C Stuart Hardwick‘s “Dreams of the Rocket Man” tells the story of Jimmy, a man who looks back on his youth and his relationship with Mr. Coanda, an older gent who enjoyed building rockets. The story appeared in the September 2016 issue of Analog: Science Fiction and Fact, one of the top three SF/F magazines out there. Mr. Hardwick is kind enough to offer the story on his web site; check it out!
The piece is an interesting example of a story whose narrator looks back and skips through time like a stone on the surface of a lake. By design, these kinds of stories don’t spend much time in any one scene and don’t delve particularly deeply into any one moment. Lots of work is structured in this manner; one of these is my short story, “Masher Doyle.” Unfortunately, no one has ever read that one. Here are some real examples:
That’s all I can think of at the moment. (Feel free to add other suggestions in the comments!)
What Mr. Hardwick loses in depth of scene by employing this structure, he makes up for in the scope of his story. By taking a look from a distance and zooming along to focus on the important bits, the author is able to chronicle a wide swath of Jimmy’s life.
Come to think of it, a lot of Stanley Kubrick’s work operates in the same kind of way. The “narrator” of The Shining takes a long-distance look at the Torrance family’s fateful winter and skips along to feature the important bits.
The “narrator” of Full Metal Jacket takes a long-distance look at Private Joker’s Vietnam experience and skips along to feature the important bits.
The “narrator” of 2001: A Space Odyssey takes a long-distance look at humanity’s relationship with the universe and skips along to feature the important bits.
The “narrator” of A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (developed by Kubrick, though directed by Spielberg) takes a long-distance look at David’s life over the millenia and skips along to feature the important bits.
(Hmm…I’ll bet someone has written a paper about Kubrick and narrative structure.)
The protagonist is a young man (then a grown man) who loves rocketry. As a result, Mr. Hardwick has a duty to depict this love in a realistic way. The story must have verisimilitude: the appearance of reality in fiction. Mr. Coanda and Jimmy must sound as though they know a lot about rocketry or readers might bail, having had the magic spell broken. Let’s look at how Mr. Hardwick handles some of the “smart person rocket stuff.”
He said that in space travel, the cost of a launch is determined by all kinds of things, not just the weight of machinery, fuel, and oxidizer, but also the aerodynamics and trajectory which control how much air resistance and gravity a rocket must fight before it reaches orbit.
I knew all that stuff! The sentence is also a nice summary of some of the most important basic principles of rocketry.
As it staged and staged again, the ground slowly warped into a fisheye ball. When the propellant finally ran out, the Earth was just an azure band beneath the inky black of space.
Mr. Coanda let a handful of popcorn fall back into the bowl. “Holy hell,” he said, “if that ain’t a beautiful sight.”
I was similarly entranced. “How high do you figure we went?”
“I don’t have to figure. I have data. Ah…63,000 feet.”
“Wow! That’s almost in space!”
“Not quite. Minimum orbit’s eight times higher, and then you have to accelerate to orbital velocity in order to stay there.”
I stared at the glowing earthscape. “Still…”
Isn’t the “azure band” part pretty? I love how this bit evokes the kind of awe that we should all have for this kind of science and the author also reinforces that Mr. Coanda knows his stuff and that little Jimmy is very bright, but still learning. The part about the orbit and orbital velocity isn’t totally necessary, but it adds credence to the characters and their milieu.
“And it works terrific,” he said, “It’ll never produce enough LOX to do the whole job alone, but that’s another trade-off. If it can do much better than pay its own way, then–“
Lox? Is Mr. Hardwick trying to get us hungry for breakfast? No, he means “liquid oxygen.” As an enthusiast of Gemini/Mercury/Apollo-era spaceflight, I knew the character didn’t mean salmon. You’ll also note that Mr. Hardwick includes the phrase “liquid oxygen” to give the reader a hint, but it’s not wholly necessary. If the reader doesn’t know the terms, they will just gloss over them while understanding that the characters know what they’re talking about.
