Category Archives: Fiction

In the Beginning – Make It Up

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“The scariest moment is always just before you start.” – Stephen King

What causes a writer to stare uncertainly at the blank white page: lack of unique ideas, not sure of how to start a powerful memoir, or even the most effective way to begin a thriller?

“Story Starters” by Lou Willett Stanek, PhD. has some excellent ideas to help jump start your creative juices. Chapter 8 suggests using found objects as a story starter. There could be a fascinating story in an old letter found hidden in a drawer liner, in the words of a secret diary, in the gruff sounding chime of a grandfather clock, in the glass angel for the top of a Christmas tree, or in a bronzed baby shoe. These objects could be the subject of a short story, the beginning of a novel, or could trigger a long lost memory to begin your memoir.

Chapter 5 talks of the dangers of using real-life events or people. Stanek’s advice for fiction writers is to “Make it up.” Using real-life for your stories can be boring (people already know the true story), libelous (someone could sue you for writing about them), or even didactic (people don’t like being lectured to).

If you want to write about real-life events or people, “Make it up.” Alter the premise of the story, switch the genders of the protagonists, select a different location, or change the outcome of the situation.

Keeping a Journal of Ideas is a common suggestion for writers. This journal is not a diary of what you had for lunch but what you see, hear, smell, taste, or touch that might trigger a memory or idea that could be developed. Filling your journal with descriptions of places you’ve visited, unusual names of people, or paraphrasing a conversation you’ve overheard could help you begin a story. Then the next time you find yourself staring at that blank white page, open up your Journal of Ideas and pick one.

What suggestions do you have to for dealing with the dreaded blank white page?

A Match Made in Hell

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Do you ever feel that your computer is driving you crazy? I do. Lately, every morning after I pour myself a cup of coffee and turn it on, there’s a message on the screen from my security service with an ominous black border around it. It says: “We have encountered a critical error in your files!”

“Oh no! What am I going to do? Has someone hacked into my computer while I was sleeping? Is it going to crash?”

I immediately start looking for this critical error. I try everything I can think of. Nothing works. The next morning it’s there again: the same unnerving message with the black border around it.

Three days ago, I think, “What do I have to lose?” I click on the tab that has the list of infected files and read each of their names. I don’t recognize any of them. They don’t sound like infected files. But, then, who knows what an infected file name sounds like?

“Maybe I should just delete all of them. But, what if I need them later?” A few years ago I’d almost deleted some files I didn’t understand. At the last moment I stopped when I suddenly realized they were system files. I don’t want to make that mistake again.

Then I remember my security service. I click on the tab that says it will tell me what to do. I don’t know who wrote the instructions. They might as well have been written in Mandarin Chinese pictographs for all the help they gave me. I can’t understand a thing.

Then I have a brilliant idea: “I’ll email my security service, describe the problem, and ask for help. They’re supposed to know about these things. They said they’d send me an answer overnight.”

When I wake up the next morning I can’t wait to get to my computer and check my email. There it is: a message from George at my security service.

The first paragraph gives me hope. It is all about how he is going to help me. The second paragraph is more problematic. George tells me to quarantine the infected files and send them to him.

“Quarantine the infected files! How do I quarantine files? If I knew that I probably wouldn’t need George.”

I shoot George an email saying, “Thanks for offering to help, but I don’t have the faintest idea how to quarantine files. Can’t you just remotely access my computer and take the files? I don’t want them.”

When I checked my computer yesterday morning, there it was again: another error message with an ominous black border around it and another email from George. “No problem,” he said, “I’ve just sent you directions.”

I read his directions carefully, all twelve of them. They are single-spaced, in ten-point font, and take up most of the page.

Right after breakfast I sit down and start working my way through the list. After two hours I feel really good. I’d finished eleven of them. “One more to go. Then this will all be George’s problem.”

I read number twelve, three times. It makes no sense to me. I haven’t the faintest idea what he is talking about or where to look.

Then I realize, “I’m really in trouble now. The first direction told me to unhook my security system. Now I can’t do number twelve and I’m exposed to every threat on the web. I have no protection. I have infected, probably very dangerous files, and I don’t know how to send them anywhere.” My head is beginning to throb!

I decide to email George. I tell him, “I’m a mere mortal. I was created before the Age of Computers. Although I have a college education, a master’s degree and a successful career, I can’t figure out number twelve. Please help me!”

