Sometimes How Stories Are Made

It is not that I am a particularly nosy person, although there have been many times when I have uttered the words, "If only I could be a fly on the wall." I do tend to be a bit of a curious person though. I chalk a lot of that up to the writer in me.

No. Not of this sort of stuff. But of fiction.

This comes to mind as I was checking in to my hotel room at the Super 8 in Wichita, Kansas while I am on a trip for my job. There was a guy ahead of me, and I only caught the end of his interaction with the hotel clerk who was busy clacking away at the keys looking for something...

Information.

He was saying something about something that happened in 2016, although he was a bit of a low talker and he was not facing me, and so I was unable to make out what he was saying. But I did catch the year for some reason.

The hotel clerk seemed rather nervous as well. I did immediately pick up on that.

The guy did seem a bit dirty, but not in a bad way. To me it looked like maybe he had come off of a construction job of some kind.

"So, how much would a room be here?" he asked.

The clerk explained that after tax the room would come to around $79. He seemed a bit taken aback by that, which is only strange since that's not a lot of money of course.

In the writer's mind it just sort of happens by itself. You begin to notice things and make mental notes.

Is this guy a character? What's his story? Is he a nomad? An ex-convict? Where's he from? And what about that 2016 thing?

"I am so sorry, sir, but the computer is telling me that you cannot stay here or at any other Super 8 hotels at this time," the clerk told the man.

"Did it give a reason?"

"No. I am sorry, but it only provides a statement of a customer ban from our hotels but does not state the reason. You would have to call corporate for that information," she said, smiled, and handed him back his ID.

Of course, as one would rightfully suspect, the guy knows the reason. Something happened in 2016, and it was something severe enough that six years later he is still banned from the hotels in this chain.

So, what was it? What did he do? Why did the hotel ban him? And again, why does the clerk appear a bit nervous? What was really showing on her screen? Did it say something more than that the man was not welcome?

Did it tell her to be cautious? Did it tell her to notify the police or some other authority?

As one would imagine, this is where the imagination starts to kick in a little bit. "Hey Leonard," I say to myself. "What do you think about this?"

Leonard happens to be one of the writers in me whose last name I will never share.

"Where are some other hotels in the area around here?" the man asked.

The clerk mentioned the Best Western and a Motel 6 nearby. The man making the inquiry simply stated that none of those hotels would rent to him either.

So, wait a minute. It's not just a ban limited to Super 8's? What in the hell did this guy do?

Now, here comes the fun part. I don't just write any sort of fiction. I write horror fiction. And so where the imagination takes me can tend to be a very dark place. A place where not just the extraordinary happens. But a place where things can get very interesting.

And then there's the question. What is the story? The whole story?

Who tells it? The writer or the character? It is always the character. As I put it once, "The people in your head are really the ones with the stories to tell. As the writer you are just the conduit."

And of course, where do you start? En medias res, or "right in the middle of things." That's where you always start. In this case right at the hotel clerk's desk. You start there and you fill in the rest in the past and use it to propel the story forward to the conclusion.

Something happened really bad in 2016. But that's only the beginning. It's the foundation that explains what happens next and why. The interaction with the clerk is the catalyst that reclaims the demons that he thought he had let go of.

Danny saw it in her eyes. She knows, he thought. She knows everything.

And you go from there.

Lead image courtesy of Pixabay, user jplenio. Forest Trees Fog - Free photo on Pixabay