Have you ever taken a job because you thought you'd get a story out of it?

Susan Breen · Jul 24, 2008

I was going to answer no to that question and then I realized I wrote a novel based on a fiction class. Which I teach. But I didn't take the job because of that. I was thinking if I were young, I'd try and get a job at a museum (which shows you how wild I am) or a firehouse or something so I could build up stories. Anyone do that?

scheherazade · Jul 24, 2008

Aha... yes... I'm trying to do that right now. I left an office job and if I can financially avoid it I'm hoping not to go back to that kind of deadening environment. I don't have a particular story in mind, but I'm trying to find "interesting" but slightly random jobs that seem like they might feed a future story idea.

grrrrrshon · Jul 24, 2008

I once committed the perfect bank robbery - not for the writing experience, but because I had already planned it out for a book and got really curious.

Now I can't publish it or the police will know that it is I who stole the many millions.

freezer burned · Jul 24, 2008

grrrrrshon said:
I once committed the perfect bank robbery - not for the writing experience, but because I had already planned it out for a book and got really curious.

Now I can't publish it or the police will know that it is I who stole the many millions.

On the bright side, you probably no longer have to work and now have the economic freedom to write about whatever else you want to...

Phaedo · Jul 25, 2008

grrrrrshon - how fascinating!

Susan - I am buying your book. I thought you might like to know that.

Deccydiva · Jul 25, 2008

I haven't taken a job for that reason but those I've had which I didn't enjoy - and there are plenty of those - have provided many ideas for writing at a future date!

JJ Cooper · Jul 25, 2008

Just quit my corporate job today. I had planned the setting for my third thriller in a mining/energy type environment. Guess where I'll be working soon.

JJ

Susan Breen · Jul 25, 2008

Thanks for the comments, and also, if anyone does buy my book, or doesn't, but would like bookmarks, just pm me your address.

sunnyxlove · Aug 1, 2008

haha, I took college courses so I could understand/study/research a particular time period in my novel

September skies · Aug 2, 2008

No, but there were several times I wish I had the ability to do that.
The best way to research something for a book would be to live it. Wouldn't that be cool? I'm always excited to read about people who can do that.
Like sunnyxlove, I've taken a class to understand something better that I was planning on writing about - but never taken that plunge of actually taking a job.

Menyanthana · Aug 2, 2008

I worked in a call center. I hated it. However, my parents told me all the time "You could use the experience to write a story about it"...If I ever do, a lot of people will die in that story... :rant:

seun · Aug 2, 2008

Five or six years ago, I applied to be a teaching assistant in my old school. At the time, I was writing a long book based in a school. Being vastly under qualified didn't help; I didn't get the job and the book now resides in the Never To Be Submitted Ever Again pile.

SKYwrite · Aug 2, 2008

I have also taken courses in post-secondary to strictly help my story. And it works! For me it was school for writing, not writing for school.

Moonfish · Aug 3, 2008

Well, I once had a mind-numbingly dull job which I only survived because I thought I might get stories out of it. I took more of an interest in what was going on around me than I would have, had I not had a writer's mind.

I was a security guard in a museum... DULL!!!!!!!!!!!!! By the end I wanted to dig my brain out with a spoon.

kct webber · Aug 3, 2008

I once moved to Puerto Rico because I could get training that would help me with a story. I trained 10 to 12 hours a day every day for a year. "Living" your research is fun.

I've also taken college classes for that purpose.

Yeshanu · Aug 3, 2008

Sort of. A couple of years back, I took a job in a movie theatre selling popcorn. I don't want to write about selling popcorn, of course, but the free movies I see as part of my job are definitely inspiration for my writing.

And I got promoted to manager a few months back, so I now get to deal with all the crazies, who will definitely make it into my stories at some point.

Plus, the abysmal on-line training courses we have to do have inspired me to write better ones.

PattiTheWicked · Aug 3, 2008

I once went out on a date with someone because I thought he'd make an interesting character in a story.

I never wrote the story, but I did get some really good sex.

Upbeat · Aug 3, 2008

No, but as a working journalist (the old-fashioned objective kind) I got ideas for books to write - and did so, particularly about a Russian emigre in U.S. who defied official Soviet objections to his leaving his native land.
While that may have been a rare opportunity for a book idea, there are story & character ideas all around us every day of our lives - everywhere, even in the most common observations and experiences of our daily lives!

Have you ever taken a job because you thought you'd get a story out of it?

Susan Breen

scheherazade

Human

grrrrrshon

freezer burned

Bananas, good sir. Bananas.

Phaedo

a non sequitur

Deccydiva

Back from the dead

JJ Cooper

.

Susan Breen

sunnyxlove

September skies

cloud watching

Menyanthana

Moonflower

seun

Horror Man

SKYwrite

Moonfish

kct webber

Squirrel, Sekrit type, 1 ea.

Yeshanu

Elf Queen

PattiTheWicked

Unleashing Hell.

Upbeat