Write a Story About Being Alone
Some ideas on writing a story about isolation and living alone on a small remote island.
A lone flamingo in The Butterfly House, Victoria. Photo: Tanya Clarke 2021
Keep One Eye Open
As usual, I started with one idea for this week's post, and then it changed.
I began with the seasons. I wanted to write a companion post to How to Avoid Cliches When Writing the Weather, but this time thinking about how the seasons could form a loose structure for your stories. My thoughts drifted into summer. I thought about how I love the sun and the heat of these months. By the time my birthday arrives in August, I'm enjoying the long days and the particular smell of warm pine needles and flowers when out walking the dog in the evening.
Strangely my energy slows in summer as if I'm conserving the warmth in my body as fuel for the winter months. I'm like a lizard lying in the hot sun, waiting for my blood to heat up so I can think and move. As the air cools into autumn, my brain, my writing brain, takes shape with a renewed vigour.
Is this the same for you?
The Summer Book
A couple of years ago I came across The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, the author and illustrator of The Moomins. I remember the Moomins with their soft round bodies and pointy ears. Their wonderfully eccentric adventures are illustrated in the lively pen and ink style of Jansson. I remember trying to copy the drawings with an untrained hand, endeavouring to emulate the skilled marks of a peculiar world.
The Summer Book, if you haven't read it, is the story of a young girl living (for the summer) on a small isolated island in the Gulf of Finland with her grandmother. It's a story about life and its cyclical nature with the relationship between the two generations developing and shifting as the summer begins and ends.
More searching and I discover a video where Jansson's niece Sophia tells us the story of the tiny island Jansson and her partner Tuulikki Pietilä lived on during the summer months for over thirty years.
I'm amazed at how tiny the island is. It’s a low-lying irregular shape of rock encircling a lagoon where a small cabin balances on the edge. The sea moves and shifts around the island while seabirds clack and call in the wind. There are no trees to speak of just patches of long grasses blowing in the breeze with the odd wildflower here and there.
I wonder about this landscape and how Jansson was inspired to write her wonderful prose and stories in such bleak isolation.
Write a Story About Being Alone
This week let's write a story about isolation, specifically living on a tiny remote island. How does being alone affect a person? You might be sick of being alone. The pandemic forced many people into isolation but you can use this experience and let it inform your imagination. Start with this week’s photo if you want to. A lone pink flamingo amongst a canopy of green foliage. Who else is there?
Here Are a Few Guidelines:
You can have more than one character which could be a pet or a person. You decide.
Your story can exist in any genre and at any point in time in any country.
Your island could be haunted, murderous, enlightened, wistful, or lonely.
One last thing, I'm going to take away the internet. Yikes. I know. No digital technology for your characters.
Where do you go from there? Let's find out.
So long! Until next time.
