Running on empty as a virtue

Although it is a strain on your composure, the results of running on empty as applied to writing fiction are worth the strain. First this disclosure: running on empty means setting forth in a writing session without a clue relating to the work at hand. Nada. No sudden moves have been set aside for a time such as this. No shaggy dog stories, jokes, or shrewdly concocted deus ex machina devices parked outside waiting, engine purring and eager to whisk you away from your dramatic doldrums, for these doldrums are a particular symptom of a particular kind of day and your response to them is to recognize them for the opportunity they afford.

You probably have some design already in mind, some sense of whose story the story at hand belongs to, what the intent of the story is and if not a complete exit strategy then at least some notion of why a reader might care about your invention. In fact, you might even have a hint of why you care about it.

Running on empty is a sometime thing, a today thing, coming forth with no warning when you are in the midst of something you have been literally dreaming about. But not today. Ah, the things you have done today rather than jump into the work, eager to see where it might take you, bringing back that remarkable sense of discovery you first made sometime back in your early twenties, when a woman you cared for with incredibly long hair one evening after you'd come to take her out, removed a few pins and combs and the entire structure of plait and braid came tumbling down over her shoulders and that was all there was to previous plans, adventure and discovery were afoot.

There is something sensual and sensuous about being rendered momentarily outside the work in progress, wanting to get back in, not knowing where or when to apply the lever much less where the fulcrum is. There is that nagging suspicion that you may have said or written or felt the wrong thing and now, you've lost it, the whole thing is suddenly removed from you, lost, irretrievable.

Part of the truth is that you hadn't taken enough risk, were now beginning to think cautiously, which means perhaps you remove a few of the most recent paragraphs, then begin removing more until the entire project seems contrived, and now, fearful that it is back to the very square one, you wonder what you ever saw in the project. At about that moment, just as the entire progress you've made seems irretrievable, some flash of awareness comes in the form of a question: Why not have... or why not let... or the even more primal What if? It suddenly seems maddeningly delicious. You had never expected the story to turn in this direction, because, truth to tell, you were playing it too cautiously and no wonder you'd begun to think at a time when you should not be thinking but rather should be listening to what they, your characters, want to do.

You have on so many occasions been in both situations, the fearful despair of running out of tricks and devices and the even greater despair of reaching for anything at hand only to find it was just the tool you needed.

For you the answer always comes in the form of a character wanting to reverse the course you have set out, having another more anarchistic approach to the story, reminding you again, yet again that you, while respecting your parents and teacher's ideas and suggestions, were more likely than not to become impatient with them, particularly if they seemed at all sensible.

Dear Editor: The Dog Ate My Revision

hard luck story--a narrative of misfortune offered to secure the hearer's sympathy and possible financial contribution; an offered excuse as in The dog ate my homework; a narrative offered as mitigation for any non-performance.

All stories have some kind of end-game goal, some intended effect on the hearer/reader. Is it laughter? Perhaps the author's intent is education, or irony, or reversal. Perhaps the narrative is offered in self-defense, or the adjunct of self-defense, excuse. As long as we're dwelling on the conditional perhaps, might be the intent of a story is to make the teller sound modest--moi?--or resourceful.

Surely one of the more plentiful among dramatic narratives is the hard-luck story or its close relative, the sob story. The purpose is to evoke or elicit sympathy for the teller, both in the nature of troubles piled on and in the way the load is borne by the forces of Nature and natural disaster.

You could say--and probably will, once you think about it--that The Book of Job is the classic hard-luck story, not only because of the trials visited upon Job but as well because of the capricious nature of the way the visitation was set in motion. Job happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, when those polar representations of The Cosmic Forces got into a bragging and betting mood.



Ishmael's was a hard luck story in that he signed on the Pequod with no other thought to get away from the depressing nature of life on shore, only to find life at sea a cluster of disaster in which he was lucky to escape with his life. Heathcliff and Cathy saw the chemistry of their mutual attraction torn into a hard luck story in Wuthering Heights, and the unnamed protagonist/narrator of Rebecca saw her dreams of a romantic future turn into a hard luck story, ditto Charles Ryder for being pulled into the swirl and eddy of the Marchmain family in Brideshead Revisited, and while still on the subject of Evelyn Waugh, look at the hard luck story he contrived for the hapless protagonist of the haunting short story, "The Man Who Loved Dickens."


deus ex machina--a too convenient solution for a dramatic problem; a way of removing an obstacle that seems to have come from an independent, even unrelated source such as mere chance or accident.

Originally a device in ancient Greek drama at a time when gods were thought to have a hand in determining the outcomes of human affairs, the name now evokes the presence of any dramatic resolution that creaks and groans its way to a mechanical-seeming outcome. Indeed, in some performances, characters representing gods were lowered onto the stage by means of a basket-and-winch device.

Hint: in ancient Greek drama, competition and jealousies among gods and goddesses was assumed, thus even at that level, personality and motive informed godly activities. In modern stories, personalities, differing agendas, and cultural squabbles produce the best mechanisms for initiating and resolving plot complications.

