Origin of Stories

One of my favorite childhood memories dates back to when I was 9 years old. My family and I went to go see Jurassic Park on its opening weekend. We all piled into our big blue van and drove to a movie theatre where my eldest sister sold movie tickets and scooped popcorn for Salt Lake City’s movie going public. 

Now, by the modern standards of IMAX theatres and multiplexes with dozens of screens, this theatre was not the biggest I’ve ever been in. It was quite large though, even for that time, and featured stadium style seating which was not a common feature of movie theaters in the area at that time. We took our seats in the center of the theatre, the lights dimmed, and the projector started.

It was during this movie that I, for the first time, truly appreciated the movie going experience in a theatre full of people all as excited to see the movie as I was. Jurassic Park had it all. Drama, action, comedy, cinematic scenes shot on a large scale, state of the art special effects, a musical score that rivals any to date, and plenty of audience connection moments. You know, those moments when the entire audience jumps at the same time in response to an unexpected appearance by a T-Rex or velociraptor. I distinctly remember one of those very moments. Even to this day, I can picture the back of hundreds of heads sitting in the house below me jumping at the same moment. I too was a part of that group of people who grabbed their seats and tossed their popcorn in the air. I was experiencing an adventure with the characters on the screen and by doing so was connecting with a room full of strangers. It was an event made possible by a film that started as a story written down on paper by a single author.

So where do the stories that lead to event blockbusters come from? This is a question that I often ask myself as I sit with a notebook and pen or in front of a blank computer screen searching for the inspiration to write my next story. I’ve written plenty of stories to know that the answer to this question is not one that is simple or even one single answer. Stories do in fact have roots in all aspects of life.  Every story I’ve ever written has stemmed from a different experience, emotion, or stimuli. AfterLife is no exception.  I won’t begin to compare myself with the masterful writer Michael Crichton. His body of work is one that even the best of writers aspires to be able to match.  I will, however, simply state one example of an experience that inspired me.

AfterLife started as a dream.  In the dream I was completely surrounded by zombies.  It’s curious as to what brought on this particular dream since, up to that point, the undead was never a genre of major interest to me. None the less, there I was fighting off and running away from a scary group of the walking dead.

Finally, the zombies captured me, but they didn’t eat me as I expected.  Instead I was dragged to a hospital room and was strapped to the table.  As I lay there, waiting for my fate, I overheard the zombies talking.  It was at that moment that I realized that I was in fact the dead one and everyone who was chasing me was alive.  When I woke up, I considered the concept.  Granted, I was not very familiar with zombie literature at the time and, therefore, had never come across a story from the zombie’s perspective. However, I started doing research and the story of AfterLife began. 

It started as a short story following the concept I discovered in my dream.  It evolved from there and, well, if you read the book you know it became quite more. As I wrote chapter after chapter though, there was always a part of me that wanted to tell the story as if I was recounting what I had watched on the big screen in a movie theatre full of an audience of strangers.