I could never, ever pass a calculus class and Dr. William Widnall loses me when he talks about smart people stuff, but he, like Mr. Hardwick, convince me that they know what they’re talking about.
SPOILER ALERT! Just read the piece if you didn’t. Here are the last few sentences of the piece:
I’ve run the camp now for longer than I worked in engineering, but to these kids and the world, I’ll always be the Rocket Man, a mythological hero from a golden age. And that’s fine by me. I’ll proudly wear that title while I fan the flames, till the next bearer comes along to change up the world behind me. It’s not the adventure I imagined for my life, but you never quite know where dreams will lead.
Okay, so Mr. Hardwick is in the same place I was when I wrote “Masher Doyle.” We both told the narrator’s story from childhood to adulthood. Both of us wrote about mentor figures who helped our narrators build themselves up from childhood problems. So what to do with the conclusion of the story?
The last paragraph can be your opportunity to unspool poetry for poetry’s sake. The storytelling is largely over, so why not tip the scales in favor of aesthetic beauty over plot?
Short Story
Analog, C Stuart Hardwick, Science Fiction
It wasn’t that she hated her husband; she just wanted something bad to happen to him.
So begins Martin Cloutier‘s “Punishment, Inc.,” a story published in the Volume 63, Number 1 issue of Shenandoah. The journal makes the story available to you for free. Take advantage! The story is a brief and fun read.
Continue Reading
Short Story
#MakeMoreReaders, Martin Cloutier, Shenandoah
Friends, the Internet moves at the speed of light. (Well, the speed of electrons.) The Internet also offers us access to a dizzying range of the expressions of human creativity. If a work is online, it can be found in seconds with a quick search. This is great for lovers of the written word…not so much for those who apparently choose to appropriate the work of others as their own.
It has just been brought to my attention that a writer by the name of B. Mitchell Cator seems to have published the work of others in a number of literary journals under his own byline. Unfortunately, I have never attended law school, so I shall leave accusations to others. Here’s an example of the similarities that some folks have spotted. Continue Reading
Short Story
B. Mitchell Cator, Pindledyboz, Smokelong
Tim Horvath is one of the writers I admire for their ability to tell interesting stories against interesting backdrops in interesting ways. Like T.C. Boyle, he is equally comfortable writing a “traditional” story about a divorcee who has a brother who is in perpetual search of his next get-rich-quick scheme and a German expat arborist who taught biology alongside Heidegger as Hitler launched his pathetic and effective attack on Jewish intellectuals. Mr. Horvath’s collection, Understories, weaves a tapestry of imagination, alternating between good, old-fashioned short stories and short shorts that demonstrate how exciting contemporary literature can be if we privilege idea and narrative.
Please follow along by reading the story. Understories is more than worth the purchase price and you should really consider buying it from its publisher, Bellevue Literary Press. The book is also available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Kobo. May I also suggest that you get the book from your local indie bookseller? That’s what I did. The fine folks at The River’s End Bookstore in Oswego, New York are always happy to get you any book that you like and the same can be said for the owners of the indie store nearest you. If you are on a college student’s budget (or that of an adjunct college teacher), you can read the story through your library’s database; it first appeared in Conjunctions.
In this installment of the GWS First Page Inquisition, I will take a look at the very beginning of “The Discipline of Shadows,” a story that Mr. Horvath was inspired to write by a random exercise suggested by his writing group. If you juxtapose the anecdote describing the story’s origin with the story itself, you’ll see the intersection of inspiration and creation. Mr. Horvath was not held thrall by the initial spark that led him to put pen to paper; he let the idea evolve and ended up telling the reader a ripping story.
Without further ado, let’s look at the first page of Mr. Horvath’s story and see what makes it so great and effective.
