Preying for Mercy (3-in-1)

        So where do stories come from?

        The other day, I watched a fox run through our neighbor's pasture and then veer off to run just outside our fence line.

        "Ah," I thought, "he's been here often enough to know about Danger Horse." 

        My big gray gelding protects his fields from coyotes, antelope, deer and, apparently, foxes. His name isn't really Danger Horse, but that's the one he acquired for his big snorting shows of fear when the only thing he's afraid of is missing his next meal or working too hard.

         I wonder how the first meeting happened between horse and fox-how many times the gelding drove the fox off before the fox decided it was easier to run along the fence line though he'd had no problem running through my neighbor's horse herd.

        Story ideas come like that, from sparks born of small incidents-the VWs in my driveway and a woman I know who made her living as a mechanic. The sparks flitter along meandering tracks, most of them dying out, but a few hit dry tinder and burst into life. Then I have a story.

        Sometimes it works backwards too.

        I've run my main characters through murder and mayhem until I, the characters, and the reader need a break, a chance to catch our breath. So I might slip in the coyote who followed us one day when we took the horses into the hills near home. She was so narrow from side to side that, from a distance, all we could see was a pair of big, triangular ears.  Or use the little boy at the zoo, who, looking at a particularly wrinkled elephant, said, "Mommy, look at the elder-fant."

Best wishes,

Patty Briggs

Excerpt

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