Stories from Nowhere

The day I wrote my first short story is still vivid in my mind. I was at a cafe, I had a blank sheet of paper in front of me, and I just started to write. An opening line had been floating about in my mind, but I didn't know where that line would lead and had no idea what the story was going to be about. I just knew this line was the start of a story. And it was. The sentences tumbled out, scenes took shape, characters shouldered their way onto the page. I wrote without really thinking, and it wasn't until near the end of the story that I understood where it would wind up.

That was sixteen years ago. I've just published my book, Stopping for Strangers, and every one of the ten short stories in it started in the same way: a first line in my head, but no clue as to where it would lead. The beginning lines themselves came from a variety of places. Some were overheard snippets of conversation, others were sentences from the radio, some were just lines that came to me from out of the blue. After a while I got to know what made a great jumping off point: the best openings had a kind of critical mass to them, a certain movement and momentum suggestive of a story that might follow.

Here are a few starting lines that I used: “My sister and I were on our way to see our Grandfather one last time before he died.” “The Ugly Duck was closed, so my brother Marv drove us up Dufferin, past St Clair to a bar called Dixies.” and “I found out because of a dream...”

Up until the moment I set pen to paper, I never let myself think beyond the first line. To let my mind explore where the words might lead would somehow ruin their magic.

And it did feel like magic. The best of these stories practically wrote themselves. In fact, it sometimes felt like I was taking dictation, that I was plugged into something larger—hooked into to the collective stories of our subconscious.

Daniel Griffin is the author of Stopping for Strangers (Vehicule 2011), a collection of short stories. His stories have appeared in numerous magazines and journals across North America, have twice been selected for the Journey Prize anthology and were collected in the 2008 edition of Coming Attractions. A graduate of UBC’s optional residency creative writing MFA program, Daniel is the father of three children and lives in Victoria BC.  He is currently finishing his first novel. For more, visit his website.