Up on the chair, I reach for the ceiling and beat the vents, sending mold fluttering downward. Like some black rain, it lands variously on me, on chipped, yellowing tiles, on the paperwork fanned out over my desk. It speckles the latest budget, leaves a trail of powder on the glossy cover of the newest International Journal of Umbrology. It must be going into my lungs. I think about miners descending, invisible until the shaft collapses and the cameras swarm. Maybe, I think, this is what we need-some tragedy. Something more than mere scandal. More than Lew and his lawyer. More than the death of a department, which is like an animal, already limping, vanishing at last under the wheels.
I won’t have time to change my shirt before the big meeting, and for a moment I regret this. After all, lawyers and trustees, the titled and brass-nameplated, will be there. Lew’s “representation,” all the way from Lower Manhattan. At yesterday’s department meeting, the guy sat with Lew, hovering at the edge of my vision, a thick-browed smudge of pleated charcoal. Finally, I wanted to confront him. “Mr. Vadrais,” I wanted to say, “at the end of a workday, when you exit Two Fourteen Pearl, do you ever pause to take in the shadows?” I felt them like a chill, then, those revenants of an older New York, strewn across the narrow, birdshit-encrusted streets.
But I held my tongue. He would have been mystified, and the rest of them would’ve all thought I was losing it.
That’s it. 257 words. Let’s do an inventory of all of the exposition that Mr. Horvath crammed into the first page of his story:
- The story is in the first person.
- The protagonist is in a dusty/lived-in environment.
- The protagonist is a devotee of “Umbrology,” some kind of obscure scholarly pursuit.
- There’s trouble in the academic department that “some tragedy” may avert. (These are big stakes!)
- There is a lawyer involved…that’s never good.
- A “big meeting” will be attended by trustees and attorneys. Again, big stakes.
- The protagonist offers some insight into the poetry of Umbrology and that it relates to shadows.
The first page does its job because it does the basics, introducing character and tone and setting; the reader is quickly immersed in the world of the story. Mr. Horvath is also wise to establish some stout stakes. What will happen to this “discipline of shadows?”
The most important function that the first page serves is to ground the chronological narrative in the context of the rest of the story. Now, I really loved this story, or else I wouldn’t have written about it. But Mr. Horvath violates some of the Aristotelian Unities in a beautiful way. The first page of the story is one of many sections that take place in a wide range of settings and over a great many years. Ordinarily, bopping through time in a Whovian fashion might make it hard to understand what is going on. Instead, Mr. Horvath introduces all of the bits that are important in the dramatic present before dropping sections that are small patches of exposition or miniature narratives. For example, we get a detailed description of the state of the Umbrology department, advice for applying to such a department and a digression about the shadows that make a person fall in love with the field. These sections might be seen as tangents if Mr. Horvath hadn’t made a solemn promise on the first page: that he will tell you the story of how the Department of Umbrology slowly fades into darkness like the surface of the moon during a lunar eclipse.
If you found my analysis useful or enjoyed my writing style, would you consider checking out Great Writers Steal Press, where I have published some eBooks of the fiction and nonfiction variety? Just head over to books.greatwriterssteal.com, where reading is not homework!
Short Story
Bellevue Literary Press, GWS First Page Inquisition, Tim Horvath
Title of Work and its Form: “Breatharians,” short story
Author: Callan Wink
Date of Work: 2013
Where the Work Can Be Found: The story debuted the October 22, 2012 issue of The New Yorker. At the time of this writing, the story was available in full on the New Yorker web site. “Breatharians” was subsequently selected for The Best American Short Stories 2013.
Bonuses: Here is what Trevor Berrett thought of the story. Here is what Teddy Mitrosilis thought. Consider checking out Mr. Wink’s first collection: Dog Run Moon: Stories.
Element of Craft We’re Stealing: Narrative Structure
Discussion:
August is a young man who is living between two worlds. To paraphrase Britney, he’s not a boy, not yet a man. His mother and father live in separate homes on the same property. His body is strong enough to allow him to kill cats without remorse, but he mourns the loss of his “birth dog.”
