them strongly with perspective and personal insight.

I met Carmen at the conclusion of a Vantage river boat tour of the Rhine and Danube that ended in Romania. She lives in Brasov and served as our local guide during the time we spent in Transylvania. Our local guide in Bucharest had painted a slightly cynical picture of Romania’s past and present, presumably also its future. She left me wondering why she’d chosen to return after living elsewhere for years.

Carmen was the perfect antidote. She’s passionate about life and passionate about Romania. She had our Orange Bus group howling like werewolves at every opportunity, baffling the Blue Bus group the first few times they heard us, and she punctuated her points with hugs and kisses for everyone at frequent intervals. She added brilliance and focus to the seductive beauty of Transylvania. How could we not listen to her stories and absorb her passion?

For example, consider the way she developed the story of Count Dracula, also known as Vlad, the Impaler. “It’s not fair to judge Vlad in light of twenty-first century values. You must understand conditions back then and the way he was brought up....” By the time she was finished, I got it. Not that she turned him into a saint, but I did understand his logic and the protective effect it had on Transylvania’s history.

During the course of the cruise from Bonn to Bucharest, we stopped in so many cities, towns and villages that they’ve begun to blur together, but especially as we cruised down the Danube from Vienna into former Eastern Bloc countries of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania, our local guides’ stories became intense. We heard tales of millennia of invasions and the violence of World War II. Accounts of more recent Balkan conflict horrified us. We heard personal accounts of genocide and ever-present anxiety over possible attempts to form a new Ottoman Empire.

My hair stood on end as our Croatian guide told of suddenly being sent alone to a children’s camp in Germany for what turned out to be six months while most of his extended family was shot in a mass execution of Croatians. Fortunately his parents survived. Every guide after Vienna told a personal story of life under Communist rule and later liberation. Each story left an imprint on my heart.

Not all stories were verbal. Buildings stood as silent testimony. Great progress has been made toward restoring the damage caused by bombing and decades of neglect, but most notably in Bucharest, far too many stand like rotting teeth in a brilliant smile, constant reminders of the past and work yet to be done. How starkly eastern Europe contrasts with western cities rebuilt by the Marshall Plan. Taken together, the two halves of Europe bear testimony to the ability of the United States to implement the Marshall Plan to rebuild our former enemies while thriving ourselves.

Story is the operating system our human brains use to make sense of life and the world we live in. We’re constantly creating and editing stories to incorporate new information and experience. I’ve encountered a river full of small stories that beg to be woven into a larger one. My former view of the world has burst open like the shell of a growing lobster. A new view will take time to become clearn and solid. This blog post is one small step in achieving that end.

I'm endlessly grateful that Carmen Murasan’s stories were the last ones I heard. Her optimism and joy for life form a pillar for anchoring and focusing others.

Carmen shares her stories with legions of visitors to Romania from around the world, and I feel certain she changes each of their hearts. Hopefully as we each share our take on her stories, and I share mine on others I’ve heard, the ripple effect will kick in, and the world will become a better place. Perhaps, just maybe, one day she’ll begin writing those stories and touch even more people.

How has hearing new stories from others changed your heart, life and stories? Write about it! 

My Brain on Story

An ongoing, passionate, urge to write is upon me. Primarily I’m engrossed in creating a second edition of The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing. I began writing that book ten years ago. All print runs have sold out, and I told the publisher I did not want it to continue as a Print On Demand volume. I feel compelled to freshen it up with new insights rather than perpetuating what seems like a stale version. 

As I finally found the energy to rip into the guts, I found the courage to question everything I said, and I’m ripping it apart with abandon. I’d forgotten how energizing it can be to smash into things with a sledge hammer. Many years ago I literally hammered out tile and sawed out fiberglass in two bathroom renovations. What fun! This book may also be stripped to studs, and it may take way longer than the four to six weeks I’d intended. 

Or maybe not. Story has me by the brain. I’m dreaming about how to express things. Is that sleeping or writing? Mostly the latter. If I don’t get up and get it on the page, I’ll lie awake, afraid I’ll forget. Nothing will do but to hit the keyboard while it’s clear in mind. Keep a notepad by my bed? Great idea, but I don’t sleep alone, so I’d get up anyway to write the note. Then I’m awake. 

