Friends and Lovers
Disclaimer:If you do not want to know how this story came about, or if you just want to get to the story, because you've already read this, click here.
| Section 1 | Section 2 | Section 3 | Interlude | Section 4 | Section 5 | Epilogue |
Friends is the second longest story I've written, and the way it came about is still a bit of a surprise to me. It's one of the few stories that came about as a result of my time at Kroger.
One day, I was tending the U-Scan machine, when my friend Nathan Erickson walked into the store, and mentioned that he had been on a missionary trip to Argentina, and on the way back, he had met a girl named Alisa Worley. I talked to him about it alot, and bugged him and got him to talk to me about her. He was really taken with her. Until he decided to see if she wanted to go with him to Six Flags.
She said that she couldn't, because she was going to a college in another state, and wasn't that sad? I felt really bad for Nate. He's a good guy, who doesn't really deserve that kind of treatment.
So, there was that idea floating around in my head, just waiting for something to connect with.
I had also had another idea for a story about unrequited love floating around in my head, but aside from the fact that the protagonist was going to be some poor shmuck foolhardily in love with someone who is already engaged, I had nothing. No situation, nothing to actually have a story about. Until one day, when a friend of mine named Alicia Michelle Tucker decided to mention something interesting.
She mentioned to a customer that she was going to go to college out of state, once she got married. That didn't immediately hook up any ideas about anything,
Like so many other story ideas, this one began with a "What If..." question. "What if Alisa went to the same school that Alicia goes to, and they become roommates?"
Then, all of a sudden, like a lightning, bolt, it all flew together in my head with that one question.A guy meets a girl on an airplane, falls for her, she for him, but they can't be together. At the same time, a guy falls for a girl, who's already taken, and can't have her anyway. The two guys are friends, and the two girls become roommates at the same college. Through the connection between the unrequited love people, the two airplane folk get back together.
So, that's how the story came about. On that sunny april day about a year ago, standing at the U-Scan, idly listening to people talk, a story was born. I learned a long time ago not to set too many restrictions on my story, and I let it grow of it's own accord, instead of trying to force things. For a while, up until I wrote the scene, in fact, I had no idea how Chelle's parents died. I was as in the dark as Rob was. Chelle's revelation about her mother surpised me also. It was a sad pitiful moment, one that I really felt for Chelle. You probably didn't feel that way, I'm a pretty clumsy writer, but I felt for her all the same.
I think that's about it. I wrote this story on a Macintosh Powerbook G3, just like I write all my stories, using a combination of Clarisworks, V 5.0, and later, finishing it on Appleworks v 6.0. There was absolutely no Microsoft involved in this process at all, of which I am profoundly proud. Quantity, after all, does not equal quality.
So, I think that's about it for my story. I hope you all enjoy reading it, and I hope you will continue to read my other stories.
Thanks!