The inciting incident of the story is the moment when August’s father tells his son to “get rid of the damn” wild cats in his barn. August is happy to take on the work; he wants pocket money. The story covers the next couple days as the cat slaughter looms in the distance and the reader learns about the protagonist’s situation. It seemed to me as though Mr. Wink was most interested in painting the portrait of his interesting character. There’s an uneasy peace in August’s life: a peace that will be shattered when he finally figures out more about life. Continue Reading
Short Story
Best American 2013, Callan Wink, Narrative Structure, The New Yorker
Writers are asked many general questions about their craft.
…”What is your overarching philosophy regarding the inherent power of fiction?”…”What IS-character-to you?”…”What is the position of place in your work?”…
These are great and important questions, but I’m really curious about the little things. In the “Hey, Why’d You Do That” series, I ask accomplished writers about some of the very small choices they made during the process of composition.
Caille Millner is a columnist and editorial writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. In those pursuits, Ms. Millner has a responsibility to the truth. Thankfully, she also enjoys the occasional adventure on the fiction side of the tracks. One of these is “The Surrogate,” a story that appeared in Joyland Magazine.
Ms. Millner is available on Twitter. Once you are done reading her story and the reasoning behind some of her choices, why not send her 140 characters about how much you liked her story?
1) The inciting incident is super clear in the story. Franco says he wants to have a “baby of his own” with Cecily. The confession changes the story, just like a good inciting incident should. But then you go several pages without addressing Franco’s request again; you spend a lot of time telling us about their marriage and how Cecily’s surrogacy works.
How do you think you maintained tension in the narrative while putting the main conflict aside for a little while?
The work of surrogacy is naturally tense, just by the simple facts of how it works. A woman who needs money performs the labor of pregnancy for someone else, according to someone else’s rules and standards — and she often has to do so while caring for her own children and her own family.
That’s a situation fraught with all kinds of emotions. Yet we’ve mostly chosen to keep all of these details under wraps. Think of how many times you’ve read in a newspaper that someone wealthy gave birth “via surrogate,” as if the surrogate were a machine instead of a human being.
They aren’t machines, they’re women, and there’s usually a stark class divide between the surrogates and their clients. The U.S. is one of the only developed countries that allows paid surrogacy — most of the others feel like the attendant ethical questions are too much for them to handle, as a society. We don’t even talk about the ethical questions.
But that silence makes the situation rich ground for storytelling and exploration. Simply unrolling the details of Cecily’s situation creates a feeling of tension in the reader, because when as you slowly let the details sink in, you realize that everything about Cecily’s situation is emotionally extreme.
2) At least a few of the sentences in your story are what I call “backwards sentences.” For example:
“It’s the closeness of the way that they have to live that makes her uneasy.”
“To cool the house they’ve got all the lights off;…”
How come you put the subject of the sentence (or clause) so far in?
The narrative POV in this story wasn’t too far away from the subjects, so I occasionally wrote the narration in a way that they might speak themselves. It keeps up the rhythm of their voices.
3) This happens about 60% of the way through the story:
“He smiles and gets up to go into the black maw of the kitchen, bringing back a beer for himself and a diet soda for her. She isn’t supposed to drink the diet sodas but she does anyway.”
What’s this choice all about? I guess I understand that Cecily has decided to take mild risks by drinking caffeine during pregnancy. But why did you make Franco bring her the diet soda?
It’s a small gesture that seemed natural to their relationship. And it’s in keeping with their personalities. Franco is a decent, considerate man who would like to do more for everyone than he’s currently capable of doing. Cecily is sitting down, outwardly passive, but in reality doing far more work than other people feel comfortable enough to acknowledge.
4) About halfway through, the narrator’s mind-reading powers shift from focusing on Cecily to focusing on Franco. I know you had to do that because Franco and Omar had to do some stuff together in the story without Cecily there.
