So many of my stories start with a picture: three roses darker than black and richer than crimson, a girl in a skirt of her own feathers. Some of my favorite published stories begin this way too, such as the Chronicles of Narnia and Dragons in Our Midst. Other times, the image is all that remains when the plot is forgotten.
One of these cases involved a proud man offering himself for the native peoples, then stumbling across the desert as he dies of self-inflicted fever. I couldn't remember the title or author, but only the ending. But this spring, I found that book in the library: Secret Sacrament by Sherryl Jordan. While the story itself was average, the ending was so powerful that I carried it in my mind for years. I think this can help remind authors of how important imagery is in stories.
I remember a story like that. It was a book that my second grade teacher had read to us during reading hour years and years and years ago. The only thing I could remember from the book was a mother crying because she wanted a baby, a fairy who decided to help the woman despite the fairy queens order not to, a little girl with a swath of bright blue hair in the middle of a dark brown pony-tale, and an evil fairy queen who loved wasps. For years I could never remember the title of the book, nor any of the other scenes or character names.
ReplyDeleteI found that book entirely by accident the other day on Amazon. It's called "The Fairy Rebel". I downloaded it and read it all in one night. The story wasn't as spectacular as I remembered (of course, it was years ago that I first heard the story), but it was good to seem my remembered images come back to life for me. I had longed for so many years to be able to find that book again, and at last I was able to. :D
I've read that one too. It's really good, actually, in my mind, although not for a while.
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