This morning I get up and look at my computer. “I think I’d better fortify myself first.” So I take two aspirin and drink a big glass of water for the headache I know I’m going to have. Then I check my email.

There it is, George’s message: “Call this number.”

“Call this number! Why didn’t he tell me this in the first place? I didn’t need the twelve single-spaced directions in ten-point font. The phone number will solve everything.”

I phone and Tom answers. He asks me a few questions, gives me a few simple directions and within five minutes everything is solved.

The critical error message with the ominous black border around it is gone. My screen is clear. I have no more infected files and I don’t need the two aspirin. But, I still feel that my computer and I are a match made in hell.

Help Wanted – First Sentence

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Look, my old friend, my opening sentence . . . things are not working out. The other sentences are having to work overtime to make up for you. You’re not doing your share of the work, and your fit with the rest of the story is not what I expected. I thought you were the one. But I’ve changed and you are . . . still the same bunch of words I wrote last year. I’m sorry, but you have to go. You’re deleted.

Help Wanted: New first sentence needed in short story. Must be a team player, innovative, hard working, and dependable. Preferred applicants will have experience in attention grabbing, mood creation, and innuendo. Relocation possible.

A first sentence creates curiosity. In a short story, the writer wastes no time and no words delivering the beginning of the story. The main character incurs conflict almost immediately and begins in the action or mood of the piece. First sentences can deceive to intrigue the reader. Others warn of impending troubles. Point of view and narrative distance add richness and texture to the story and the voice of the writer. The theme is almost tangible in the first paragraph if not the very first sentence.

When I need a new sentence, I reference my favorite openers. Why does the sentence work? What is the unanswered question? Do words like beautiful, murderous and homeless lure readers? Can a sparse statement say more than a long sentence? How does Wolfe or Faulkner paint broad brushstrokes of the scene’s details? The collection below of short and long sentences demonstrates the magic of a powerful opening line.

“It seemed to Myop as she skipped lightly from her house to pigpen to smokehouse that the days had never been as beautiful as these.” — Alice Walker, “Flowers”

“One day you have a home and the next you don’t, but I’m not going to tell you my particular reasons for being homeless, because it is my secret story, and Indians have to work hard to keep secrets from hungry white folks.” — Sherman Alexie, “What You Pawn, I Will Redeem”

“In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits.” — John Updike, “A&P”

“Anders couldn’t get to the bank until just before it closed, so of course the line was endless and he got stuck behind two women whose loud, stupid conversation put him in a murderous temper.” — Tobias Wolfe, “Bullet in the Brain”

“‘Tell me things I won’t mind forgetting,’ she said.” — Amy Hempel, “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried”

“Bill and Arlene Miller were a happy couple.” Raymond Carver, “Neighbors”

“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” — Franz Kafka, “The Metamorphosis”

“They discovered the first one in a cupboard above the stove, beside an unopened bottle of malt vinegar.” — Jhumpa Lahiri, “This Blessed House”

“When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old manservant – a combined gardener and cook – had seen in at least ten years.” — William Faulkner, “A Rose For Emily”

“Do not go outside.” — Ander Monson, “To Reduce Your Likelihood of Murder”

“The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.” — Edgar Allan Poe, “The Cask of Amontillado”

“On the third day of rain they had killed so many crabs inside the house that Pelayo had to cross his drenched courtyard and throw them into the sea, because the newborn child had a temperature all night and they thought it was due to the stench.” — Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”

After reading successful first sentences, I interview several job applicants for my new first sentence. I try each one in the vacant space at the beginning of my story. The new sentences are so eager to please, changing to fit with the rest of the piece. Then, one sentence works harder than the rest.

Applying for the open position? Your application says you’re flexible with change. Good, my edits might move or change you. You might not even recognize yourself when I’m finished. Here’s where you will work. Sit down. Try it out. Think you can do the job?

 

What Have You Learned from Reading?

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For me, reading is an adventure, which sometimes extends beyond the pages of the books I select. You never know what you can learn from a book of fiction.

I met Mary Higgins Clark at a Book and Author’s Luncheon after reading her second book, a mystery, Where Are the Children? From the story, I learned that an unnoticed child’s shoe was one clue to an unsolved crime. Clark is great at dropping seemingly insignificant clues that the protagonist misses early in the story. This soft spoken, petite author, who didn’t seem like the type of person to “commit murder” even in a novel, encouraged me to pursue my dream of writing.

