I've got an idea I've been playing around with for a while. I've written some of it out but I'm having trouble filling in the story. I think my problem is that most of it told in flashbacks. My main character is cleaning his mother's house. She has just passed away and was a severe hoarder. He didn't know his father well. He committed suicide when my MC was young and didn't talk about his past even then, and mom seems to be ashamed of something (she shouldn't be). The body of the story is my MC cleaning the home and reliving the memories some items bring back to him, including the pistol his father used. Many memories are happy but a few not so much, obviously. It concludes with MC learning about his fathers past and what finally drove him to suicide as well as some very happy moments. I think it would be classed as general fiction. Would this be interesting to anyone? Are there books out there that are similar I can read? I almost feel this would be a cross between Mr. Hollands Opus (music plays an important roll in the story), and A Child Called It. (I haven't read this one yet, but I know what it's about. My MC suffers no physical abuse but quite a bit of emotional abuse.)
Any idea can be turned into an interesting story. I think it'd probably be good to start with the good memories and then progress toward worse ones, or each memory could start as a nice one then degenerate. To have a compelling story, things must go from bad to worse. your MC must reach rock bottom in order to spring back to the surface or redeem him/herself at in some way, even if you're not going for a happy ending (my 2 cents on it, anyway). I can't think of a novel similar to your idea, but I liked how Gail Anderson-Dargatz switched between present and past in her novel The Spawning Grounds. A present scene would have one character begin to tell a story that happened a long time ago, then the next scene would be fully set in that past. I thought it was a smooth way to transition to another time and much less jarring than a sudden flashback.
I don't know about specific books, but looking at objects as reminders is a device that's used a lot on screen, going back to some Golden-Era movies. Minus the suicide it's pretty much the story I've been living since February while cleaning out my mom's house. I've written a lot about cleaning out the house and the fact that my parents--mainly my mother-- were emotionally abusive in my journal here, although I haven't written about trying to piece together my dad's past (which I have been). So it's either extremely relate-able or textbook cliche. I know I've seen the thing about the suicide pistol in an old black and white movie though. I can't remember what movie it was, but the female lead finds it in a desk drawer. It was a movie I'd never seen before, and it was an actress with dark hair, and she was wearing a dressing gown. Barbara Stanwyck? Kay Francis? Not sure.
It's a great story idea. Read Orphan Train to see how it can be done well. You can find the real Orphan Trains the book is based on to get more about how the author managed the idea.
Flashback stories are tough. I wrote a book with a fairly similar setup, about a young woman going through her estranged father's things after his suicide. A big chunk of the book was flashbacks and also entries from the father's journals. I had an agent for this book and we shopped it, but it didn't sell. I will tell you what I learned so you can avoid my mistakes. 1. I was told on a couple of occasions that the book wasn't commercial enough. I was pitching it as contemporary YA. If I still cared, I might try to re-spin it as adult literary. This type of setup isn't exactly high concept, so you might be better off taking the literary route. 2. The issue I heard most often was that people didn't connect as much with the flashback/journal parts as they did with the MC's present-day narration, so they were constantly being yanked out of the story they cared more about. As the writer I didn't get it, since to me the flashbacks were the juicy parts. But it's an inherent risk with flashback stories. The reverse can also happen, where people only care about the flashbacks and the frame story bores them to death. So, just keep that in mind. You are asking a lot more of the reader when you yank them back and forth in time like that. Continually ask yourself why the reader should care--don't take it for granted that they will just because you're following the same character. 3. It is really tough to incorporate stakes into a story that's mostly flashbacks, because we already know how everything turns out. So this comes back to the literary vs. commercial issue. If you're wanting this to be a commercial novel, you need to be really intentional about how you maintain tension in the flashbacks, and what kinds of stakes you introduce to the present-day story. Good luck with it!
A quick comment: If she was a "severe hoarder" then cleaning her house is likely to be a hazmat affair--suit, gloves, breather, and the structural integrity of the house is likely to be failing--not one conducive to nostalgia. I realize this is nitpicking about terminology, but some readers may care. If he can get in the house, navigate through it, and look at stuff, without wearing protective gear and without danger of serious physical injury, she's a mild to moderate hoarder.
