This movie trailer caught me by surprise. Then it made me smile. Then I laughed and told my husband, I had a pretty good idea how the writers came up with that plot.
Has this happened to any of you guys? You’re writing something . . . and oddly, strangely enough, what you’re writing happens. Or at least from a skewed point of view . . . it happens.
Generally though, when I’ve heard writers talk about this happening, it isn’t gumballs falling out of the sky, but creepy stuff.
Here’s two semi-recent examples:
1.) Awhile back I was re-reading some of my chapters and I noticed one of my characters kept having reoccurring headaches and other health problems. After googling some of this character’s “symptoms,” I began to ponder with the idea of giving him a brain tumor. Then came the day when a doctor told my husband he had a growth growing between his ear and his brain—okay I know this is silly, but somewhere in my jumbled thoughts, I suddenly wished I hadn’t written that into my story. (Husband is fine BTW)
2.) A friend and I were joking on the phone about a “Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell” type of story we could co-write. Only as we mapped out this idea, we found a catch. Neither one of us was willing to work on it because plot called for writers to die in uncanny ways. Less than a week later, my husband and I noticed a strange smell in our house. We had a gas leak which we were lucky enough to catch five minutes before heading out the door to church. When I mentioned the incident to my friend, she laughed and said something to the effect of, “Now imagine what would have happened if we’d decided to write the story instead of just discussing it.”
Okay, so what about you guys? Have you had any eerie similarities between something you wrote that later happened?
Get a Free Ebook
Five Inspirational Truths for Authors
Try our Video Classes
Downloadable in-depth learning, with pdf slides
Find out more about My Book Therapy
We want to help you up your writing game. If you are stuck, or just want a boost, please check us out!
Friday, December 12, 2008
Interesting concept, but I can't say this has ever happened to me. Or maybe I'm just too dim to notice. I'm interested to see if anyone else chimes in on this one.
ReplyDeleteWell, you know I have these passing thoughts. I didn't like writing Demon Chaser for this reason among others. And we do know there's power in speaking words. That's how God brought the world into existence. It doesn't keep me from writing what I want though, but I do kind of cringe. I think for the most part it goes the other way around, something happens or I feel a certain way and THEN I write it into the story.
ReplyDeleteI once wrote a story about a couple who got involved in an attempted carjacking after getting lost in downtown Spartanburg, SC on a cold winter night.
ReplyDeleteA month later, my husband and I got lost in downtown Spartanburg, SC on a cold winter night. I locked the doors and begged dh not to stop for directions or to check a map. The husband in my story died doing the same!
Only twisted minds have these problems. ;)
ReplyDeleteJess, do you want to write a story about a loud redhead that gets flicked in the forehead, or should I?
ReplyDelete