It's Groundhog Day...again by Jennifer Faye

This past Saturday the U.S. has this peculiar holiday known as Groundhog Day. I must confess those little creatures are cute but how in the world they got their own day on the calendar, February 2^nd, boggles my mind. If you aren’t familiar with this unusual American tradition there’s a groundhog, Punxsatawney Phil, who sticks his head out of his hole and if he sees his shadow there’s six more weeks of winter. If he doesn’t see his shadow it means an early spring. Definitely a very scientific predictor.

And if you’re wondering how this ties into writing…well, I’m getting there. I promise.

This year I learned there are more groundhogs in the U.S. predicting the end of winter, who’d have guessed. Well, Phil predicted an early spring as did two other groundhogs. However, the one from Atlanta heartily disagreed. Hmm…3 to 1 vote for an early spring. I’m going with Phil, an early spring it is. J

Weather predicting aside, when I hear the words Groundhog Day, I think of the movie starring Bill Murray. If you haven’t seen it, it’s about a man who keeps reliving the same day in his life. No matter what he does it’s the same day. There’s no escaping it. Sometimes when I hit a rut, I joke that I’m stuck in Groundhog Day.

Hmm…now that I’ve been talking so much about the movie, I’m going to have to borrow it from the local library and watch it. *makes note*

Anyway, by now I know you’re scratching your head and wondering how this all relates to writing. Well, it does in a creative sort of way. When you are crafting a story, you have to be very aware that you don’t create a world in which your characters feel as though they are living out the movie, Groundhog Day. No one wants to read about someone’s boring, routine life day after day after day.

You want to start your book at the moment of change. When the H/h’s ordinary life becomes extraordinary…but within the bounds of reasonableness. For me discovering that moment is a lot of fun. What exactly will bring my character to that inciting moment? What exactly will cause the hero and heroine’s lives to intersect and never be the same again? The possibilities are endless and exciting.

For my July 2013 debut, “Rancher to the Rescue”, my hero and heroine have been taken out of their routine lives where the heroine is a cooking sensation on television and the hero is a sexy rancher. In the opening of the book, the heroine is a bride on the run and the hero unwittingly becomes her accomplice.

So how about your stories? How do you take the ordinary and make it extraordinary? Do you find it to be a challenge? Or are the prospects exciting?