Here at Teenreads, we often find ourselves amazed by the stories, characters and worlds authors are able to invent, expand upon and share with us. Don't get us wrong --- we have tons of ideas (some better than others), but the idea of actually putting them on paper can often sound next to impossible. In this post, author Aurelia Wills explains how the image of a woman she knew in high school stuck with her for years after and inspired her to finally put pen to paper and write SOMEONE I WANTED TO BE, a story about an insecure girl whose life spirals out of control when she begins to impersonate someone else and lose focus on herself.
When I was in high school, a friend’s mother was very sick and undergoing cancer treatment. She was a sweet lady and a bit of a health nut, so it was a shock to see her thin, ill and weak. After school, we’d sometimes go to my friend’s house. Her mother was always home. She was often wearing footed, zip-up pajamas like those that I associated with my early childhood.
The sight of that mother, a woman I was fond of, stayed with me. That image hung around the back of my mind for years, and gradually, it was no longer of my friend’s mom, but another woman. This woman was also thin and weak and had just a few tufts of hair. She looked like a giant baby chicken. That was the image that stuck. I wrote it down in my notebook and let it cook.
I began to imagine a girl who was seeing this woman, and who sadly saw her as resembling a baby chicken. That’s when Leah, the voice and protagonist of SOMEONE I WANTED TO BE, first came to life. From the way Leah saw Mrs. Baker, I could tell that Leah was coming from a dark place. She was lonely and struggling; it was hard on her to see an adult she loved and counted on in such a weakened state.
I began to think about kids whose parents are too sick, or troubled, or otherwise preoccupied to offer much guidance. Mrs. Baker needed a daughter and Leah needed a parent. Leah had to get herself into some trouble that came about because of the conflicts she had within herself. I wanted Leah to come out OK on the other side of this trouble. A story began to take shape.
SOMEONE I WANTED TO BE started as an image that grew into a story. The story was briefly conceived as a graphic novel, and then was written as a regular novel; I wrote three different versions. I watched hours of Bruno Mars videos, studied chemistry, revised draft after draft. Always, it was the small, seemingly prosaic details that brought the story to life. Because it was true to life. Places and people are composed of specific particulars, as are you: how you comb your hair, what you smell like, what you fear, food you especially like to eat, how you walk or hold your shoulders, the songs you sing as you do the dishes, things that irritate you, who or what you hate, diseases you are susceptible to. All of these details are knit together into a living, conscious, heartbreakingly temporary being.
Both a 20-page story and a 300 page novel almost always begin with something small. A face, a brief encounter with a stranger, a line in a song, a snatch of a conversation you overhear, a car racing down a city street, the sight of someone’s dirty feet. A memory from childhood. The long-ago sight of a friend’s sick mother in toddler pj’s. Something odd and seemingly irrelevant sticks with you. Pay attention. Write it down in your notebook. Get down the fine details: the nubby peach-colored fabric, a thick white metal zipper, a strand of thin silky hair, her eyes, her chapped lips and sad smile. Let it cook.
