by David Cleden
David Cleden explains how a very unusual and extremely memorable art exhibition inspired his novelette “The Touchstone of Ouroboros”, which you can read in our [November/December issue, on sale now!]
Who doesn’t love a good origin story? I don’t mean a protagonist’s origin story—the kind of thing where we learn what spurred Batman to first don his mask and cape, or James T. Kirk’s motivations for submitting a Starfleet Academy application (although these are great stories too). I mean the creative spark that plants a seed in the writer’s mind from which a story grows. I’m fascinated to know what kind of lived experience shapes a writer’s imagination in such a way it creates something distinctive and unique. What seeded ideas like the thought viruses of Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash or the shell worlds of Iain M. Banks’ Matter, where different civilizations inhabit concentric shells within the same planet? Or a house where every room is literally on a different world, connected via an instantaneous farcaster portal, as in Dan Simmons’ Hyperion Cantos, or—(insert your favourite SFnal idea, gadget or trope here).
I’m sure many stories originate purely through long, hard labor in the imagination mines, the author testing and rejecting idea after idea until something clicks. Or the muse speaks and a story seed is planted in the writer’s mind, just popping into existence. But sometimes a writer seems to bring a different perspective to an everyday object or situation and then builds a story around it. I’m fascinated by that process because as a writer myself, I want to know what they saw that I might have missed. How can I switch my perspective to see things differently?
You would be right to think that this definition of origin story is a close cousin of the age-old “Where do you get your ideas?” question writers frequently encounter. You’ve probably heard some of the more flippant answers like Harlan Ellison’s: “There’s this ideas service in Schenectady and every week like clockwork they send me a fresh six-pack of ideas for 25 bucks.” A better question might be, “So what inspired you?” even though many (most?) stories probably don’t have a well-defined genesis. They come to life via a messy, chaotic and sometimes protracted mental struggle.
Sometimes, though, there is a definite external trigger. The kernel of an idea arises because the writer sees the story potential in some quotidian object or event. Did you ever notice your car’s odometer tick over to some significant number (from 9,999 to 10,000 miles, say) and not thought much of it? Stephen King did and it set him pondering what would happen if the odometer ran backwards making a car grow younger, endowing it with a twisted personality. (See the novel Christine).
I don’t count dreams when it comes to origin stories. I know plenty of great ideas have originated in some shape or form within a dream (how about: a girl and a vampire having an intense conversation in the woods—the seed for Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga) but dreams are just too personal and nebulous. I can’t dream what another writer dreams and vice versa. (Which is probably for the best!)
But I am interested in when a writer sees some everyday situation a little differently and plays the ‘what-if’ game. What is it that gets their attention and tickles their curiosity? Isaac Asimov talked about hearing fellow author Robert Silverberg once mistakenly refer to an isotope of plutonium (plutonium-186) that can’t physically exist. It was just a slip of the tongue which most of us wouldn’t think twice about. But it got Asimov wondering. What would it mean if such an isotope was detected? What changes to the laws of physics would be needed? The answer became the alternate universe novel The Gods Themselves which went on to win both a Nebula and a Hugo.
Writers can be reluctant to talk about what inspires them, probably because the thought processes which bridge the gap between inspiration and finished product are difficult to describe. But a trigger point—that unique observation or experience which gets the creative juices flowing (assuming there is one)—that’s something we can dig into.
I am interested in when a writer sees some everyday situation a little differently and plays the ‘what-if’ game. What is it that gets their attention and tickles their curiosity?
My own modest example is the originating idea for the Touchstone which features in my novelette The Touchstone of Ouroboros, published in the latest issue of Analog. The originating idea had a remarkably long gestation period of more than two decades, not that I knew it for most of that time.
At some point in the early 2000s I was invited to a private showing of the Saatchi art collection. At that time, the gallery occupied part of the splendid old County Hall building on the banks of the Thames in London, recently vacated by the Greater London Authority. This was my first visit to a modern art exhibition and I had little idea what to expect. The invitation was a thank-you to the project team I was part of and I confess the main attraction was a free glass of bubbly on entry and the chance to see notorious works such as Damien Hirst’s pickled shark (the bisected version) and Tracey Emin’s messy bed. I went with an open mind and low expectations.
And absolutely loved it!
Two things particularly stand out in my memory. One was an ordinary, office-like room in this grand old building—think aged wood paneling on the walls, glass-fronted bookcases, a teak desk in front of a tall window commanding views across the river. Except the entire room was flooded to a depth of four feet with black, viscous oil! A waist-high barrier across the doorway contained the oil within the room but allowed the visitor to step several paces inside. At the furthest point, standing near the middle of the room, the effect was extremely disconcerting. I felt as though I was myself waist-deep in oil. The juxtaposition of such a conventional interior (perhaps the office of some mid-twentieth century, high-ranking bureaucrat) and the extraordinary (a room half-filled with oil!) was jarring. It took my breath away.
The second exhibit to leave a lasting impression shocked me in a different way. I entered another small, dimly lit room to find it dominated by a black, tarry sphere at least six feet in diameter. Its surface was roughly pitted and had a curious plastic-like sheen. I seem to remember getting quite close before realizing just what formed that curiously irregular surface. Rats. Hundreds—probably thousands—of freeze-dried, plasticized rats, caught on the streets of London and bonded together into one giant, grotesque, nightmarish ball. (I later discovered that the artist, David Falconer, went on to produce several variants on this theme, including the aptly named ‘Vermin Death Star.’)
It may or may not have been a homage to the notorious ‘Rat Kings’ which have been recorded as far back as the 16th century. A Rat King is typically a collection of a dozen or so rats whose tails have become so entangled they are permanently bound together. It likely happens when they come into contact with some sticky substance (sap or excretory products or food remnants) which binds them as they sleep in a nest. The more the poor rats struggle to free themselves, the more entangled they become. Although such grisly spectacles are rare, there are plenty of preserved examples in museums throughout Europe.
Fast-forward twenty years and I was casting around for some object or device to fit an alien-artifact story idea I had been developing. The memory of that giant ball of rats popped into my mind—it’s not the sort of image that’s easy to forget! I imagined how some powerfully attractive but unknown force might have drawn countless rats into contact over the years. Once touched, the bond could never be severed. The central idea of the Touchstone is an object that’s the ultimate attractor, growing larger with every passing year as it feeds on anything it comes into contact with. As centuries pass, all manner of things might become irrevocably bonded to its expanding surface: dust floating in the air, for sure—but maybe larger things, too. The curious or the careless. Human sacrifices. Perhaps an entire religion would grow off the back of this Touchstone. And the rest, as they say, is just detail.
I hope you enjoy the story that resulted, The Touchstone of Ouroboros. Now that it’s done and out in the world, it occurs to me that I ought to find a way to use an oil-flooded, oak-paneled office as the seed of a new story idea. Hmm. Now what if…?
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