Wednesday, October 9, 2013

The News as a Source of Inspiration

As many of my stories do, Flashover started as an experiment.  The news of the hour was the fire that ravished an Alberta community, and I simply knew there would be a thousand stories that would come from the event.  I hope that there is a non-fiction writer that will gather them but it wasn't going to be me. 
However the news kept coming in and I realized that it was research that was being given to me on a platter.  So I set the story within the town that was about to go through a similar catasrophe.  Many details of the fire came directly from reporters on the scene.  I didn't research, I read.   
The characters and their conflict evolved to the current form and Flashover became the title after I realized that lives could switch and jump as quickly as fires.

Flashover can be found at
http://necessaryfiction.com/stories/LizBetzFlashover