In the wee hours this morning my essay, Mayhem at Camp RYLA (download from the Free Stuff tab) came to mind. A couple of weeks ago my son-in-law and daughter and I got into a hammer and tongs discussion about the nature of Truth. I used the example from my essay of the water pistol being misinterpreted as a real gun. Sally Johnson had an extreme response to what she perceived as gun fire. The gun produced as evidence was a water pistol. Nobody knew until later that Sally worked as a bank teller and had been involved less than three months earlier in an armed robbery where a bystander was hit by a stray bullet. The mere glint of sunshine on a gun was enough to trigger a traumatic flashback. That young woman was suffering from PTSD. Nobody knew. Not even her. 

My point at dinner was that to Sally, that object in Mary’s hand was indisputably a pistol full of bullets. That was absolute truth to her, and from her point or view, absolute truth to me. 

“No. There is no way that is true. She may have thought it was true, but the fact is that gun was a water pistol and she was wrong!” Passions were running high, but I stood my ground, realizing that the best I could hope for was for us to agree to disagree. I was tired after three days attending a conference and not on my toes. I may pursue the matter again, because I feel strongly that it’s important for people, especially opinion leaders such as they are, to recognize that Truth comes in fifty shades of white, and I’m not sure that they do. The empirically documentable fact remains that Mary was carrying a water pistol.

But that doesn’t make Sally’s instant perception wrong or untrue. To her, that was a pistol loaded with bullets. Reconciling her instant perception with the reality of the water pistol was almost as traumatic for her as the original assault had been. I wish now I’d stayed in touch with her. Traumatic or not, it seems like a good thing that she recognized the effect of the trauma as soon as she did. 

But what if the junior staff had roared back out of camp and disposed of the evidence like they would have on television? Life is seldom so simple. In that case, we would not have had empirical truth. Sally’s perception would stand. Would that make it more true? I submit that it would. 

Furthermore, each camper saw and experienced the event in a unique way and left with different interpretations. It probably had the most dramatic and lasting impact on Sally and me. As noted in the essay, I was conducting workshops on communication skills at the time, with an emphasis on active listening and the filters involved. I’ve used this event as am example in classes and workshops countless times over the years. 

This morning I woke to see that event as worthy of much deeper exploration, and it may play a large role in the introductory material in the Second Edition. Now I can go back to sleep. Maybe. Stay tuned!

Points to Ponder: How often have you been in a situation where you were sure of something that turned out otherwise? How did this discovery affect you? How did it affect your “story” about what happened? Did you try looking at the situation from other eyes? How could shifting perspectives change a story you’re writing or thinking about writing? Considering alternate points of view can dramatically change a story, even your view of life. 

Writing by Hand versus Keyboard

“Is it better to write by hand or on the keyboard?” 

This question comes up at the beginning of every class I teach.

“It doesn’t matter,” I tell them. Today I expand with a bit of advice. “Do whatever you’re most comfortable with. But even if you prefer a keyboard, writing by hand at least part of the time can prime your creative pump.” This advice comes from a combination of personal experience and science.

In my experience teaching, I’ve noticed that a few students routinely write terse, dry little stories that do little beyond stating a few facts. Unlike most in the class, their skill level does not seem to improve.

A woman I’ll call Alice is typical of these students. While most students are challenged to stick to one-and-a-half page limit for assigned stories, Alice’s stories were never longer than half a page. Although this was technically against the rules, she always spent longer explaining the story in class than reading it. In contrast to written versions, her oral stories were rich and intriguing and we encouraged her to include all those extra elements in the written story.

Alice was not discouraged. Though her stories never expanded, she did keep coming to class and plodding along with her writing. In that respect she was a fine example of my strong belief that any bit of personal history that you write and share will eventually be treasured by family members, though perhaps not right away.

One day as I looked at her typos and awkward formatting, I had an idea. “Alice, do you type easily and well?” I asked her privately after class. Sure enough, she was a hunt-and-peck typist. “Do you write your stories by hand first, or start them on the computer?”

“Oh, I start out right away on the computer. I don’t want to have to do all that extra work to type them later.”

I asked her to write her story by hand the next week. She could bring the hand-written copy to class, or type it in when she was finished. Sure enough, the next week her tantalizing story thrilled the class. Alice floated out of class that day on a cloud of praise for her new writing style, and her skills continued to progress from there.

My hunch had been that she was so focused on finding letters on the keyboard that she lost track of her story as she wrote, and most of it got lost until she came to class when it began flooding in again. She agreed that was the case. From then on, she wrote by hand first and typed the stories in later.