What made the POV switch in the story okay?
Because it’s a story about their relationship, and about how this massive, bizarre situation that they’re in has affected their ability to connect and to give to each other. There are two people in that equation, and the readers needed to hear from the other one.
5) Last lines are always really important! Here’s yours:”Cecily has to nearly choke before she realizes that she’s been holding her breath while she watches.”
Those words stick out for me: “has to nearly choke.” The rest of the sentence flows, but “has to nearly choke” feels to me like the kind of speed bump that means something. What was your thinking there?
I’m glad you caught that! I wanted to give the reader a physical sensation very close to the one she was experiencing in that moment. If you say the sentence aloud, you’ll notice that running all of the syllables together is difficult, the sequence of words deliberately slows you down. It’s a way to collect all of the unspoken tension and emotion so that you can feel it again before you leave this family.
Caille Millner is a writer, essayist, and memoirist. She’s the author of The Golden Road: Notes on my Gentrification (Penguin Press), an editorial writer and weekly columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, and has had essays in The Los Angeles Review of Books and A New Literary History of America. Her awards include the Barnes and Noble Emerging Writers Award and the undergraduate Rona Jaffe award for fiction.
Short Story
Caille Millner, Joyland Magazine, Why'd You Do That?
“Neurologically Speaking,” by Mercedes Lawry (first appeared in Issue 6 of elsewhere)
Poems from Superstition Review, a brief interview in Agave Magazine.)
This (very) short prose work begins with a quotation from Louis Pasteur. Ms. Lawry uses Pasteur’s words as a jumping-off point for what appears to me to be a look at how Ms. Lawry believes her mind works and the kinds of thinking that result in inspiration. (The author may, of course, have a different idea about her piece and that’s okay, too.)
One of the things I like most about this piece is the implied suggestion that Ms. Lawry is making to the rest of us. If you’re like me, you like to play around and experiment with writing. Why not borrow Ms. Lawry’s idea and find some wise words from the past and create something new out of what you think they mean?
I’m not exactly the most “quote”-infatuated person. They just don’t inspire me on their own in the way they do for many people. That’s not to say that I don’t derive some kind of enlightenment and pleasure from reading inspirational extracts; I guess I just prefer understanding “quotes” in context. (I’m a storyteller and a plot person; I suppose this makes sense.) My proclivity certainly doesn’t prevent me from participating in the experiment I’m proposing. For example, one of my favorite sentences (and final sentences) is from Animal Farm:
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
There are so many jumping-off points! I could write prose poem similar to Ms. Lawry’s about the thoughts that Orwell’s work evokes in me:
- The inability that many people have to recognize the real “bad guy” in situations.
- My feelings of being an outsider as I look upon others who have undeserved success. (I’m thinking Kardashians.)
- I really like pork chops and I wish I knew more about food science. The Maillard Reaction is the magic that creates the complicated flavor in browned meat. I also grew up without using salt, which somehow adds some magic to my current (and intermittent) culinary adventures.
See? Look how thinking about a “quote” can get some thoughts rolling around your head! What happens if you do the same?
I also like the way Ms. Lawry contradicts and gets in the way of Pasteur’s thought. By beginning with “I have no prepared mind,” Ms. Lawry is doing something that reminds me of my improv comedy roots. In a way, she’s “blocking” Pasteur. A “block” is when a performer says NO to something a scenemate has said. Blocks are (usually) killers because they stop the scene.
Bob: Hey, look at this beautiful dog I found!
Sally: That’s not a dog. It’s an elephant.
See how Sally messed up the scene? Now the audience thinks Bob has been walking around with an elephant in his arms. Everything has screeched to a halt. Sad. When you’re working with other people, particularly in an endeavor such as improv, you just can’t block in this manner. See how beautiful and creative people can be when they say “yes, and” instead of “no?”
