Finding Your Object

by Vivian Murray

It is occasionally mentioned in workshops or books on the craft of writing, how effective a physical object can be when subtly weaving it through your story.  I just finished reading the book The Velvet Hours by Alyson Richman which uses a large 19th century portrait of a Parisian courtesan as an occasional object from beginning to end. Even without a picture to physically see, the author showed the reader the gilded frame, the woman’s posture, colors, and fabrics.  It easily came to mind whenever the painting was mentioned at various intervals of the story. It was a familiar object.  And, what I loved about this book was how the author wrote it as a fictionalized account of a newspaper article. It was a story of a family learning about their great-great grandmother’s apartment in Paris which was locked up for over 70 years . When opened by family heirs in 2011, it was as if time stood still and they walked into 1940s Paris. I remember reading the newspaper article and posting it on Facebook.  I was fascinated by the story and thrilled someone wrote a book about it.

If you decide you want an object for your story, how do you discover what it will be?

As writers, we understand inspiration arises from unexpected places. You may be in a writers’ group when a new story pops into your head and the first draft is soon underway. Perhaps you are sitting at your desk or on a plane thousands of feet in the air when an idea for a new character is born. You can be anywhere.  That’s the beauty of being a writer.

It wasn’t long ago, when housecleaning, when an object in my home reminded me of someone I once loved.   I wiped dust off the Chinese decorated antique mirror and remembered a time, 43 years ago, when this man I loved looked at his reflection in this mirror, while in my mother’s home.  I was across the room watching him when his reflection caught mine and we locked eyes. It was a moment caught in time. He’s been gone many years, but, oddly, his reflection and that memory remain in the wavy glass of this mirror.

My thoughts, as I continued dusting, trailed off to another time I could only conjure up in my imagination. It occurred to me my grandfather may have bought this mirror for my grandmother when they were first married in Shanghai in 1929. The mirror, with its new glass, survived WWII hidden in a Shanghai cellar. It was kept with other curios and precious objects out of sight. These were protected from the Japanese invasion and confiscation because they were in the cellar of a White Russian friend of my grandmother’s. If a Russian was married to a citizen of an enemy country, they were sent to Japanese internment camps, which was the case of my grandmother and mother who spent 4 years in a camp because my Russian grandmother married a British man.

After the war, in 1947 the mirror took a journey by ship to the United States and hung on the wall of my grandmother’s San Francisco flat until well into the late 70s.  The mirror had its own journey over the next 37 years when it lived in my mother’s home in Pleasant Hill, CA; Colorado Springs, CO; then to my home in Seattle, eventually settling in Edmonds 11 years ago. I imagine one of my children and one of my grandchildren will take it from here.
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And so it was a day of simple housecleaning which created my story-object.  I can carry this mirror through my book for almost 100 years of my family’s history.  I can write a historical fiction showing the reader many of the faces reflected over time, some known and some imagined; we have so much freedom as writers to create whatever we wish!
Stories and ideas pop up for writers from unexpected places; we are delighted when they pop up at all.

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