The Place For My Writers Notes

Original posting 27 September 2008

So we're about to get into the Halloweenie season, and start cranking out stories? Sounds like a plan.

Tell you what, pick a number from one to six. Come on, you know you want to. Pick one now.

No, you can't go on until you pick a number. Now pick that number.

Good. You have chosen:

1. You hear a woman screaming in the parking lot behind your apartment building. Do you try to help?
2. On a cold winter day, you notice a bum who has passed out on the sidewalk. No one else is around. Do you try to help him?
3. You're driving alone on a highway at night. A desperate looking person tries to flag you down. Do you stop?
4. Waiting at a bus stop in a downpour, you see a blind man attempting to cross the street. You are in a rush and see your bus coming. Do you offer to help?
5. A man on the street says he and his wife (who is standing nearby) are stranded and have no money for food. He asks for anything you can spare. You won't miss a five dollar bill. Do you give one to him?
6. You're driving at night and hit a dog. Do you stop and see that the dog gets medical attention?

Six little moral dilemmas, courtesy of A Question of Scruples, the game that makes you think.

Now, you might want to use these as the basis for a Halloween story. I think any of us can pretty easily imagine how these scenarios could get worse. In any case, take your dilemma, and make a list of five ways for things to go wrong. You might want to consider different alternative responses -- going to help or not going to help, either one can turn into complications and contusions. You might want to think about some different background stories. For example, what if there's a demon involved? Or perhaps just a run-of-the-mill terrorist? What about your local psychopathic murderer? Or maybe . . . well, pick your own horrifying characters, and consider how they might be involved in the scenario that you are developing.

Add some motivation, raise the stakes, think about the crucible, ticking clock, maybe some other complications -- double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn . . . oh, you remember. Well, put your fenney snake in, and make that cauldron shake!

Write.

With a little help from CNN?

Or maybe Snopes?

So you want to add yet another complication facing your hero, but your ideas are sagging? Okay, here's the thing. Take a look over here at http://us.cnn.com/LIVING/ -- when I wrote this we had how to handle life's stickiest situations, social networking sites do's and don'ts, and some other odds and ends. So maybe you take a look at life's stickiest situations over at http://us.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/11/05/o.handle.sticky.situations/index.html (if it's still there:-)

Aha, it's an Oprah.com piece. That's okay, they are often kind of fun. So let's see what these situations are... interesting, they didn't headline them as they usually do. Still, a quick scan shows

1. The spouse of a friend of mine propositioned me and I turned them down. Should I tell my friend or not? One advisor says if it is a one time mistake, let it go. If it persists, then it's time to tell. The other advisor says tell your friend, they need to know.

2. Michelle's 12-year-old son met a pretty girl his age. But as they were about to kiss, they were interrupted. However, the girl soon proposed going much further -- via text messages. And the text messages have gotten around the neighborhood. Should Michelle talk to the girl's mother or not?

3. McCauley works with clients and customers who are mostly men. When she takes them out to lunch and dinner, they often make inappropriate comments about her and about the waitstaff. What should McCauley do to put them in their place and not lose them as clients?

4. Kristen has accidentally sent email about a person that she was gossiping about to that person, destroying her friendship with them. Can she recover from that?

5. Patti's girlfriend dated the bad boy of the town. Then she asked Patti what she thought about him. And Patti told her what she actually thought about him, what they already knew. Now her friend is upset. Did she do something wrong?

6. One of Lindsey's friends has terrible bad breath. Should she tell her?

7. What about a friend who wears too much perfume, too much makeup, clothes that are inappropriate for her size?

Okay, these may not be what you would've thought of life's stickiest situations, but apparently they really are problems for many people. So, consider using one of these as a stumbling point for your hero or maybe the sidekick. How does your hero explain to the boy wonder that he really needs to start using mouthwash? Heck, that business with dating the bad boy of the town used to be one of the cliches of the romance trade, and there is still often at least one not so desirable fellow fairly often involved. How do you tell someone that the person they're dating isn't one of the people with white hats?

If you are having trouble coming up with complications, take a look at the living section. See if something there sparks your thinking. Or take a look at the life crisis table over here http://www.mindtools.com/smlcu.html to find some other problems that might be causing your hero, your villain, or other characters in your story to droop. Wherever you look, there are lists and lists -- all to help you write your story!

Snopes? http://www.snopes.com/ has some of the best rumors, urban legends, and so forth. Use them as is, consider what's behind that category of scary snakes, twist them -- use them to spice up your story! Consider it salt for the writer's stew you are brewing :-)

Psst? Don't forget that you want your character to fail a few times. So when you toss in that complication, don't let them just breeze past it. Get them entangled with it, let them struggle with it, make it important that they solve it . . . and just when we all think they are going to have to give up, that's when they figure out that they can do it! And step by step, slowly but steadily, they do! YEAH!

tink
(about 660 words)
Disco? You must be kidding.

original posting: Fri, 24 Sep 1993 11:25:48 JST

HI, MARY! WELCOME TO THE GRUNGE WRITERS ROUNDTABLE!