But guess what…writing is a solitary pursuit and you can do whatever you like! Further, your characters will say or do anything you want, so blocks can be useful in creating a number of dramatic effects. Why not employ blocks to create drama and to establish character?
Have you seen Breaking Bad? If not, what are you waiting for? Go watch it NOW.
Okay, you’re back. Here are some examples from Breaking Bad that illustrate how blocking results in high-wire tension.
Remember when Skyler told Walt to go to the police and confess that he’s a drug king? Walt says no. Skyler tells Walt he’s in danger. Walt uncorks a crackerjack monologue:
That’s right…Walt is the one who knocks.
The whole point of Breaking Bad is to chronicle the moral evolution and tragic downfall of Walter White. Gus Fring asks Walt to serve as his meth chef in a Superlab. Walt will have all of the cool scientific equipment he needs to make the purest meth possible. (You have to admire Walt’s dedication to chemistry…) How does Walt respond to the request? He says no.
Arguments and discussions need some conflict and that sometimes requires characters to contradict each other. In this case, Gus is forced to persuade Walt to join him:
Think about a scene you’re building or a poem you’re working on. What if one character says “no?” What if there’s some unexpected internal or external opposition to the idea you’re expressing? Experiment with blocking to see if you can add unexpected power to your work.
Exercises, Short Story
Breaking Bad, elsewhere, Mercedes Lawry
Title of Work and its Form: “Leap of Faith,” short story
Author: Brendan DuBois
Date of Work: 2015
Where the Work Can Be Found: The story made its debut the February 2015 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. The fine folks at that magazine have posted an excerpt of this equally fine story.
Bonuses: Here is an interview the author gave to WGBH. Here is his Smashwords page. Want to see Mr. DuBois discuss his work? Sure you do. (What he says is really inspiring!)
Element of Craft We’re Stealing: Narrative Structure
Discussion:
I’m not quite sure why, but I devote a lot of GWS focus to “literary” fiction, for whatever that means. I’m guessing I’m not the only one, but I love spending time in the realm of “genre.” Or whatever that means. Mr. DuBois is a fantastic writer of mystery and suspense fiction and we should all be familiar with his work.
This particular story is a first-person piece whose protagonist is named Hank Kelleher. This is a frame story; the first couple pages take place when Hank is an adult. He climbs his way to the old quarry, a place that many people can understand. Isn’t there a similar place in every town? In this particular case, teens exercised their invincibility by drinking beers on the bank of a man-made lake and jumping into the water from three outcroppings of increasing height: Rook, Bishop and King. A police officer questions Hank, giving Mr. DuBois the excuse for Hank to tell the story of what happened when he was young. Hank’s father died when he was young, leaving him the “man of the family.” As a teen, Hank felt deficient in this duty because he couldn’t protect his little sister Kara from Dev Cullen, her abusive rich kid boyfriend. I don’t want to describe all of the fun out of the story. Suffice to say that “Leap of Faith” is tidy, entertaining and powerful.
One of the biggest reasons that “literary” writers should spend more time in the mystery sandbox is because writers like Mr. DuBois excel at creating plots that are utterly fictional, but seem perfectly natural in the refractory period after the story’s final blow. After setting up the frame-believe me, we’ll talk about that frame-Mr. DuBois wastes zero time introducing the story’s characters and central conflict:
The name’s Hank Kelleher, and I was seventeen that summer. And that’s when my fifteen-year-old sister Kara got into trouble. Not that kind of trouble, thank God, but over supper one night Mom had pressed my sister Kara about why she was dating Dev Cullen. “You know he’s just a bad sort,” Mom said, as she slapped dollops of mashed potatoes on the chipped white plates we used, next to the freshly made Hamburg steak. “He and his father Patrick and his damn uncle Blackie. Crooks, all of them. You stay away from him.”
The reader is not asked to wonder what is going on or to break out graph paper to chart the relationships between a thousand characters. Nope. Hank has a baby sister who is dating a bad young man. Everyone understands this situation, regardless of gender, race or age. Instead of wondering what is happening, we’re wondering something more specific: how will Hank save (or try to save) Kara from Dev.
