looking thoughtful. Oh, he had an idea for a story, all right. A good story, as a matter of fact. But I was not the right person to tell it.
I bristled at the implication. Why not?
Because it wasnât my kind of story, Lester responded. It wasnât my sort of book.
Well, how could he be sure of that? Perhaps it was. Tell me what it was about. Let me decide.
No, there wasnât any purpose in doing that, because it just wasnât the right story for me.
Tell me anyway, I insisted. Humor me. At least give me the plot. Maybe hearing about it would spark an idea I could use.
Lester sighed as only Lester couldâlong, drawn out, and reluctant. Then he told me his idea. The story was about a man who gets his hands on one of those high-end Christmas catalogues and while paging through it finds an advertisement for a magic kingdom. He decides to buy it, even though it doesnât seem possible that such a thing can exist. It turns out that it does, of course, but it also turns out that it isnât anything at all like what he imagined it would be.
Lester looked at me hopelessly, conveying the clear impression that the idea and I were not suited. I told him I liked it, that I thought maybe I could do something with it. I donât know why I said that. I didnât have the foggiest notion what I would do with it. But the gauntlet had been thrown down, and besides, something about the idea was appealing.
I like it, I told him. Really. Let me see what I can come up with.
He considered the matter for a few moments, then nodded. All right, I could have the idea on loan. He would give it to me for exactly one year. If I wrote an acceptable book in that time, the idea was mine to keep. Otherwise, I had to give it back.
On looking back after fifteen years, I am convinced that at that moment Lester looked a lot like Rumplestiltskin.
The fact of the matter was, I had been sucked in again. I didnât figure this out for quite a while, perhaps because I was obtuse, but more probably because I was so caught up in the challenge I didnât stop to think about how carefully it had been orchestrated. Later, as with so many other things, Lester told me that he had intended the idea for me all along, but felt I would respond better if he didnât hand it to me on a platter.
In any case, I completed my visit, took my borrowed idea, and flew home to Illinois. I was already thinking it through, trying to make it come together as a complete story. All I had was a concept, and a concept is just a starting point for expansion. A full-blown story requires a great deal more, and it is not a given that even the best idea can be successfully developed into a story that works.
I knew right away that the man who buys the magic kingdom would discover that it was not all it was cracked up to be. The old saw âThe grass is always greener on the other side of the fenceâ would be tested anew. What the man thought he was buying was not in fact what he would get. Nor would being a king of his own kingdom necessarily work out the way he expected either. It would prove more difficult than he imagined. Obstacles he hadnât anticipated would arise. This is the way life works. Even kings find that out sooner or later.
Then two questions surfaced, pretty much at the same time.
Who is this man?
Why is he buying this magic kingdom?
Everything else in the story hinged on the answers to these two questionsâwhere the story was going, how it would resolve itself, and why the reader would identify with the protagonist.
I was surprised at how quickly the answers came to me. I discovered them almost immediately.
The man was a lawyer, and he was fed up with his life and wanted to change it. He wanted to change it at any cost. He was that desperate.
The man was me.
The revelation was stunning. I had lived all forty years of my life in the same town, save for time spent going to college and law school. I had been a lawyer
I bristled at the implication. Why not?
Because it wasnât my kind of story, Lester responded. It wasnât my sort of book.
Well, how could he be sure of that? Perhaps it was. Tell me what it was about. Let me decide.
No, there wasnât any purpose in doing that, because it just wasnât the right story for me.
Tell me anyway, I insisted. Humor me. At least give me the plot. Maybe hearing about it would spark an idea I could use.
Lester sighed as only Lester couldâlong, drawn out, and reluctant. Then he told me his idea. The story was about a man who gets his hands on one of those high-end Christmas catalogues and while paging through it finds an advertisement for a magic kingdom. He decides to buy it, even though it doesnât seem possible that such a thing can exist. It turns out that it does, of course, but it also turns out that it isnât anything at all like what he imagined it would be.
Lester looked at me hopelessly, conveying the clear impression that the idea and I were not suited. I told him I liked it, that I thought maybe I could do something with it. I donât know why I said that. I didnât have the foggiest notion what I would do with it. But the gauntlet had been thrown down, and besides, something about the idea was appealing.
I like it, I told him. Really. Let me see what I can come up with.
He considered the matter for a few moments, then nodded. All right, I could have the idea on loan. He would give it to me for exactly one year. If I wrote an acceptable book in that time, the idea was mine to keep. Otherwise, I had to give it back.
On looking back after fifteen years, I am convinced that at that moment Lester looked a lot like Rumplestiltskin.
The fact of the matter was, I had been sucked in again. I didnât figure this out for quite a while, perhaps because I was obtuse, but more probably because I was so caught up in the challenge I didnât stop to think about how carefully it had been orchestrated. Later, as with so many other things, Lester told me that he had intended the idea for me all along, but felt I would respond better if he didnât hand it to me on a platter.
In any case, I completed my visit, took my borrowed idea, and flew home to Illinois. I was already thinking it through, trying to make it come together as a complete story. All I had was a concept, and a concept is just a starting point for expansion. A full-blown story requires a great deal more, and it is not a given that even the best idea can be successfully developed into a story that works.
I knew right away that the man who buys the magic kingdom would discover that it was not all it was cracked up to be. The old saw âThe grass is always greener on the other side of the fenceâ would be tested anew. What the man thought he was buying was not in fact what he would get. Nor would being a king of his own kingdom necessarily work out the way he expected either. It would prove more difficult than he imagined. Obstacles he hadnât anticipated would arise. This is the way life works. Even kings find that out sooner or later.
Then two questions surfaced, pretty much at the same time.
Who is this man?
Why is he buying this magic kingdom?
Everything else in the story hinged on the answers to these two questionsâwhere the story was going, how it would resolve itself, and why the reader would identify with the protagonist.
I was surprised at how quickly the answers came to me. I discovered them almost immediately.
The man was a lawyer, and he was fed up with his life and wanted to change it. He wanted to change it at any cost. He was that desperate.
The man was me.
The revelation was stunning. I had lived all forty years of my life in the same town, save for time spent going to college and law school. I had been a lawyer
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