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In my new Street Stories suspense novel, Bend Me, Shape Me, reporter Jo Sullivan leads a writer’s workshop for youth living at the Night Moves shelter. The idea for the scene came from my own volunteer experiences at The Night Ministry’s Open Door Shelter (ODS) in Chicago. Once a week, I would get together on a Sunday afternoon with several residents and do writing exercises.

One of those projects took place over several weeks in a row. Brainstorming together, we came up with a cast of characters and a plot for a fantasy story. I came across the remains of that project today as I was cleaning up some computer files and it made me nostalgic for those kids and the creativity they shared with me.

To honor them, I want to share some of what we came up with, in bits and pieces. Here’s the first installment:

The Protagonists

BRIAN is a heroin addict who hustles at Waveland and Broadway to make money to support his habit. He is 22 and has been doing this for one year. He actually came to Chicago when he was 17, a runaway from Louisville, KY who came here because he had a shitty home life and because he wanted the adventure. But things didn’t quite work out the way he wanted them to and little by little he got into heavy drugs to make him care less about being miserable and confused. He’s too old for any of the youth programs and so he sleeps on the street.

BREW is a 21 year old college student studying chemistry. Magus is her teacher. She is out of this world, frank, and honest. She wears her heart on her sleeve so the world will know exactly what she means. She wants more out of life than what she has. Her father told her never to trust “hot dogs” but she is drawn to them because she has a lot in common with them. She wears a diamond on her wrist for the one who got away–a guy named Pinkie. Her eyes are black and her hair is hazel, wild like fire.

BRIAN and BREW are connected by past lives, a constant history of trying to connect. The time frame allowed to make this connection is brief. This story is their last chance to make that connection–the opportunity will be lost forever if it doesn’t happen now. They both have visions of past encounters.

I cnduo’t bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg. Unisg the icndeblire pweor of the hmuan mnid, aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mttaer in waht oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whoutit a pboerlm. Tihs is bucseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Aaznmig, huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghhuot slelinpg was ipmorantt! See if yuor fdreins can raed tihs too.

Could you read the above with little or no problem? Probably the answer is yes. The reason, from what the paragraph itself says, is that the human mind doesn’t process the individual letters, but the whole word. As long as the first and last letter is correct, the middle ones can be jumbled without preventing our translation of the meaning.

I get another lesson from this also. The importance of beginnings and endings. I’ve been taught how important they are in writing, and I can hypothesize how important they are in life.

In Writing

Start with the big picture and then zoom in to the micro level. You must have a strong opening to your book or story to make someone want to read it. A strong ending will leave them satisfied and wanting to read your next book. When chapters use this same principle, that is what keeps us up till 2 a.m. to finish a book. How can you not turn the page when a chapter ends with a cliff hanger and the next one sets up an intriguing situation?

Like the eye “skips” over the jumbled middle letters in the words above, so does the reader sometimes skim through your text. To be sure they don’t miss some vital meaning, it’s important to front- and end-load your paragraphs and sentences. A great writer knows writing this way also makes the text more impactful.

Does this mean that what happens in between isn’t important? Certainly not. Even in the word scramble above, HOW the middle letters are scrambled determines how easy or difficult it is to interpret. Notice the word slelinpg in the second to last sentence. At first glance, it could easily be read as sleeping instead of spelling until you realize there is only one E and two L’s.

In Life

Some of us are born into pretty crappy life stories. Everything from poverty and abuse to just your ordinary, everyday dysfunctional family. Then there are those lucky ones who are born to people with great parenting skills and/or lots of money. Which beginning do you think gives a person a higher probability of leaving an impact on the world when they die?

However, like the word “slelinpg” in the word scramble, the circumstances of your birth does not determine your destiny, it just determines how hard a row you have to hoe. It’s my theory that if you start out with the odds stacked against you and wind up a success (however you want to define it), your beginning qualifies as a strong opener. Likewise, if you do nothing meaningful with your life despite the front-loaded jump start you were born with, you’ve written a poorly lived life despite that wealth of assets.