If you are a dedicated GWS reader, you know that I love Freytag’s Pyramid and I love countdowns and other literal representations of its principles. The climax of the story takes place at the abandoned quarry, the place where teenagers go to…well, be teenagers. Mr. DuBois describes the quarry in the introduction of the story. There are three jumping platforms of increasing height: Rook, Bishop and King.
Why do I love the way Mr. DuBois contrived the geology of the story? The quarry’s topography is a literal match for Freytag’s Pyramid.
Like I said, I don’t want to give away too much, but the climax reaches increasing peaks of rising action on all three jumping platforms. The reader gets a moment of excitement…and then the calm as the splash recedes. We’re not wondering anything general about Hank’s motivations; we know he wants to protect his sister. Instead, our curiosity is focused upon a single, specific question: how is Hank’s final plan going to protect his sister and get Dev off of their case? Since the reader’s curiosity is so focused, Mr. DuBois can simply draw out the tension and put us on tenterhooks.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr. DuBois is also a fan of something I love a great deal: old-time radio dramas. One of my favorite programs is Suspense, which I suppose you could say was a bit like the Law & Order of its day (before the radio version of Dragnet premiered). Every week, the Man in Black would introduce a story. For half an hour, you would get thrills and chills and an ending that you didn’t see coming. (But an ending that makes sense in retrospect.) Here’s one of the best episodes ever, and one that was repeated live several times. It’s Agnes Moorehead in “Sorry, Wrong Number:”
Why should you listen to every episode of Suspense? Because the plots were usually constructed with flawless precision. The writers were expert at trading levels of power between characters. And the nature of radio required an awful lot of first-person narrators and frame stories. (You can’t exactly have long moments of silence on the radio and a third person narrator that zips around a lot would likely be confusing.) So go check out the vast beauty of old time radio.
Okay, let’s talk about that frame. At first, I was wondering why Mr. DuBois began with that present-day introduction and told the real narrative in flashback. I’m thinking about the suspense/crime stories I’ve written and I’m much more likely to begin with the sentences that kick off the flashback, “The name’s Hank Kelleher…” than a passage that is much calmer:
It took me three tries before I found the old dirt road, on the outskirts of the small Massachusetts town where I had grown up. The road twisted and turned, and ended up in a wide turnaround. There used to be a trail that went up a high slope, but now there was a chain-link fence blocking access. Every few feet there was a no trespassing sign, contrasting with trespassers will be prosecuted. I parked the rental car, got out, walked over to the fence.
Why did Mr. DuBois make the right choice? What can we learn? Putting the what-happens-to-Dev story in a frame allows Mr. DuBois to…
- Foreshadow that something significant happened in the quarry and in the Hank-Kara-Dev trio. After all, Old Hank knows what happened.
- Contrast the differences between the eighties and the present-day. The quarry is now filled up, being there attracts the attention of the police.
- Conclude with an ending frame that gives us a “happy ending” of sorts and tells us information to which we would not have access otherwise.
For more proof that Mr. DuBois made the right decision, think about the way the frame functions in the classic Twilight Zone episode, “To Serve Man.” Now, “Leap of Faith” is a very different story, but I think that the structures are similar.
What Should We Steal?
- Ensure that your plots invite your reader to wonder about increasingly specific questions. Think about LOST. At first, we wondered, “Where are they?” After five years, we were wondering, “What’s the Man in Black’s relationship to the John Locke who reappeared on The Island and how does he relate to the Heart of The Island?”
- Employ Freytag’s Pyramid in literal ways. The size of the dragons the hero must fight get larger for a reason…
- Consider trading an extra-punchy first sentence for greater depth and utility of narrative. Freytag’s Pyramid encourages us to employ a slow build in our plots; doing so is sometimes better than an explosive opening sentence or paragraph.