After reading the first line of Dr. Bertice Berry’s steamy novel, Jim & Louella’s Homemade Heart-Fix Remedy, I promptly purchased her book. Written with folksy humor, the book tells the story of the boring love life of an elderly couple who are helped by Louella’s departed ancestors. Jim and Louella’s improved love life also gives them intuitive powers to help their neighbors with their various troubles. Dr. Berry, a sociologist, inspirational speaker, and author also encouraged my aspirations of writing.

Lee E. Meadows discussed the plot of his Silent Conspiracy, a Lincoln Keller Mystery, at a mystery writers’ workshop. In 1955, the Sentiments, a fictional rhythm and blues singing group disappeared without a trace after a gig in Detroit. The five men haven’t been seen since and Lincoln Keller, a private eye, has been hired to find out what happened to those five men forty years ago. Meadows, while on a book tour, discovered that the real-life disappearance of a singing group happened in another state. Life can be as strange as fiction.

Sometimes reading a book in public leads to dialogues with strangers. We may exchange quick reviews of books and offer suggestions on other book titles and authors to read.

At an airport, a man saw me looking at the book he was reading and asked if I liked mysteries. That’s how I discovered Harlan Coben books, which are intricately plotted, well-crafted mysteries.

While waiting for a lacrosse game to begin, I sat in the stands reading Elmore Leonard’s short stories, A Fire in the Hole. My husband officiates lacrosse, so I arrive early with him and use that time to get in about thirty minutes of reading. A pleasant, soft spoken woman sat next to me and asked if I liked the book.

“Yes, I do.” I said. “This is a collection of Elmore Leonard’s short stories. I like to write and wanted to study his style of short story writing.”

“I’m glad you like it. I’m Elmore Leonard’s daughter,” she said with a smile. “Have you read my father’s 10 rules of writing?”

I promised to check it out. There are so many rules to good writing, that I thought it wouldn’t hurt to check out what he thought was important. Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing were evident in his writing style.

Have you met any authors or learned any useful tidbits from your reading?

 

 

 

 

Headache vs. Heartache

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Headache. The name says it all. Tell a stranger you have a headache and he knows exactly what ails you. He might even have a good recommendation to cure it. Like, take a pill. Tell a stranger you have a heartache and he has no idea what to say next. There is no simple recommendation, no pill.

Headaches are always in your head; heartaches are never in your heart, not the organ, anyway. You have no control for the onset of a headache, but you can forestall heartaches with just strong will.

A headache creates a sharp pain that is impossible to ignore. It can be unbearable, but most headaches are short lived and you make a full recovery. The pain a heartache causes can’t be measured on such a simple scale as sharp or dull. Like the tide, heartaches ebb and flow over time, but the ocean is always present. The pill you take comes in the form of your next deep breath. Usher in a new thought wave.

Headaches are real. You can see the suffering all over a person’s face. Heartaches are real, too, but the suffering rarely shows itself to the world. With both aches, your world closes around you and life becomes impossibly small. It’s easy to understand the one ache, impossible to understand the other. And with both, you can only wait away the pain.

You never relive the same headache, each is stingingly different. You always relive the same haunting heartache.

Time heals all wounds they say, and that’s true enough. If we’re lucky, we outlive all of our headaches and our heartaches. It takes a while, but eventually we realize that neither ache leaves a scar.

These aching thoughts have been weighing heavily on me now that Knock Softly has come to a conclusion. There are a lot of aches at the end of my story; head, heart and otherwise. Correctly tying these internal pains together with their actors on the printed page is causing migraines in this author’s head.

And I have a heavy heart at this point in the story. I know I’m leaving now and I won’t be returning. This is the point the author has to say goodbye. Like good friends, I’ve become fond of my characters. Unlike good friends, I’ll never hear from these actors again. Like a heartache, this goodbye is final but never really over.

But I can’t let my own aches and pains get in the way. It’s only fair that the reader has a taste of these main characters’ futures. After a sumptuous main course, I can’t let a lousy dessert spoil the meal. I’m serving up Bittersweets for dessert in Knock Softly. Bon appetit!