You felt what?

Time and convention are often the rugs of storytelling, caught in midair by some novel or short story, as they are being yanked from under the concepts and guidelines of the dramatic past.

Because they are so basic, some truths tend to fall between the cracks as you scurry about in your investigations of the provenance and credentials of less obvious, more arcane verities.  It is as though you are drawn away from simple truths wearing sensible shoes by enticing minor ones clad in four-inch pumps.

No surprise that each time you need to remind yourself of one of the most basic truths of all, you come away with a sense of having at last recognized in some permanent way its import, then resolved to control it.  You even have specific approaches to support the control.

The basic truth in question is the recognition that storytelling is an evocative rather than descriptive enterprise.  In apercu, you don't describe how a character feels about a particular situation, you put the character into some form of dramatic action--action verbs rather than thought verbs--which conveys to the reader how the character felt at a particular time or indeed feels right now.  We should know from our own observation as opposed to being told a thing is so by the author, which is to say by you.

A serious culprit in boring dramatic prose is the piled-on depth of description of things, events, responses imputed to characters by a garrulous writer.  The reader who enjoys fiction is the reader who enjoys the work of experiencing the results of the thing the writer enjoys creating.

Letters to a Young, Middle-Aged, or Geezer Writer, XIX

You might say, dear ones, that doubt is a vote of no confidence in the future; you doubt that some promised event will take place, that some promised behavior or intent will be faithfully acted upon.  You may also doubt that a particular report of behavior or activity is accurate.  Being writers encompassing the entire age range, you have had your moments in which you have no faith that the nuance and acuity of something you have written will be understood and, accordingly, appreciated.

If asked, you could fill an entire university Blue Book with doubtful things, beginning your litany with the thing about which you are the most cynical, say a politician keeping his or her promise, fueled by the righteous anger that awareness brings, filling page after page, pausing only briefly when the first warning bell signifying fifteen minutes of time left for the exam, then picking up pace again as new doubts arrive, perhaps even doubting you will be able to get in all your doubts within the Blue Books you have with you.

To say that you have few doubts causes those about you to think you an incredible optimist, a naif, perhaps a relic from one of your characters.  And in fact, as you grow and your experiences with such things as relationships expands, you begin to see how the behavior of those about you has undergone subtle change from your early sense of idealism to more of a wariness, a wait-and-see approach.  You are, for example, less likely to judge a contemporary for having sold out and more likely to think such things as adjusted to the marketplace, as though your burgeoning experiences were informed by MBA language and theory.  Similarly, you may come to regret a friend's concepts of textuality after reading a draft of that person's novel in progress.  I'll have to ask you to trust me on this, but I don't think it a good plan to discuss a writer friend's text apparatus, that is, if you wish to remain friends.

And you will have perhaps come to the place in your career where you have doubts about your characters.  Will they remain content to follow your direction, looking upon you as a Goddard or Scorsese, or will they, as you were wont to do yourself, rebel against the authority figure that is you?  By now, you will have become somewhat of a control freak in this regard, doubting the character's trustworthiness, coming down hard with the heavy hand of authorial power.  You might have even threatened them and they, in their turn, threatened you back, reminding you that when kids are old enough to fly the coop, they may chose not to return under any circumstances.

What would happen, I wonder, if you are fortunate enough to have a series going and your characters decide to stay away, refusing to bring you information?  You could try guilt as in you never call, you never write.  Or, you never confide in me any more.

I understand that it is somewhere between sophistry and conceit to put you in a parent-child relationship with your characters, but I ask you to understand that you have perhaps been spending too much time with your iPod and computer, causing a rift of resentment.  I may be pushing too hard at this point, making it easy for you to shrug off my concerns, but in all truth, I doubt that you will pay me much heed.

