Shovels

You know all those things you read about how authors come up with stories, where they get their ideas, etc. This is probably my favorite metaphor surrounding that process:

It's more like--it's kinda like (this is gonna be a bit stupid) but let's say you're walking along the road and suddenly you sprout a third arm and the third arm is fused to a shovel....It just happened. You didn't plan it; it just happened. Well, it could be argued that the next thing you should do is find a hole to dig. Right? So you start digging a hole and then somebody brings a body along and puts it in. That's what a story must feel like to me. It's not that you say, "I want to write a story about a gravedigger." But you're walking along and "I don't know what I'm doing here in this story," and --boop! a shovel. "Oh, interesting. Ok, what does one do with a shovel? Digs a hole. Why? I don't know yet. Dig the hole! Oh, look a body."

-George Saunders