A couple of years later I learned the science that explains this difference, and it should give all of us an incentive to pick up pen and paper now and then. Generally speaking, you use different brain centers when sliding pen over paper compared to tapping away on the keyboard. Muscle control is different. Tactile sensations vary. Keyboards make sounds, and visual input is different.

As I recall, brain researchers have found that writing on paper uses a wider array of brain centers, engaging differently with memory and visions. Keyboard input may be more focused, coming from a single center, perhaps the frontal lobe.

Back to personal experience, I’ve found that I’m almost unable to make lists on a keyboard. I need pencil and paper for that. Likewise, if I’m having trouble starting a story, I can always start writing on paper. Soon enough the story concept starts to clear and I grow impatient with paper, so I switch to a keyboard. If I get stuck in the middle of a story, I stop, ask myself what am I trying to say and answer that question. Then the story flows again.

So which is better, writing by hand or keyboard? Both and neither.

Points to Ponder: How comfortable are you on the keyboard? If you still think of each letter as you type, definitely try writing by hand. Even if you do write well on the keyboard, try writing by hand. You may access different points of view or memories.

What Is TRUTH?

Nine years ago as I pulled together the material that became The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing, I thought I knew the answer to that question, what is truth: It's what really happened, or what you really think. It's basic honesty, plain and simple. Everybody knows that, right?

That's a good starting point, but as I've learned since then, that's both incomplete and misleading. Some of my increased understanding is old news, things I knew that had not integrated into my cluster of life writing neurons. Meanwhile, advances in the study of memory continue to deepen understanding. These discoveries have profound  relevance for life writers. Here's a list of a few evolving insights worth sharing:

Memory is fallible. Contrary to what you probably heard in psychology class, self-help seminars, and various other places, you do not remember every minute detail of every sensation that ever entered your brain. Recent evidence shows that incoming data is filtered, scrubbed and consolidated. Irrelevant material is unlikely to be retained. Furthermore, our brains often mistake vivid mental images for fact, embedding them as memory.

Memory morphs. Research shows that each time you recall an event or thought, current circumstances and thought become enmeshed in the memory, and the initial memory may become buried in debris over time. Compare this to your story files on disk. You may save your initial draft. Then you edit and save again. You may repeat that process twenty times, perhaps changing only a word or two each time you read. Five years later, if you had a copy of that original draft, you may not recognize it as the same story. But you didn't save the original, so there's now way to know.

Perception is personal and situational. In 1978 I grew sick of my long, hippie hair. I was enrolled in an off-campus graduate program at Central Washington U at the time, and made the hundred mile drive to the Ellensburg campus every couple of weeks. One day I left early and stopped at a hair salon before a lunch date with my mentor. Although I felt foxy as heck with my sleek new bob, I could barely see beyond a new fringe of bangs invading my view. My next stop was the library. When I stepped up to the checkout desk, I heard a man say, "Oh, my GOD!" A bomb exploded in my self-absorbed brain. Could my hair be that bad? I swung around and saw him gaping at a document.

Truth is relative. This perspective is based on the one above. In my essay, Mayhem at Camp RYLA, I cite the example of a young woman who worked as a bank teller and was held up at gunpoint a few months earlier. Shots were fired, though not at her. During a simulated crime at Camp RYLA, she saw an object held at arms' length, pointed in her direction. Not only did she tearfully swear under oath at the mock trial that a gun had been pointed at her, but that she'd heard a shot. That belief was so strong and true for her that she went into near meltdown at the revelation the "gun" had been a plastic water pistol.

Truth is situational and sometimes inconsistent. Victims of abuse often testify to this. "I loved him," they claim, years after they got brave enough to leave. "I really loved him. And I hated him when he beat me. Sometimes I wished he was dead." Those feelings, those truths, can exist side-by-side for decades.

So, you see, although I don't deny the existence of universal truths like the power of love, story truth is fuzzy, fleeting and personal.Write your story the way you see it, the way it's real and true to you. If you find truth changing as you write, consider yourself blessed.

Write now: Make a list of beliefs about what you hold true. Jot down a few examples of each. Then ask yourself Byron Katie's question, "Is this really, really true?" and "How do I know it's true?" You may be surprised by what you learn.

What Is Truth?

Eight years ago as I pulled together the material that became The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing, I thought I knew the answer to that question: It's what really happened, or what you really think. It's basic honesty, plain and simple. Everybody knows that, right?

