Sometimes Stories Find Us: The Origin of Brightwing Tales—Ben Palpant

Editor’s Note: Just released earlier this month, Ben Palpant’s Brightwing Tales is an enchanting tale about Mr. Mole and his friends in the tradition of The Wind in the Willows and The Green Ember.

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by Ben Palpant

Stories are born in all sorts of ways. Some come like lightning—brilliant, sudden, and impossible to ignore. Others arrive like seeds, requiring seasons of tending before they sprout. One is not better than the other. Both are gifts.

Most of my published work has been the process of planting seeds and doing the hard work of tending them until they became a fully formed book. That process can take several years and, as any writer will tell you, it tests one’s resolve. The work is arduous and humbling. I’ve had to learn how to work like a farmer. Patient plodding is key. And sometimes I have to think like an archaeologist, trying to unearth the story that I think is buried somewhere in my heart. I have to find it, which requires careful searching.

Then, one day, a story found me, instead. I know! Pretty shocking. What follows is not a formula (I don’t believe in writing formulas) or a boast. It’s simply the tale of how Brightwing Tales began—how two strangers walked into my mind one day and changed the course of my writing life.

We often imagine authors as deliberate architects—designing plots, casting characters, and building worlds brick by brick. And sometimes this is true. But there are other times—mysterious, almost holy—when the process works in reverse. A character arrives, fully clothed, eyes bright, name already decided, as if they had been living somewhere else all along and simply stepped through the door.

George MacDonald often spoke of his stories as “parables grown in my mind” (The Gifts of the Child Christ and Other Tales, 1882), as if they were seeds sown by someone else. J. R. R. Tolkien described his own process as the growth of a living organism, saying his stories sprang from “the leaf-mold of my mind” (On Fairy-Stories, 1939 lecture, revised 1947)—a rich compost made from all he had read, seen, and experienced. He believed that characters and worlds sometimes emerge from that deep, unseen soil without conscious planning, like wildflowers appearing in a garden.

A Faun in the Snow

C. S. Lewis did not set out to write The Chronicles of Narnia. One day, quite out of nowhere, he saw in his mind’s eye a faun carrying parcels through a snowy wood: “All at once there came into my mind a picture of a faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood” (Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories, 1966). That image lingered for years before it found a home. Then, one day, a lion bounded into the picture—majestic, commanding, impossible to ignore. “At first, I had no idea who he was or what he wanted. Then suddenly I knew. He was Aslan” (Of Other Worlds, 1966).

Tolkien experienced something similar when Faramir—whom he had never planned—suddenly appeared. He confessed in a 1955 letter to Naomi Mitchison, “I am sure I did not invent him” (The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, Letter 180).

Yet these moments are not the only valid pathway to story. Stephen King, in On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000), compares the work of an author to that of an archaeologist. He believes “stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world” (p. 163). Whether a story leaps into our imagination like Aslan, or we excavate it slowly with careful tools, the aim is the same: to uncover it as faithfully as we can.

My Own Unexpected Visitors

I thought such moments belonged only to other writers—until it happened to me. One ordinary evening, while washing dishes with my daughter, she asked if I had ever thought about writing stories set on our ten-acre property, Brightwing. I had not. Never crossed my mind. But as soon as she finished her sentence, two vivid figures rose up in my mind: Mr. Mole in robe and slippers, pipe in hand, and Mr. Rabbit bundled for winter with a thick coat, hat, and wool gloves.

In that moment, I felt what Lewis must have felt when he first saw Tumnus. Surprise, followed by curiosity. I’m not sure how I would have handled the situation had I not known about Lewis, Tolkien, and others who had characters visit them. Would I have chalked it up to indigestion? Perhaps. Thankfully, I did not. Thankfully, I took a moment to wonder whether something so mysterious could happen to someone so ordinary as me. It did.

I don’t think that makes me more authentic as a writer—it simply means that on this occasion, I was a recipient more than an inventor. Other stories I’ve written have required the harder work of digging, rewriting, reshaping, and finding the heart that was not obvious at first. Both are equally valid acts of authorship.

I let those two characters stay in my imagination for several weeks. They talked to each other. They talked to me. I asked them questions and, believe it or not, they sometimes answered. As their stories materialized, I started distinguishing between what felt authentic to them and what felt like ideas I was imposing on them. Does that sound strange? Maybe. After all, I’m the author. Aren’t I imposing my ideas throughout? No, not really. Not if I’m faithfully serving the story. I didn’t ask them questions like, “What’s your favorite breakfast meal?” or “What’s your favorite book?” Questions I have seen as writing prompts. I asked questions like, “What do you long for most of all?” or “Where are you going and why?” The answers to these questions told me a great deal.

In case you’re wondering, Mr. Mole wanted to be admired. He wanted fewer legends about Rabbits and more about moles (you can argue with him later). Most of all, though, he wanted companionship. He didn’t know it until he got himself lost in a snowstorm; hence, his misadventure. Getting rescued by Rabbit was just the beginning.

Discovering Brightwing Tales

Those two visitors became the seed of Brightwing Tales, and in following them, I found myself unexpectedly in the realm of children’s literature—a world I had never planned to enter. The first time I read the finished manuscript aloud was to a second-grade class. I’ve always considered second grade the golden age of authenticity: old enough to know what they think, young enough to say it without guile.

Their reaction reminded me of Madeleine L’Engle’s belief that “if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children” (A Circle of Quiet, 1972). The children’s laughter and curiosity affirmed that Mrs. Rabbit, Little Freckles, and Mr. Mole belonged not only to me, but to a wider world of readers.

Writing for the Story First

Whether Brightwing Tales is worthy of generational affection, I don’t know. I hope so, but it’s not what I aimed to write. I just tried to write the story that Mole and Rabbit told me. It turned out to be a story I liked reading myself. This experience confirmed something I suspect Tolkien, Lewis, MacDonald, L’Engle, and even Stephen King would all agree on: The most enduring stories are not written to please a market, but to satisfy the author’s own longing to enter a place worth visiting. Lewis once said, “Write the kind of books you would like to read” (Letters of C. S. Lewis, Letter to a young girl, 1956).

Tolkien’s “leaf-mold” metaphor comes to mind again here—when we allow the deep compost of our inner life to nourish a story, we often find it grows into something stronger and more enduring than anything engineered to meet a demographic profile. Readers can tell when a story is loved into being rather than designed to sell.

Re-enchanting the World

If I have a mission as a writer, it is this: to re-enchant the world. George MacDonald’s fairy tales did this for Lewis; Lewis’s works did it for me. Now I hope Brightwing Tales might do the same for others. In an age that often prizes cynicism and efficiency over wonder, such stories are not luxuries—they are necessary restorations.

I offer Brightwing Tales as a gift, in the hope that it might open a door to delight for both children and adults. Whether a story comes as a sudden revelation or as a slow excavation, the work of storytelling is always, at its best, an act of humility—faithfully uncovering what was already there, waiting to be found.

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Ben Palpant is a poet and storyteller who writes quietly among the trees with his dog at his feet in hopes of re-enchanting the world. He is a storyteller and poet living in Washington State. Ben’s most recent books are An Axe For The Frozen Sea and Brightwing Tales. You can join the enchantment at www.benpalpant.com.

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