Short Story
2015, Brendan DuBois, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Narrative Structure
Short Story
GWS Short Film
Title of Work and its Form: “God,” short story
Author: Benjamin Nugent
Date of Work: 2013
Where the Work Can Be Found: “God” made its debut in Fall 2013’s Issue 206 of The Paris Review, one of the biggest journals around. The story was subsequently chosen for Best American Short Stories 2014 and can be found in the anthology.
Bonuses: Listen to this audio interview Mr. Nugent gave to The Lit Show‘s Ben Mauk in support of his novel, Good Kids. Here is “The Rugby Witch,” a story that was published in The L Magazine. Here is a fun video in which Mr. Nugent discusses the word “nerd:”
Element of Craft We’re Stealing: Audience
Discussion:
The first person narrator is a college student and a member of the Delta Zeta Chi fraternity. The frat’s world has been turned upside down by God. No, not a supernatural being. God is the nickname they have given to Melanie, a young woman who has captured the heart of their leader, Caleb Newtown-also known as “Nutella.” Melanie flexed her literary muscles, penning a poem about Nutella’s problem with premature ejaculation. God’s revelation moves each frat brother’s heart in different ways. Five-Hour nearly manages to have sex with God, but he is prevented from doing so because of a little bit of erectile dysfunction. The story’s climax is the expected one, but Mr. Nugent does a good job of imbuing the story with far more weight than such a piece might otherwise have.
There’s so much to admire about this story, but I’ll begin with the point I was just making. I often mention my preoccupation with “the woman on the bus.” Lee K. Abbott, my stellar teacher at Ohio State, used this idea to describe the kind of audience he has in mind when he writes. I sometimes worry that our literary community has become too insular; that we’re not making as many new readers as are necessary to keep us going. Are we dealing with subject matter that is too esoteric for the mainstream? Are we abandoning plot and other elements that are attractive to a wide audience? We’re competing with TV, film, texting and the Internet, after all. Why can’t more “literary” work be “fun?”
This is a story about romantic attraction and its resultant sexual complications. People are interested in reading about that. This story is funny; I made at least half a dozen smiley faces in my copy. People like laughing. The story is packed with beautiful sentences, but Mr. Nugent keeps the story humming along nicely. I suppose that what I’m saying is that writers of literary fiction should follow Mr. Nugent’s lead and tilt the scales just a little bit more in the direction of entertainment as a priority. Art feeds the heart and mind; perhaps we should make the heart a little more prominent in what we produce.
“God” is a story predicated upon a classic and powerful conceit. For months, the world of Delta Zeta Chi and its members was stable. The brothers cared about each other, everyone admired Nutella and everyone had complementary goals. That was before Melanie/God showed up and turned Delta Zeta Chi upside down. After the young woman writes the poem, the social order and heirarchy of the frat is destabilized. Instead of doing what they can to find their own girlfriends, many of the brothers want to enjoy special time with M/G, as though having sex with her will transfer some of Nutella’s power to them. And the narrator has some very interesting reasons for wanting to have sex with her…
Think of the previous paragraph and replace all of the mentions of the frat with “Camelot.” Wow! It’s pretty much the same story! All is good in Camelot until that darn Lancelot comes around, pretending he’s all moral and high-minded…until Guinevere makes eyes at him. Writers are often interested in building worlds. What happens if you decide to destroy a world instead?
What Should We Steal?
- Lighten up and entertain. Should we go full Kardashian? Of course not. (That’s a gross mental image.) Perhaps we should be just a little more cognizant of the need to attract and keep more readers.
- Begin with a nice, stable subculture and setting…then shake it up. The Republic is doing just fine…until the Senate elects the obvious bad guy to be Emperor. The proverbial marriage is doing just fine…until one partner gets a couple hangup phone calls.
Short Story
2013, Audience, Benjamin Nugent, Best American Short Stories 2014, The Paris Review
