Arts & Entertainment, Writing

In the Unlikely Event Case Study - Part 1

Lesson time 14:15 min

Judy deconstructs how she researched her sprawling novel, which she based on series of unbelievable-yet-true events that happened in her hometown when she was a teenager.

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Topics include: Use Research as Security • Take out What Doesn’t Need to Be There • Gather Shared Memories • Figure Out What’s Important

Preview

So I've chatted with you about how ideas usually come to me. Slowly, over a long period of time. And now comes In The Unlikely Event, which came in a flash, in a way no other book has ever come to me. No book will ever come to me this way again. So I want to share this with you too, because it could happen to you. In January of 2009, I was sitting in an auditorium in Key West during an event that we have every year, a pretty great event called the Key West Literary Seminar. And it's a seminar where the audience is almost all made up of readers. There may be some writers in there too, but it's not a learn to write. It's about reading. And the guest speakers are all writers, and it's usually around a theme. And in 2009, the theme was new voices in literature. So we had a lot of new writers there, younger writers. I'm on the board, so I know a lot about what goes on. But after lunch is usually a sleepy session, you know? People are like, ugh. There's a lot of eyes closing. And here is this wonderful, new, young writer, unknown to almost all of us then named Rachel Kushner, who has since become very famous. But then she was talking to us about her first novel, Telex From Cuba, a book that I had read already because I knew she was coming. And I liked it very, very much, so I was interested in what she might have to say. And she talked to us about how she got the idea to write this book, which was-- this is the way I remember it anyway-- stories that her mother had told her. Her mother, I think, had grown up in Cuba just before Castro and the revolution, when it was just beginning to change. And maybe her mother lived on a plantation. That's the way I remember it. Pineapples or whatever. And this book was inspired by stories that her mother told her about growing up in Cuba in the '50s. The only reason this is important is in the '50s, I heard this, in the '50s, and I swear to you, I was struck at that moment. It was like electricity went through me. In the '50s. And I had a story. I had a story that lived deep inside me that never came bubbling up until that moment. In the '50s. What a simple sentence. How many times had I said in the '50s myself? But when Rachel said it onstage, in the '50s, stories her mother told her about growing up in the '50s, this entire book came to me at once with characters and plot. And before I left the auditorium that afternoon, I knew this book the way you might see a movie. It just went right through me. I had this story. I'm a writer. I'm a writer. I've been a writer all these years. So for 40 years that I was writing then or more, I had this story deep inside me, and I never thought to tell it. Which to me is crazy, you know? How can a person who's a writer have a story like this, such a great story, and never think to tell it? Not consider it and s...

About the Instructor

Judy Blume broke the rules. Her refreshingly honest children’s books were banned by hundreds of libraries and loved by generations of readers, who bought 85 million copies of classics like Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret and Superfudge. In her first online writing class, the award-winning author teaches you how to invent vivid characters, write realistic dialogue, and turn your experiences into stories people will treasure.

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Judy Blume

In 24 lessons, Judy Blume will show you how to develop vibrant characters and hook your readers.

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