That's a good starting point, but based on what I’ve learned and discovered since then, that definition is incomplete and misleading. Some of my increased understanding is old news, things I knew that had not yet integrated into my life writing neuron cluster. Meanwhile, advances in the field of neuroscience continue to deepen understanding of how memory works. These discoveries have profound  relevance for life writers. Here's a list of a few insights worth sharing:

Memory is fallible. Contrary to what you probably heard in psychology class, self-help seminars, and various other places, your subconscious is not packed with every minute detail of every sensation that ever entered your brain. Recent evidence shows that incoming data is filtered, scrubbed, compacted and consolidated. Unless it significantly relates one way or another to something you already know, most new material is filtered out.

Another stumbling block is that our brains often mistake vivid mental images for fact, embedding them as memory. This phenomenon explains many “suppressed” memories that may be planted by certain forms of questioning. Are those “true” memories? Debate rages on.

Memory morphs. Research shows that each time you recall an event or thought, current circumstances and thought become enmeshed in the memory, which may become buried in debris over time.

Perception is personal. If you have not yet done so, read my essay, Mayhem at Camp Ryla for a first person account of sensational and documented differences in personal perception as a simulated crime was committed. Elizabeth Loftus and other researchers have repeatedly verified my observations.

Truth is relative. As you take different points of view, you see truth in different lights. What was true without a doubt to you as a child may look quite different after fifty years of life experience. What seems true to a child is something entirely different to a parent. Experts often disagree on the truth of such fundamentals as the meaning of scripture.

Truth is situational. You may already have noticed how you select aspects of thought depending on who you are talking to. Conversation and writing are both shaped by our perceptions of the people we address. Time dictates filtering. Even if we had all the time in the world, shaping our message for best understanding is also important.

So, again, what is truth? Amazon is full of books on this topic. Here’s my current take. Today my best answer is that truth is found at the core of my being. It’s as ephemeral as an atom, lacking substance and location, but forming the essence of being. I recognize truth as a sensation of rightness or “inner knowingness” that washes over me as my beliefs, values, memories and experience converge in a single bright spot.

Truth does not trump fear, nor does speaking or writing it promise a smooth path. Speaking, writing and living in conformance with truth as you believe and understand it does lead to a sense of integrity and personal peace.

Story that springs from the well of truth within you shines the most brightly. You don’t need to blurt it out. You can veil it, scatter it, turn it upside down. But if it isn’t there, your story will ring hollow.

Writing, especially (but not only) journaling, may be the most powerful way to arrive at your truth. William Faulkner is credited with first saying,  “I never know what I think about something until I read what I’ve written about it.”  The longer you work on a story, the more you dig for detail, the more deeply you know the truth of that story, and the truth of yourself.

Write now: even if you’ve done this before, start fresh and write about a cornerstone memory, ideally one with volatile emotional content. As you write, as yourself the question, “Is this  really true?” Keep writing until the answer to that question is “YES!” Then write the true story.

Red Ink: Threat or Transfusion?

Red ink bled any possible love of writing from millions of students. You may be one of them. The mere thought of voluntarily exposing your words to censure may fill you with trepidation and turn fingers and brain to stone. Yet you have this story you ache to tell and you want to do it well. What’s a person to do?

Roots of the problem. English teachers back in the dark ages of our school years (whenever those were) were trained to believe in the power of correction. Only occasionally did they whisper words of encouragement and praise to the favored few. This approach did little to foster a love of writing, and deterred untold millions from even trying.

For students with a certain mindset, this approach worked. For example, although we paid little attention to our children’s homework, when he was a high school junior my younger son began asking me to edit his English papers. I gave it my best, flooding early pages with red ink. By then we had a computer, so after I explained what I’d done, he quickly fixed them and floored his teacher with his flawless work. By the end of the year, I seldom found anything to correct. Learning had happened, perhaps in spite of me. I had not yet learned the power of appreciation and positive feedback.

Red ink as symbol. Not long ago I overheard a heart-rending remark in a campus eatery: “Every time I see red ink, I feel like blood is draining out of me. This paper is a total hemorrhage, and I’m dying!”  Wow, this was not exactly a new idea – I have instinctively used green or blue ink when critiquing other people’s writing. An expanded metaphor came to mind:

When blood gushes out of a body, life is threatened. Blood can be returned to that failing body with a life-saving transfusion.

