Look, Up in the Sky! It’s a . . . Writer?
By Grace Wynter | March 28, 2017 |
photo by José María Pérez Nuñez
Therese busting in on Grace’s post to toss some confetti; this is her first post with us as an official WU contributor!
Grace Wynter is a copyeditor, blogger, writer of romantic women’s fiction, and a huge fan of shenanigans. Her blogs (and a few of her shenanigans) have been featured on CNN.com, the Huffington Post, and More.com. Grace has an MBA from Georgia State University and is currently enrolled in The University of Chicago’s Professional Certification in Editing program. When she’s not writing, she’s helping other writers on her blog, The Writer’s Station.
Her latest project is co-creator of Storyboard, a new podcast that follows two writers as they explore the ways stories shape lives, and tackle long-held beliefs about the intersection of craft and commerce.
WELCOME, GRACE!
As a child, Bruce Wayne witnesses his parents’ murder. Aware of Krypton’s pending destruction, Kal-El’s father places him in a spacecraft that makes a crash landing on planet earth. T’Challa vows to avenge his father’s murder and prove he can lead a nation.
I can already hear you asking what you, as a writer, could possibly have in common with Batman, Superman, and Black Panther. More than you might think. I’ve been a fan of superheroes since I was a kid. The fangirling only intensified as I got older, and I have the Wonder Woman caped socks to prove it. But, it wasn’t until recently, when I was asked to talk to a classroom full of superhero-loving fifth graders about writing, that I made the connection between the personal stories of writers and those of superheroes.
Origin Stories
Dictionary.com defines an origin story as, “a backstory, or established background narrative that informs the identity and motivations of heroes and villains in a comic book or similar fictional work.” Writers hear about origin stories all the time as they relate to the characters we write, but what about our own origin stories? What about the events in our lives that most inform why, how, and what we write? I believe that identifying our own origin stories can help us find our voices as writers, allowing us to give the fictional characters we create, more complex, multidimensional lives. So, what do our origin stories have in common with those of superheroes? And, once we identify them, how can we use our origin stories to our advantage?
Five Things to Understand About Origin Stories
1) We all have them. While our own origin story probably doesn’t involve murder, kryptonite, or African chiefs, it does exist. We’ll usually recognize it by the emotional muscle memory it evokes. An emotional muscle memory isn’t like the muscle memory that gets us out of the office parking lot and into our driveway on autopilot at the end of a long day. No, an emotional muscle memory is one that makes our stomach drop and our scalp tingle. It’s the physical response we experience when recalling our worst heartbreak or the moment our favorite teacher saw promise in our work. It’s the sensitive kid who, afraid of being teased about her accent, dons a “cloak of invisibility” and quietly observes the interactions around her, filling her journals with the worlds she creates. The key is to search beyond the facts of the memory, beyond dates and times, and reach for the emotion it evokes, allowing the memory to transform our writing.
2) They can be painful. A weeping eight-year-old Bruce Wayne cradling his father’s head in his hands. Black Panther doubting his ability to fill his late father’s shoes. At the time, neither understood that the pain, loneliness, and isolation they were feeling would eventually become the source of their strength. The same is true of writers. The events that wake us in the middle of the night gasping for air, may turn out to be the very things that allow us to breathe new life onto the page.
3) We can have more than one. Like superheroes, our origin stories can have versions and adaptations. The inciting incident that ushers our entry into the writing world might be different from the one that leads us to a specific genre. And, the event that takes our writing in a new direction might be something that happened long after the initial inciting incident. Each origin story comes with its own emotion and its own sequence of events that sets us on the path to a new journey.
4) They don’t determine our final destination. Some of us fear that our origin stories lack the proper punch or pedigree. We read other writers, hear their origin stories, and feel that those writers were destined for the craft, either by being born with literary blood coursing through their veins or by hitting the tragic-writer-background jackpot. Because of this, we believe they are more “authentic” than we will ever be. But, origin stories are only the beginning—like the icon on mapping software that indicates our starting location. We determine our destination, regardless of our starting point, and we get to select the route, the things we hope to avoid, and the experiences we want to have along the way.