Mary asked
- Is a story better because it has a write-your-own ending? I'm just
- wondering. I've always hated those kind, but now that I think of it,
- the stories with predictable endings/or surprise improbably endings
- are sometimes unsatisfying also. The story about the boy with leukemia
- ended to patly for me -- I was hoping for a different outcome -- maybe
- I would have preferred a write-your-own ending.

better? not inherently. if you like structural notions such as a "story question" which eventually results in a "story answer" or perhaps conflict and resolution, the "write-your-own ending" format is unfinished, incomplete, and not to be tolerated.

On the other hand, given the reader's own drive for closure and the ambiguity of some questions raised in stories, it may be a useful technique on occasion. Not to avoid resolving the issue, but deliberately raising an issue, developing the alternatives, and whacking the reader between the eyes with the dilemma.

If the "write-your-own ending" is a simple escape from digging up a satisfying, unexpected, logical, etc. ending - then the writer is being lazy and should be chastised for it (let the critics at 'em, serves 'em write!). On the other hand, it is possible (if carefully handled) to make the "unfinished" nature a satisfying ending, embodying the dilemma, frustration, confusion (pick your own words) that the protagonist feels.

How do I say this? The writer is trying (fumbling) at making the reader experience (vicariously) something, with some hope of raising some thoughts in that lump over there. One method, generally used, is to walk the reader right along the path, from beginning to end. Another method, somewhat more technically difficult, is to raise the questions and hope the reader tries to finish the path on their own (goes all the way back to Socrates, I believe). Still another approach (very tricky) is to provide the reader with an ending and trick them into finishing the path on their own in rejection of the ending given.

Which is "best"? Depends - on the writer, the reader, the questions or subjects being tackled, and other cosmic influences.

Personally, I have a strong desire for closure - I like endings. I'm not even too happy with the cliche "arm from the grave" horror bit, with its suggestion that the horror isn't really over.

I'm with Roger - I wish I knew what I was talking about. Maybe I'll take up Tarot readings...

original posting: Thu, 05 Apr 2001 11:17:19 -0400

OK, here is the challenge...

Take a number from 1 to 5.  Go ahead, pick whichever one you like.

(Got one?  No, don't read any further until you have picked your number.  Take your time, I'll wait.  So... have you got your number now?)

See what you have picked:

1. Your fiance/e discovers that s/he has a terminal illness that can drag on indefinitely.  Do you break the engagement?  What happens?
2. Someone extends his friendship but you aren't interested.  Later you learn that he is a legal wizard.  You need free advice desperately and don't know anyone else.  Do you call him?
3. At lunch, your colleagues are running down the work of another colleague who is absent.  Do you speak up for the absent co-worker?
4. A house painter asks why you didn't hire him.  The only problem is his lack of personal hygiene.  Do you tell him?
5. Your neighbor in an adjacent apartment building insists on doing yoga nude, in full view.  Do you complain to your neighbor's landlady?

There you go.  A little matter of scruples, ethics, and similar diversions, courtesy of the game "A Question of Scruples."

Now, your task, should you choose to accept it, is to consider this ethical thorniness as the root or seed of a story.

How do you engorge this beginning into a tale of tawdriness?

What kind of thinking do you do, how do you develop the characters, how do you plot the actions that will show the theme, how do you...

Oh, yes, go ahead and develop your story.  And while you're doing that, keep track of how your own thinking works.

Then, if you would, let's discuss both the fine process that took you from a scrupular dilemma to the tale that howled, and also the tale in all its toldness.

Got it?  Two results: one, the story.  Two, the story of the story, or how I wrote my tale.

Sound interesting?  Then let the words crackle.

And since we all enjoyed worrying about ethical dilemmas the other day, let's try it again.

Pick a number from one to six. You know, half the numbers on the face of the clock.

And your choice is:

1. A neighbor's kid finds $30 on your driveway and gives it to you. No one claims it. Do you give the money to the kid?
2. You are buying a car from someone who must sell because he is broke and out of work. Do you offer him much less than you think the vehicle is worth?
3. A waitress at a fancy restaurant forgets to add your drinks ($8) to the bill. Do you remind her?
4. You find a wallet containing $300. By the address, you can tell that the owner is wealthy. Do you keep the money?
5. Instead of the $1.00 which you have in a dormant bank account, your latest statement reads $100.00. Do you withdraw the money?
6. You have a struggling young company. You have to choose between two equal candidates for a job, a man and a woman. The woman will work for $2,000 per year less than the man. Do you hire her for that reason?

You may notice that the tormentor . . . make that the director of the exercises has carefully hand-chosen these so that they all relate to money. We do love our economics.

Ah, yes. Your chore is to put some people, scenes, a little more motivation and conflict, around these bare bones. Then let's see if Lazarus can get up and walk. I think he can, I think he can . . . and the little engine that could huffed and puffed and . . .

WROTE!