I originally had the idea for this story down at Phillip Island waiting for the penguin parade. Some British relatives were visiting and we'd arrived really early, and so we were seated in an almost empty grandstand that faced straight onto the ocean. What if, my mind began, this site is discovered and excavated in the future as an archaeological ruin, and the discoverers have no idea about the penguins landing here each night?
Why would a grandstand face the empty ocean?
And so the story developed from there. Except it didn't end up travelling in the direction I'd planned, as tales are wont to do, and so penguins, archaeologists and Philip Island never enter the narrative.
It's a story I like, and a world I might revisit in the future.
6 comments:
It's interesting to read how writers get their initial impulse to tell a story.
I remember reading something in a writers' book by Alice LaPlante that if we, as writers, notice something, we can say to ourselves that because we noticed it, it matters.
I love that idea.
Great words indeed. Thanks for sharing them, Parlance.
My turn - congratulations, Steve. :)
I must say, that was a very cool idea to start with. As someone who has taken countless Danish visitors to Phillip Island to watch the penguins on freezing nights,I can see the grandstand, the darkness, the open sea beyond, and I'm kicking myself for not taking that evocative setting and going with it.
Thanks, Gitte. And feel free to run with it also. Plenty of image there for both of us.
A writing experiment! The blurb: one grandstand, two stories, no penguins.
Sounds like fun, Gitte. Do it!
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