Hey, everyone. I've Jennifer Bosworth, author of Struck, here today for her blog tour!
Stranger
than Fiction ––
Why I look to natural phenomena for story inspiration
I’m a
sucker for those programs on Discovery and the History Channel that play late
at night, the ones about strange phenomena. Swamp lights and weird rain, fish
or frogs falling from the sky, bioluminescent tides and the aurora borealis.
And lightning. Don’t forget lightning.
Lighting,
you ask? Is that really considered a phenomenon? After all, it’s a lot more
common than frog rain. I mean, how many people do you actually know who’ve been
walking along, minding their own business, when out of the blue a toad lands on
their head? Probably not very many.
Sure,
lightning is common. But people who’ve been struck
by lightning . . . not quite so commonplace. How about people who’ve been
struck twice? Or three times? How about seven?
That’s
how many lightning strikes U.S. park ranger, Roy Sullivan, survived. Seven! All
of them verified by doctors. He used to drive around with a bucket of water in
the back of his truck, just in case he was struck, caught fire, and needed to
put himself out. People began to call him a “human lightning rod,” and avoided
him because they were afraid to be near him if he were struck. The fifth time
Sullivan was struck, he saw a cloud forming over him and tried to outrun it,
but it followed him. When Sullivan finally died at the age of 71, it was from a
self-inflicted gunshot wound to the stomach. The lightning never claimed Roy
Sullivan, though it did try its hardest.
Sullivan’s
story was one of the strangest, saddest things I’d ever heard. What was it
about this man that attracted lightning? And why, oh why did he not quit his
park ranger job and move somewhere like sunny Los Angeles, where lightning only
strikes a handful of times every year?
Reading
about Sullivan, an idea started to form in my mind. A “what if?” What if the
reason Mr. Sullivan wouldn’t move somewhere safe was because he actually liked
being struck?
I can’t
tell you why Sullivan didn’t try harder to outrun the lightning that tormented
him. What I can tell you is that a story like Sullivan’s is the stuff of dreams
for a creative person. My mind went wild with possibilities for characters and
stories after reading about Sullivan. I began researching lightning, and found
more and more strange anecdotes and facts and bizarre happenings. The story in
my mind began to snowball, grabbing up tidbits of information and inspiration
as it rolled.
Did you
know lightning can lift you up and move you?
Did you
know ball lightning has been known to appear out of nowhere and chase people
around their houses? Even move through walls?
Did you
know being struck by lightning once healed a woman of Multiple Sclerosis?
Did you
know lightning doesn’t actually strike the ground? That energy on the ground
reaches up to the energy in clouds and meets it?
Did you
know the inventor Nikola Tesla nearly found a way to provide free energy to the
entire world by harnessing the power in lightning, but was shut down by the
power companies?
These
are the kinds of facts I learned as I researched lightning. The facts that inspired
me and gave shape to my story. But Struck would never have existed if I hadn’t,
one night, been staying up late, flipping through channels, and stopped when I
saw a program about natural phenomena . . . one that taught
me about a real life human lightning rod.
Sometimes
nature is stranger than fiction. And that’s why I turn it into fiction.
Struck Blog Tour Schedule
Monday 5/7 http://www.wastepaperprose.
Tuesday 5/8 http://foreveryoungadult.
Wednesday 5/9 http://www.intothehallofbooks.
Thursday 5/10 http://musingsfromatoz.
Friday 5/11 http://www.
Saturday 5/12 http://www.oneminutebooks.
Sunday 5/13 http://christinareadsya.
Monday 5/14 http://www.
Tuesday 5/15 http://www.bookswithbite.net/
Wednesday 5/16 http://bewitchedbookworms.com/
Thursday 5/17 http://www.annareads.com/
Friday 5/18 http://bookaddictdiary.
Saturday 5/19 http://fromthetbrpile.
Be sure to check out the next stop.
Thanks to Jen for the great blog post!
Here are some more sites if you're interested:
Here are some more sites if you're interested:
Jen's Website - http://www.jenniferbosworth.
Fierce Reads Fan Page - https://www.facebook.com/
Jennifer Bosworth on tour for Fierce Reads - https://www.facebook.com/
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