EXERCISE: The Survivors

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original Posting: Tue, 04 Jul 2000 13:13:53 -0400

You may remember hearing recently in the news about this incident, and I won't claim that I have all the details exactly right.  However, as I understood it, a refrigerator truck was opened in customs in England recently, where they found a number of refugees suffocated.  Apparently they were trying to sneak into the country, and a tragedy ensued.

However, I would like you to think about the fact that two people lived.

Stop and think of that.  Suppose you had tried to sneak into another country, possibly with friends and family, and this kind of a disaster occurred.  Imagine those final moments in the dark, or even with a flashlight, with the heat of all those people, breathing, coughing, gagging... and you probably pass out.

But then you awaken again.  Only to learn that almost everyone died.  But somehow you lived.

How do you deal with that?  What kind of relationship do you have with the other survivor?

Okay?  That's the basis for today's exercise.

So, if you are ready, pick a number from 1 to 6.  (Yes, you may roll a die if you prefer.)

Got it?  Good.  Then look below and see what you have selected:

1.  A boating accident.  Perhaps a large ship, perhaps a smaller one, with storm, reef, or sabotage, at your selection, goes down.  Again, your character is one of a very small number of survivors.

2.  Wartime.  Perhaps your town was the target.  Perhaps your platoon, company, squad was wiped out.  However you like to do it, your character lives through the maelstrom, only to face life after death.

3.  How about the ever-popular epidemic?  The illness swept through, and almost everyone died, except... your character.

4.  Terrorists?  Pick a group or a place.  And here come the terrorists, who decide they are not going to win, and if they aren't going to win, then no one will live.  Except that your character does come through...

5.  Industrial accident.  The factory (research lab, mining complex, or even just the restaurant where five people worked) has an accident, and the explosion (or whatever) kills just about the whole labor force, except...

6.  Fire?  Fires seem to sweep through housing complexes, suburban areas, dormitories, and other places from time to time, and they do kill.  But your character lives!

[Yes, if you want to, you can write about the survivors of the truck in England, or a similar incident almost anywhere.]

A rough outline of the story might look something like:

Scene 1: In which our hero finds out what has happened
Scene 2: In which our hero expresses anger about it
Scene 3: In which our hero expresses disbelief about it
Scene 4: In which our hero expresses depression about it
Scene 5: In which our hero begins to come to terms with what has happened

(Reading up on Kubler-Ross's stages of grief may help, as may digging into some of the research that has been done on survivors.)

Of course, you may want to shake and bake your story your way.  Go ahead!

I do think this kind of story focuses on the character change, even when it is exploiting the melodramatic potential that such survivors often provide.

So, let's see those words crackling and popping, those verbs hissing, those nouns settling solidly into place as you...

write.

EXERCISE: Those Breaks!

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

original posting: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 23:54:25 -0400

All right, in honor of taking a break from writing (with a piece that I enjoyed from start to finish!), here we go...

Let's consider the place of breaks in your story.  For example, have you noticed that often when the pitch of the story is very high, the hero will turn a corner and...

Slow down.  Wander around, enjoying the view of the art in the gallery (or something else similarly interesting, and not quite on the same intense level that has been going on).

And by the very act of relaxing, slowing it down, taking a few pages at a slower pace, the tension moUNTS!

This can be overdone, of course.  Readers will happily take a breath, a break, but they expect that we'll get back to the chase pretty soon, and you can't delay it forever.

So don't forget to show the villian (nemesis, opposition, challenger, conflicting antagonist of some sort) coming around that corner fairly soon, and the hero resuming the race!

Can you think of examples where this technique was used in a story (book, etc.) that you liked?  How did the author make it work?

Have you used this technique?  Wind the tension tight, then crank it up another level by having the characters disengage from their face-to-face confrontation?  Or similar?

Could you take a story you are working on, and add in a break?  What kind of break would your character take?  What would that scene look like, and what would be the focus of the inaction there?

Write?