Our own lives, of course, are great fodder for stories. Our feelings are not as unique as we would like to think! Our feelings of elation, confusion, grief, pride, discouragement, have all been felt by others, and by extrapolation, our characters will have similar feelings.
I mentioned in my last post that death is everywhere. But life is everywhere, too! My sons were working in my backyard digging a shallow, rectangular hole for a back patio (God bless them!). As they were digging, my oldest son noticed a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. He watched as the butterfly ate away a piece of the chrysalis and emerged. The Monarch butterfly stayed close-by on the fence. After a few hours, it spread its wings. But by the end of the day it was still there--new life, or life in a new form.
The analogy of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly is often used in writing, the transforming experience of changing from one form of being to another; the necessity of withdrawal from the world to instigate change; a symbol of resurrection and hope.
Indeed, just as death is all around us, so is life. When our stories face the ubiquity of death and life, they will live.