5) They give us our unique selling points and unfair advantages. In the business world, unique selling points are the things that make a company, product, or in our case, a writer, stand out. Startup guru Jason Cohen defines an unfair advantage as one that can’t easily be copied or bought. Every writer should know their unique selling points and how to use them to gain an unfair advantage. One way to understand what makes you stand out as a writer is to tap into your origin story—the memories, emotions, and feelings that made you want to tell stories in the first place.
Have you ever thought about your origin story? How does it inform your writing? And, how will it help determine your unfair advantage?
[coffee]
Grace Wynter is an author, editor, and workshop facilitator. She has an MBA from Georgia State University and a Professional Certificate in Editing from the University of Chicago. She has conducted workshops for organizations such as Writer Unboxed, Wake Up and Write!, Sisters in Crime, and the Atlanta Writers Club where she is also a freelance editor for their biannual Atlanta Writers Conference. Her editing clients include traditional publishers such as Penguin Random House, Harper Collins, and Hachette, and an array of indie publishers and self-published authors. Grace is the community architect behind Tessera Creatives, an online directory that connects authors and publishers with skilled, culturally competent freelance creatives who provide services for the publishing industry.
When she’s not alternating between the Marvel and DC universes, Grace resides in Atlanta, Georgia. You can connect with her at GraceWynter.com.
Love this!
I often try to rise above my “origin story” so that it doesn’t influence how and what I write, but really, there’s no getting away from it *laugh* I Godzilla Stomp through life and pretty much that’s how I write, just Godzilla stomping all over the place.
Thanks, Kat! I understand what you mean about trying to rise above your origin story, but I absolutely believe that our origin stories are what elevate us. In that sense, we don’t rise above them as much as they give us opportunities to rise to meet them. And, LOL at “Godzilla stomping all over the place.” I often quote The Hulk to describe my mood: Hulk smash!
Congrats Grace! Very proud of you. Way to go! We are rooting for you. 🙏🏼🙏🏼
Thank you for your post Grace.
This origin story is like the Martian Manhunter, in that it involves shapeshifting and telepathy. It’s not my story, but an old friend’s. He could change how he talked to match whatever group of people he’d just met. He could guess what country someone was from in less than 30 seconds from meeting them.
Funny enough, his name was Jon (J’onn being Martian Manhunter’s name). The skills he had came from a rough childhood, and he taught me to understand different people/groups as if my life depended on it, since his had. I find those chameleon-like lessons in my writing, and that’s my unfair advantage (unfair since it wasn’t my childhood that developed the trait).
James, thanks for highlighting what could have been the sixth lesson about origin stories: they don’t have to be ours for us to learn from them. Jon sounds like he tapped into his origin story the way superheroes do. He adapted it and built on it. And, that’s great that you already understand your unfair advantage. It’s not always easy to pin down, and you’ve managed to do it by using bits of someone else’s origin story along with yours.
You really got me wondering about the origin story that has the most power for me. Thank you!
Fun stuff, Grace! In contemplating my origin stories, I kept going back to the hours after I was supposed to be in bed when I was reading instead. My bedroom as a boy was in our newly remodeled suburban basement, far from the eyes and ears of my parents. One of the books among many that I recall staying up to read was a coffee-table book called DC Origin Stories. And one of my favorites among those included was Wonder Woman’s.
Also in the basement, a rec room with shelves and shelves of books – including many of my older siblings’ textbooks (they used to have to buy them for high school). I was so enthralled by the elements of Wonder Woman’s story (Amazons, et al) that I would go out to the rec room and dig for further info. I remember going to the indexes of my sibs’ history and western civ textbooks, looking for info on Amazons, then reading the tales of Theseus and Hippolyta and others. Which took me down the mythological rabbit hole from there.
So I think this particular origin story of mine led to one of my writerly super-powers: finding history to be not only interesting and broadening to my outlook, but fun. It’s good to be reminded of that today. Wise and useful post, Grace!
You really seem to have your origin story pinned down. Have you always known what it was? Isn’t interesting that when you figure it out, it’s almost like you have a, “Duh!” moment. And, once you realize what it is, it’s empowering. Thanks for sharing your origin story with us, Vaughn.
Sometimes I think my origin story is part of my writing struggle. It’s fractured and unclear (from living in many diverse places, from a messed up family of origin, from not belonging) and has created a mishmosh that makes me question… everything (including writing).
But reading *this*… really helped me see it differently:
“We determine our destination, regardless of our starting point, and we get to select the route, the things we hope to avoid, and the experiences we want to have along the way.”