When you think of red ink that way, corrections can become gifts, lessons to help you grow and improve, not violent slashes to fend off an incoherent dolt.

Personal experience bears this out. Let me back up. I learned to sew at my mother’s knee, and at her insistence I spent hundreds of hours ripping and restitching until every seam lay smoothly. At first she ripped for me. Then she demanded to see each seam before I went on to the next, approving or prescribing correction. Ultimately I fixed things on my own initiative, demanding perfection of myself. This trait spilled over into everything, including writing.

Perhaps I’m fortunate to have no memories of red ink from school, although I’m sure there were some. But neither do I have memories of encouragement. I did love outlining sentences, and somehow I did pick up reasonably strong skills that eventually gave me some confidence that I knew how to write.

That confidence hit a brick wall in 1993 when I began working with a publisher on my first book, Meetings: Do’s, Don’ts and Donuts. Barrels of red ink flowed onto the pages. I don’t think a single sentence emerged intact. I reacted with horror, paralyzed by red-faced humiliation. After I scuttled home and entered the edits, words flowed more smoothly. Gabbiness had morphed to an authoritative, professional tone. That was Round One. We probably went through an entire bout, but the book was solid and good and went into a Second Edition.

The situation was rather different with The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing a dozen years later. Yes, there was still red ink, but not nearly so much. The gift of red ink allowed learning to happen.

I have a new manuscript working its way through the CreateSpace labyrinth right now. I hope to tell you about it and post links in a week or so. This time I eagerly sought that red ink. I want that volume to be the best it can be. Over half a dozen people provided input, finding “egregious errors” that I would never have noticed and suggesting tweaks to smooth the flow. They found comma problems along with duplicate and missing words Grammar Check missed.

Red ink is my delight, a gift to myself. I view it as a transfusion, and hope you can come to that view also. We help each other grow as writers and learn to give our stories the polish that connects with readers to change lives.

Write now: do some freewriting on the topic of red ink and critique. Do you become defensive? Do you feel humiliated when others find errors, rough spots or holes in your stories? Do you shy away from sharing for that reason? Jot some thoughts about how you might change your perspective to reverse the image of gibes into recognition of gifts.

A Picture Requires a Thousand Words

You know the old saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” That may be true if you already know what the picture is about. Otherwise a picture is a prompt for you to write a story, if only a fleeting one, in your mind.

Consider the picture above. Two things are obvious: A woman wearing a fancy white dress and gloves is holding a lacy white parasol. Anything beyond that is pure conjecture. Right now I invite you to join an experiment. Skip down to the comment section and spend a minute or two writing a mini story about what you see in this picture. Write your own before you check to see what others have written. Check back later to keep track.

I guarantee that no two readers will write the same story. With a dozen responses, three or four may be similar, but even those will differ in detail. I’ve used this exercise with various pictures countless times in classes, workshops and writing groups, and I never cease to be amazed at the variety of stories that pour out, especially when the pictures are more complex.

Nobody is surprised when different stories emerge from the same picture. You almost expect that, and after you hear the additional stories, you can see them too. But do you realize that the same thing happens with stories? Each reader reads a slightly different story, colored by personal experience. If it matters to you that readers clearly understand your point of view, it’s important to explain details with the most vivid description you can muster.

Including action and emotion in those descriptions builds strong connections with readers. Although my understanding of them is foggy, our brains have mirror neurons that cause us to have a sense of following along and doing or feeling what we observe others do or feel.

Observe feelings? Even when we don’t articulate feelings verbally, they tend to leak out the edges with subliminal hints others pick up. Become a sleuth and develop a writing vocabulary to describe how bodies and faces betray emotions and use these in your writing to elicit empathy from readers. These descriptions are especially valuable in portraying emotion in others when you are writing lifestory or memoir, because when you write in first person, you can’t report what’s going on in someone else’s mind – you can only write what you observe or they tell you.

Paint your word picture with vivid, finely tuned details and description, then pair it with a graphic. The combination of story plus graphic will double the value of each.

Write now: write a story in a comment about the woman in the picture. Include details of what she’s thinking, how she’s feeling, what she's about to do, and anything else you can think of. Then find a picture of some event or place from your past and write a story about that, including more details from your memory. Don’t skimp on feelings, reflections and action. Whether or not it activates mirror neurons, that’s what draws readers in.