Story Inspiration
A Reminder from the Past (Writing Revelation)
Hi, reader! We’re opening THE MAILBAG again for extra fun content related to my writing practice and/or my serialized novel DANCING AT THE ORANGE PEEL. The Mailbag holds my unexpected discoveries while writing, research and history bits, travel updates and photos, and much more.
Today’s entry relates to previously unrecognized inspiration in my writing. It isn’t necessary to read any of my serialized novel to enjoy this piece, but of course, I’d love it if you could.
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Last spring, I checked out of our local library a book I read when I was 14, Franny and Zooey, by JD Salinger. After reading Catcher in the Rye in school, I had fallen in love with Salinger’s writing and sought out his other novels… which, it turns out, did not exist.
What I did find were various compilations of his short stories, many of which originally appeared in Story magazine and The New Yorker. I devoured every Salinger story I could find. The fictional Glass family starred in many of Salinger’s shorter works, most appearing first in The New Yorker, including “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” as well as the two stories in Franny and Zooey.
I love the way these two stories are paired and bound together, the way certain circumstances and events from one are referenced in the other. However, each story stands alone; each is told from a different point of view. The first story’s POV is Fanny’s; she’s the youngest of the adult children in the Glass family. The second is from her slightly older brother Zooey.
Salinger’s use of two different points-of-view was my impetus for revisiting the book. If you’ve been reading Gina’s Quill for long, you know that I’ve bantered back-and-forth with myself about the POVs in my serialized novel Dancing at The Orange Peel, whether to alternate the POVs between young Libby and her mother Gwen (in roughly alternating chapters, the way it’s currently written) or revise it to tell the entire story from Libby’s POV. I hoped rereading Franny and Zooey might give me some additional perspective or insights into the dual POV approach.
Alas, the book doesn’t unfold in quite the way I remembered, thus, it didn’t help with my dilemma. However, revisiting the book brought me to the revelation that for five decades, my subconscious has been holding the memory of how these Glass family stories made me feel the first time I read them.
Salinger’s many stories, connected by the lives, experiences, perspectives of the individual members of the large Glass family, were a hidden (until now) inspiration for my developing collection, THE KENT CREEK CHRONICLES, of which Dancing at The Orange Peel is the first major installment. Although the Kent Creek stories won’t be confined to a single family, all will take place in the fictional town of Kent Creek, North Carolina. And you can be sure they will include cameo appearances and cross-over of characters and situations, much as Salinger created in his collection of stories.
This is a reminder to me that what we read influences what we write in ways that, sometimes, we may never recognize. When I uncover hidden connections and remembrances like this related to my writing process, I feel as if I’m solving some massive puzzle, and it keeps me going. That, and you being here!
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