Maybe the answer isn’t IN my origin story but in getting away from it. Really excellent and thought-provoking piece, Grace. Thank you.
Julia, I hadn’t thought about putting it that way when I wrote this, but I think there is something powerful in finding your voice by getting away from the origin story. My goal was to try to get us to think about how our origin stories impact us, and it sounds like that’s exactly what you’re doing.
Grace, this is wonderful. Thank you. I’m saving this to reread and reread. Meanwhile, isn’t it true of most of us (maybe all) that everyone else’s origin story seems more authentic than our own?
That comparison thing haunts us on so many levels, Anna. I wonder if it’s an essential component to being in the writing world. I know it’s something I struggle with.
Grace, what a wonderful post. I have always lived with gratitude despite the brokenness — I come from a fractured family and until I married and had children, didn’t really have stability. I value it immensely and I find myself writing about what it means to be “home” in a lot of different stories. I like to write about loyalty and love and how they are manifested in ordinary lives. I love this writing life that’s been given to me.
Vijaya, how insightful of you to make the connection between your life (first without stability and then with) and the themes you find yourself drawn to writing about. And, I love you being able to love the fact that all of that has brought into the writing life. Thank you for sharing.
I grew up white middle-class suburbia, a place about as far from magical as you can get. Boy scouts and protestant churches. AP classes. Girls with straight blond hair. You get the idea.
So, my latest project is a novel about ordinary suburban girls who might be angels, the jealous monster who would destroy them, and the boy who falls in love with one of them and learns that mortals can make miracles too.
Any origin story can become super-heroic, if you grant yourself that power.
I love your story concept Benjamin. I would so read that book!
That’s a great story idea! Your comment touches on my fourth point, and you’ve captured that concept really well with your statement that any origin story can be heroic if you grant yourself that power.
My origin story has shaped my entire life. I came as an immigrant to America as a child from England. My life from birth was shaped by my familys’ memory of the “Great War” all the bombs dropping down from the sky before I was born. I knew the histories of Uncles killed before I existed as closely as I knew my own. And then I became a stranger in a stranger land where people didn’t drink tea as much as a thing called pop, and people defined their beliefs and lives by the shadow of a different war, a faraway war called Vietnam, and another war, called the Revolutionary War, where they had gained freedom from people in red coats, who came from my country. In fact all that people in this strange land seemed to know about my country was defined by “redcoats”and more happily, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, and William Shakespeare. As an outsider I found comfort, appreciation and a seductive rebellion in the music, as well as a sense of pride, and of course I knew William, he was an old friend. My mum/mom now, made us read his sonnets as we passed the teapot around the breakfast table… So, I guess you can say the identity of an outsider seeking home is my super power. I know it appears time and time again without a conscious agenda in my stories.
Thanks for this eye opening post…
Great post! And congratulations on being a writer for WU. 😊
It’s funny how you wrote about origin stories and I was thinking about it yesterday. We read about the childhoods of writers and actors, how they felt compelled to perform and write, that their childhoods were saturated in fantasy.
That was me.
I always knew I was a writer, but dared not speak it aloud since that wasn’t a practical vocation.
I absorbed all that was going on around me, and at times I fit in. But most of the time I didn’t. (But didn’t we all really feel like that? When we grow up, we find that we all felt like outcasts.)
So I suppose my origin story is the girl who was quiet and read everything from Stephen King and Helter Skelter to Gone With the Wind and The Secret Garden. I endured injustices and kept silent, absorbing the outrage into my being, even to the point to where I thought I might have something wrong in my throat, like cancer.
Then a few years ago I discovered writing again. I suppose what I’m writing is important to me. Because slowly, over time, without me noticing, the pain in my throat went away. And now when I sing, people can hear me. My voice isn’t choked behind something. I don’t have the greatest voice, but it’s mine. It’s me.
And I’m no longer silent. ❤
Val, I could have written this: “I always knew I was a writer, but dared not speak it aloud since that wasn’t a practical vocation. I absorbed all that was going on around me, and at times I fit in. But most of the time I didn’t.”
I’m not sure if I always knew, but when I did realize, it was pretty clear that it was considered a “practical vocation.” Probably still isn’t, but that’s not going to stop us now.
Thanks for sharing you story and most of all, for no longer being silent.