It is one thing to think of your characters as individuals you meet while traveling, individuals who are so sure of never seeing you again that they will open up their secret selves to you and reveal secrets they reveal only to strangers, giving you remarkable plot lines and materials for devious constructions, but consider this:  Suppose they are making up these stories; suppose they are all fabrications.  You will have been taken in, your trust in your characters severely compromised.  And for what?  Some improbable concatenation of events that make it clear to everyone but you that you have been recording the lies and fantasies of characters as opposed to listening to them closely in order to find out things more remarkable than designer plots.  By now, you'll have all had experience with listening to young persons inventing excuses for not doing what was expected of them while at the same time doing precisely what they wished to do.   After they have told you their whoppers, smile at them and say, okay, now why don't you tell me what really happened.  You will not be so likely to be written off as a text manipulator and you will gain some street credibility (anti-doubt, you see) for being able to get at the heart of the text, the things your characters truly intend in their truest of hearts.

If you allow them to have hearts, they will return to you time after time, bringing you goodies for the holidays that far outstrip a gaudy plot that had been outsourced to India.

Where They're Coming from

No character however minor his or her ultimate role in a story, appears on stage without an attitude informed by some earlier event. We may actually see the event taking place without having the slightest notion of its effect on the particular character who happens to be present. If the character is truly minor, it is possible we will not see the event; we may not even know about the event, but the character in question does and performs accordingly--because of it.

Stage-trained actors and, to a lesser extent, film actors know it is not enough merely to appear for their moments in a scene. The immediate now is charged with colliding forces. We may have to deal with individuals in reality who are able to do their job in a workmanlike fashion, but that longtime favorite of yours, that Joe-the Plumber of your blog posts is the mythical pizza delivery person. He or she may have just come from an unfortunate customer during the last delivery, perhaps one who counted out payment for the pizza in pennies. The delivery person may also be an aspiring actor, either practicing various character types or, thinking the person to whom the pizza is being delivered is in some casting position, is showing off with voice, attitude, posture, whatever.

A matters stand now, you are procrastinating in the preparation of a book proposal with a particular revision suggested by your agent, doing so by doing a step beyond taking notes for a short story idea that came fluttering in. Your protagonist, still quite vague to you, has just been ordered away from his brother and sister-in-law's home, indirectly accused of at best being insensitive, at worst a sexual predator, thus you knew the territory in which the thematic arc was taking. You had no idea why you had him walking away, thinking to catch a latte and reconnoiter bus schedules, which baffled you even more because you had to stop and figure out why he does not have a car--everyone in southern California has a car.

This led you to the conclusion that he'd probably had his license revoked, which also brought you closer to the notion that he was in recovery from booze. Then the real gift arrived, the information that even though he was half in the bag when he gave his lectures, no one seemed aware of that fact. Bingo, you discovered he was a PhD. In a flash, you understood that his subject was the Classics because of another arrival of metaphor. By the time the character is out of the first scene, you also know you are going to mess with the time scheme, shifting into the indefinite past, where more of the problems on his plate are delivered. The more you know about where he is and where he was, the more you know about him and are thus able to throw impromptu exploding devices, dramatic style, in his path. You even know the name of the graduate student who was part of The Problem.

True enough, he is the principal narrator; it is his story to the point that it is tentatively named after him, as in "Uncle Charlie," a title that will not bear irony until after the story has been read through. Nevertheless, past, present, and future scenes begin to appear, each triggered by you're having scarcely written two scenes.

The real point is that until you know where a character is coming from--literally and figuratively--you are at a loss to be as specific with his behavior as you might be, losing opportunity for tension, that glucosamine of story. What kind of tension? Remember, Uncle Charlie was banished from his brother and sister-in-law's home because of their belief that he was paying too much and too close attention to their sixteen-year-old daughter, whom you will meet early on and find some assurance that she did not feel threatened by him or made the slightest bit uneasy in his presence. Of course this gives you the third scene in which Uncle Charlie will have picked the coffee shop to patronize in search of his latte, thereupon to be confronted by a barista who, although older, has similar enough features to his niece, that he becomes impressed with the similarity. But the matter can't stop there because you are just reminded of an incident a year or so back when you stopped in the very coffee shop Uncle Charlie is patronizing. A barista whom you found rather attractive but had no memory of ever having seen her before greeted you by asking you if by any chance you had the year before delivered a lecture on William Goldman in Salisbury Cathedral. As it happens, she was correct, prompting you to have the fictional barista at the North Star Coffee Shop ask Charlie if he is in fact Professor Hecht because either her friend or roommate had a class with him a few years back and has retained her class notes to that day. You're still not certain where this is all leading, but this is all material you did not have until Uncle Charlie was out on the street, looking for coffee.

