Today, I’m stealing the title of this post from the wonderfully talented Neil Gaiman. He’s another favorite of mine, and let’s be honest-most writers are more thieves than magicians. We steal lines from conversations we’ve overheard, ideas from half remembered stories, and character inspiration from the habits of people we observe every day. But (and this is the important part, the amateur magic), good writers transform their thievery into inspiration. We ask ourselves, “What if…?”

What if, when he kicked his girlfriend out of the car in the middle of the night, she was barefoot? (Who is he? Who is she? What were they doing in the car before he kicked her out? Where are they? The story takes on a different tone if they’re in Miami, or in Vermont in the dead of winter.) What if the gate at the top of the stairs was unlatched? What if she came home early? What if the guy you share a cubicle wall with, the one with 18 different striped no wrinkle shirts is…go on, please, and finish that sentence. (…getting a divorce, a closet knitter, a dog enthusiast, joining the Peace Corps, in love with the girl one cubicle over. All of the above?)

As writers, we find a way to create something new, and in doing so, we hope to create something deeply recognizable. The truth, and not the truth, all at once.

Neil Gaiman writes, “Mirrors are wonderful things. They appear to tell the truth, to reflect life back at us; but set a mirror correctly and it will lie so convincingly you’ll believe that something has vanished into thin air, that a box filled with doves and flags and spiders is actually empty, that people hidden in the wings or the pit are floating ghosts upon the stage. Angle it right and a mirror becomes a magic casement; it can show you anything you imagine and maybe a few things you can’t.

(The smoke blurs the edges of things.)

Stories are, in one way or another, mirrors. We use them to explain to ourselves how the world works or how it doesn’t work. Like mirrors, stories prepare us for the day to come. They distract us from the things in the darkness.”

If you’ve been watching the news this weekend, there’s been plenty of darkness to go around and no need to imagine it: the world working, the world not working. On a day like today, is it possible for a distraction from the darkness, or a way to prepare for the day to come? Tell us. Pick your angle, truth or mirage, and get to writing.

Today’s Prompt: Two Truths and a Lie.

Further Inspiration: “But where there’s a monster there’s a miracle.”   -Ogden Nash, Dragons Are Too Seldom