Renovating Your Story Ideas

By: Carrie Hulce

Okay all, I think all the work that I am doing to prepare my business may be affecting my writing, but what the heck. I am happy to say that I am still finding time to write, given the amount of time my poor sore hands have been scrapping on wall paper or removing glue from a floor, it is good to know they are still working on the old keyboard of my laptop too.

I got to thinking about how renovations were helping us to revive the look of a building that we are using for our Tea and Coffee shop, you see the building used to be a home that was built in 1912, after a loving family owned it, the building’s life changed. It became several different restaurants, now, we are trying to bring back some of the uniqueness about the building showing some of its stories so to speak.

Now, you are probably wondering how this relates to writing, well, that’s simple, I guess. I’m sure like me, you have tons of stories that you have tried to re-write over and over again. Well, there you have it, you’re renovating your story. Just like scrapping that wall paper off the walls of my building, by changing the appearance of an object in my story, I can bring it to life just a little more.

By renovating our stories we can change them make them appear new again, find hope for a story where there wasn’t one. Here are some ways to Renovate an old story.

1) Look at the characters that you have. Could that blonde become a redhead with emerald green eyes. How about that little kid with a smooth complexion, why not give him pimples.

2) The city or the area that your story involves. See if you can find some information about the area, update the information so that your readers can maybe find your location on a map, that is if it involves a realistic town, city, etc.

3) Color, add more color, have those trees be evergreens with dew dripping from their needles. Wake up the birds, have the Bluejay sipping water from the rusty bird bath.

4) Sentence structure. It is always stressed to us, that we need to make sure our sentence structure is appropriate, which is true, but, when it comes to a conversation going on, we need to make sure that the structure fits the character, his or her mannerisms, body language, etc.

With the changes that have come about in our societies today, older stories will need a facelift to help our readers better relate to what we have to offer. Even in keeping the story on a nostalgic aspect, it is always good to try and renovate certain parts of your story to help freshen it, give it a new coat of paint.

Heck who knows, maybe my 1912 building could appear in your story as a Tea and Coffee House where the teenagers of the city come to gather to partake of the local chess matches or how about, the older more sophisticated town folk that come to sit and sip their tea wearing brightly colored hats, lacey gloves.

What ever you do, have fun with your story renovations, I know I have been.

Happy writing!