One of my earliest book memories is a tiny detail from a story and author now lost to time. The main character was another kid about my age, an aspiring reporter, who learned from a jaded newspaper hack that you can’t write a good story before answering all five W questions (Who, What, When, Where, and Why). I have a visceral image of the character’s tiny brand-new reporter’s note pad, with its carefully scrawled W words. Isn’t it amazing how such details stick with us?
The only logical explanation is this: the book dropped into my young lap right when I realized I wanted to be a writer. Though I never biked around my home town looking for headline-popping stories, that one scene aligned my own budding goals with the character’s. It’s a perfect example of what really matters when telling stories; not the surface details of Who, What, When, and Where, but the underlying and universal WHY. “That could be me” is the most powerful connection we can have with our readers.
I would love to tell the author how this one scene is still stuck in my memory. I’m sure it would come as a surprise, and maybe a disappointment; why did I remember such a silly detail, rather than the book’s title? (Or even better, the author’s name.) But writers can never know which serendipitous seeds of a story will take root, because readers bring themselves into the books they devour. Only my dream of writing could’ve dug this one detail into my memory banks, so deeply that it’s survived all the other “weeds” that have invaded it in the years since.
Got a surprising image that’s stuck with you from a childhood (or adult) read? Share it in the comments below, or send me an email. I read them all, with gratitude.
Reading about Robin Graham in the South Pacific when the story first appeared in National Geographic.
Great reminder Ann. I don’t remember the NatGeo stories but Dove (the book) made a big impression!