Further hint: it is acceptable for obstacles to grow larger, complexities to grow more intense by accident, but their resolutions must be more convincing in their engineering. Think as endings or resolutions as mediated settlements.

Forthcoming

causality--a force in fiction even more primal than conflict, in which events are triggered by previous events; a quality by which things happen as a consequence of previous actions, events, or purposeful lack of action; the literary equivalent of the Newtonian law about actions and reactions. Without causality there would only be separate, unlinked events. Causality is also the literary effect of karma--stories are propelled by the consequences of things characters have done or have notably not done; the compelling reason characters behave as they do or interpret life as they do The bulk of Thomas Hardy's novel, The Mayor of Casterbridge, happens as a consequence of chapter one in which Michael Henchard sells his wife and daughter to a sailor.

Commonly referred to as The Domino Effect because a row of closely placed dominoes falls in such a demonstrably vivid way, causality is a series of linked dramatic events that produce a memorable result which, by its very nature, produces an emotion.


raisins in the matzoh—an unnecessary elaboration; a good idea taken too far by an unnecessary element or refinement; the literary equivalent of preparing enough food for twelve guests when you’ve only invited six to dinner.

A matzoh is unleavened bread, eaten at the time of Passover to commemorate the flight from Egypt, when there was no time to use yeast and leavening. Matzoh was and is perfectly good for its purpose. It doesn’t need raisins to make it work. First articulated by the writer-painter-saloon keeper, teacher Barnaby Conrad, ritm is a kissing cousin of anticlimax, thanks to the way it undermines a perfectly good idea by adding embellishments that will distract the reader’s attention for no good reason and a good many bad ones. Ritm is a sure sign of the writer being uncertain, of an abandonment to an If less is more, more is even more approach. Accordingly, watch all descriptions for unnecessary detail, but also watch those perfectly wonderful observations you made and then spoiled by adding another, distracting element. Remember Conrad’s observation, the twenty-first century version of the wisdom of William of Occam (1285—1347): “Universes must not be unnecessarily expanded.” You could also say Keep it simple. You really could.

deus ex machina--a too convenient solution for a dramatic problem; a way of removing an obstacle that seems to have come from an independent, even unrelated source such as mere chance. Originally a device in ancient Greek drama where gods were thought to have a hand in determining the outcomes of human affairs, the name now evokes the presence of any dramatic resolution that creaks and groans its way to a mechanical-seeming outcome.

Hint in ancient Greek drama, competition and jealousies among gods and goddesses was assumed, thus even at that level, personality and motive informed godly activities. In modern stories, personalities, differing agendas, and cultural squabbles produce the best mechanisms for resolving plot complications.

Further hint: it is acceptable for obstacles to grow larger, complexities to grow more intense by accident, but their resolutions must be more convincing in their engineering.



concept--a pattern of situations, episodes, or ideas that wants to be a story but doesn't yet know how. A concept is an amalgamation of character, motive, and event, but be sure to read the label closely. When, for instance, you see food labels advising that protein is contained herein, the first question that comes to mind should be, Is it a complete protein?which is to say, does it contain all the essential amino acids known to reside in a complete protein? Then ask what the source of the protein is. Soy protein may well be a complete protein, but it is plant based. If you want plant protei, no biggie, but if you don't get what you want, you're going to be disappointed, perhaps evn feeling betrayed when you discover what you did get. The analogy holds for concept, which is the literary equivalent of protein without all the essential amino acids.

A concept lacks some catalytic agent which would transform it into a story. A private detective sitting his/her office, waiting for a client, is not yet a story it is a premise, which is one step down the food chain from concept. A woman who has been dating three men, all of whom suddenly propose marriage to her, is a concept because we know something based in history or action about the woman in question.

However intriguing it is to see a dog sniffing appreciatively at a steak that has just been removed from the grill, then set aside for a moment's cooling, that intrigue is only a potential for some great mischief to follow, which is to say there is concept sizzling away but no story yet.

So okay then, concept is resident potential for story.

One way to turn the private detective premise into a concept is to introduce a character who may not be a potential client. The detective, avid of income, persuades the newcomer to allow some investigative or bodyguard work done on his behalf. Now, we have a concept. To turn a concept into a story, let's introduce a character who offer the detective $5000 not to take the assignment that will be offered by a lady claiming to be from Pittsburgh, who will arrive within the next half hour.

Story can be made from the concept of the woman with the three suitors by having the woman remove herself with no advance notice to another locale, where she takes a job under an assumed name and begins to lead a completely different lifestyle. We could enhance this story by having the woman, within the net week or ten days of her arrival in her new home, be asked out by three different men.

The dog with an appreciative interest in the freshly grilled steak can cause story to erupt by nudging a chair close to the table on which the steak now resides.

In all three examples, concept is transformed into story when the ootagonist is forcd to take some action or make sme choice.