Thought-provoking post, Grace. Thanks. As an asthmatic child, I was confined to my room while most of my friends were out playing. Writing stories that would get out of there even if only in my mind, started at an early age. But marriage, work, kids, eventually took center stage and writing was forgotten.
Until I made a book club selection – The Paston Letters, a collection of letters between members of the Paston family written in the fifteenth century. Surprised by how fascinated I was, I continued making historical nonfiction selections until I hit on a book about the black plague of the medieval period. I read everything related to the plague I could get my hands on, and my first novel was set in the year the plague reached England. History still fascinates me and my current WIP is set in ancient Babylonia just as the empire is poised to collapse. Thanks for reminding me that if it weren’t for that first random book club selection, I might never have begun writing again.
I’ll never get tired of reading writer origin stories. As a kid, I wonder if you ever imagined that being isolated would result in you being able to tap into your writing talent. In fact, it makes me wonder if some of us hadn’t gone through what we went through, what we’d be pursuing today. Thanks for sharing your story!
Grace, I love this post. Thank you.
I’ve thought a lot about my origin story in regards to why I write the things I write. But never in these terms.
One of my favourite stories is that I decided at age 4 that I was going to be a writer. I couldn’t even read or write, but I announced it loudly to anyone who would listen. I loved the magic of stories, and I would live for the times my mum would read to me. In between, I’d make my own books out of folded paper, and fill the pages with pictures and random letters, and then read them to my little brother.
But that’s not my origin story. Name me one four-year-old who doesn’t love stories.
My origin story comes from when I was eight. We moved from the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, to St Louis, MO. I started in a new school, in a new country, in November of 1984 before the internet or Crocodile Dundee existed, when all the average American knew about Australia was…. nothing. Oh, except that baby kangaroos can kick Sylvester’s ass. I showed up with my unfamiliar accent, using words that sounded the same but meant different things, completely unfamiliar with the culture of my new country.
I remember being bailed up in the bathrooms, forced to say words on pain of a beating, just so groups of girls could laugh at the way I said them. I remember being denied access to a “gifted” program because I didn’t know enough about American history. I remember refusing to pledge allegiance to a flag that wasn’t mine, and being sent to sit outside the principal’s office every day for weeks, until the principal finally negotiated with my teacher that if I stood up with the rest of the class, I didn’t have to say the words. I remember feeling like an outcast; different, alone, and lonely.
At the same time, I found out that my parents had been lying to me. They always said that they would never lie to me, that honesty is the most important thing. Then someone at school taunted me because I believed in Santa Claus, and when I went home in tears, my mother told me that Santa wasn’t really real. At any other time, in any other way, I’m sure it wouldn’t have been such a big deal. But suddenly I didn’t just feel alone at school, I felt alone at home, too. I felt like my trust had been betrayed.
Two years later, we moved back to Australia. I’d never been more grateful to be going home. I started back at school in Australia, whereupon I was promptly bullied for having an American accent. I was called a freak, and told that I wasn’t really Australian, and the bullying was worse than ever. I retreated into books.
A year after that, just as I was starting to finally fit in a little at school, we moved interstate. We went from an area where 80% of the kids were Italian or Greek to an area full of middle-class white folk with different slang, 80% of whom were military kids, with different fashions, in a completely different school system. Again, I was bullied for being different. Again, I felt alone.
We moved another three times–each time to a different state–during the remainder of my schooling. The only friends I had were the characters in the books I was reading. The only constant was the feeling of being an outsider.
And that’s where I get my super-power from. My origin story may not involve murder or radioactive spiders, but it does involve pain and fear and isolation. It involves being different, not fitting in, and feeling betrayed by those people closest to me. And so I write about character who are different; whose family has either deserted or betrayed them; who long for family and friends to understand them and love them for who they are, not how they look or talk or think.
And then I write them a happy ending.
Thanks so much for sharing this, Jo. Your origin story has all the hallmarks of a true superhero origin story. Pain, fear, isolation, not fitting in—I don’t know one superhero who hasn’t experienced these things.
What’s also interesting is that I think I chose to write romance because I always want to give my characters the happily-ever-afters I know they deserve. I want girls and young women who read these romances to recognize themselves in the characters and realize that although life can be hard, it’s definitely worth the ride, and in the end, you find love.
Thanks again for sharing your origin story, Jo.