Read The Suicide Index by Joan Wickersham. This is a memoir, but hands down the best memoir I've ever read. Wickersham also writes fiction and sure knows how to tell a story. But the way she tell a story in her memoir might give you some ideas of how to handle things with your novel. She has flashbacks and even scenes she wasn't there for. But she pulls it off. This is really a great book, and I can't stress that enough. And I hope you check it out. Something I've learned from my own writing is that when I have too many flashbacks to the point where it feels like they are taking over the story, something is wrong. Too many flashbacks could mean you're starting the story in the wrong place. But I'm not sure that's the case with your story. What @Dragon Turtle said about the stakes of the story is very important. Do you know or have stakes in your story? What sort of conflict is there in the current story line (not the flashbacks)? Wickersham's book is about piecing together the truth behind her father's suicide. Perhaps your character is after something similar like learning the truth about something in the family. But the current storyline needs to be as enticing as the flashbacks. Also, straying from the current storyline too much or for too long can have readers a little lost or somewhat disoriented. I think you need to add more people to the current story and more things going on. Have another relative show up to help. Have your MC put a group of Girl Scouts to work when they stop by to sell cookies. Make sure there is a story going on in the current storyline. You don't want the current story to be there just to hold the flashbacks together... or maybe you do. You still need the current storyline to work on some level by itself. I hope you read the Wickersham book. She breaks the rules of convention and seems to be able to pull of just about anything. It is truly a remarkable book. Personally, I can relate to your problem. I have a tendency to be somewhat flashback heavy. But now that I'm aware of this, I have learned to stop and catch myself or do a lot of cutting and rewriting. I think this is somewhat a balancing issue. I don't think it's a 50-50 solution, but flashbacks can weigh down a story and be a distraction from the main story. Sure, anything can be done and work, but I know when I get flashback heavy it's a problem for me and my story.
Not all flashbacks are equal, deadrats. Flashbacks that tell two parallel stories like in the Orphan Train are not the same as flashbacks that add to the one main story.
I agree with you that not all flashbacks are the same. I just don't think you want them overtaking your story. And isn't the main story where the stakes are like @Dragon Turtle was saying? But I am a believer that the right writer can pull off many things. I was just adding my 2 cents because I too have struggled with too many flashbacks.
Thanks for the input. I think it might be a little flashback heavy as is, and the main story doesn't have a lot going on other than going through junk so definitely need more there. The sheriff does show up at one point, he was a town deputy when father committed suicide and remembers my MC well. His sister shows up for a little while but it felt cluttered and forced. I'll have to work on that. A couple of books to add to my reading list. I'd never heard of the Orphan Trains, an interesting section of US history for sure. My library appears to have both of them so I'll read them both.
If you’re interested in books about hoarders, I could offer a few. Hoarding tends to be a symptom of a particular kind of dysfunctional personality.
I tried watching the show Hoarders for some ideas and help with direction. It only resulted in a cleaner home.
Dirty Secrets, by Jessie Sholl The Secret Life of Hoarders, by Matt Paxton. I’d avoid anything by Randy Frost.
Yeah, I agree about the hoarding issue. There is a difference between a hoarder and somebody who keeps everything of sentimental value (all old letters, artifacts from their past, etc.) A hoarder will keep all their used yogurt containers, every issue of every magazine and newspaper they've ever read, refuse to throw away jam jars, keeps all elastic bands, ballpoint Bic pens that no longer have any ink, won't ever get rid of worn out mismatched socks ...and as @ChickenFreak pointed out, pretty soon the dwelling becomes so packed with junk that really has no value—sentimental or otherwise—and it's impossible to keep it in a liveably clean state. If the mother in your story isn't one of these pack rats, and simply has kept lots of sentimental things from the past that will engender memories in the son (unlike yogurt containers) then she's not really a hoarder. She's not a minimalist either, but she is probably quite normal. As to the flashback idea ...wasn't that the basis of The Bridges of Madison County? Or similar, anyway. That story wasn't so much about engendering memories in the offspring who were clearing their mother's house, but the discovery of a part of her life they hadn't known about at all. But the story was told as a flashback, framed in the present. I think it worked really well, and it was a huge bestseller.