Finding out where your characters are coming from, where they're going, and what their plans are give you the very things you were after when you started thinking about Charlie in the first place, which is story. And the real truth is that you'd had no thought of Charlie as a character in the first place; you were merely doing some background on Ella, his niece, for whom you have plans in yet another venture.

The Mine Field of Story

As you see it, event is critical to story. At one point in the history of when you began pondering such things and trying to understand why you used them and, indeed, why some of them were so much more effective than others, you were firm in your belief that characters were the most critical element. How, you reasoned, could a story progress without them? But then as editor, teacher, and your own self as writer, you began to see numerous examples of narratives in which there were characters but no event. If, after some pages of angst and reflection, there were events, they were all events expressed in past or past perfect tenses.

Event has become for you the unexamined part of the formula, which is of a piece with attempting to understand algebra without paying any heed whatsoever to the equal sign. Look at the mischief possible when A and B are at an event. The event passes into history and now A and B are discussing the event with C and D, each attempting to convey implications and nuances. Of course C and D begin as more or less neutral audiences, responding to the "You should have been there" trope from A and B. The neutrality of C and D begins to implode and explode as A and B constantly contradict one another as their attempts to define or describe the event and its implications progress.

This came about because you were in the parking lot of the Montecito Von's Market, unloading purchases from the shopping cart to the back deck of your Yaris, when you saw a friend with whom you began to converse. (Anything to avoid the task of unloading.) Moments later, a late-model luxury car drew abreast of you, pausing to make polite inquiry from the passenger seat of how to reach the Four Seasons Biltmore Hotel, a dead giveaway that they were tourists because a local would have merely asked How do I get to the Biltmore from here?

Okay. Round One: You said, "Go to this (pointing to the exit) exit, then turn right. Proceed for about a mile and a half until you come to Olive Mill Road--" whereupon you were cut off by your companion.

Round Two: "Go to the exit, then turn left until you approach the roundabout, which you follow until you reach Coast Village Road, where you will proceed southeast toward Olive Mill Road--" whereupon your companion was cut off by you.

Round Three: "Why complicate things with the roundabout and Coast Village Road? If they turn right, they will be on Hot Springs Road, which becomes Olive Mill Road, which will take them to the Biltmore without the extra traffic and potential confusion." Which was true but not critically true, imperatively true. Thus the vision of a story in the making over this seemingly random event in which A and B are more closely joined by a relationship and a history and C and D are the innocent victims caught up in this particular event which is the emotional equivalent of the improvised explosive devices we have experienced in all their sudden potential for damage and horror in Iraq.

Thus this formula for you from one who tends not to trust formulae: In the beginning, the event is entirely in the present moment and remains so until the reader can see the trigger for conflict being tripped. This allows the writer to move back into the past for a brief connection in which one or more characters sees a relationship between the present time event and a past-time event. Perhaps just a hint, but enough of one to alert the reader. Back to the present event again and an increase in the rancorous exchanges of dialogue, suggesting with even more clarity that the characters are not about to maintain civilized discourse, they are fucking growing angrier by the moment. This would be a perfect time to shift from the present event to some seemingly unrelated collateral event, which provokes even more of a disconnect, causing either or perhaps both A and B to turn on C and D as well as upon each other.

The event becomes as artfully and carefully braided as a middle school girl's pigtail, and is ready to lead you into the mine field that is story, a mine field you attempt to cross wearing snow shoes--one step at a time.

The Other Shoe

other shoe dropping, the--a dramatic (emotional) payoff resulting from a previously foreshadowed clue; the literary equivalent of the aftershock following an earthquake; a degree of closure achieved from an earlier action.

The well-known trope of the other shoe dropping comes from the theoretical supposition of an individual preparing for a night's sleep in a cheap hotel or rooming house. As the individual settles down to sleep, a guest in the room one floor above is similarly preparing for sleep...removes his shoes and let's one fall to the floor with a thud. The individual of our focus is wrested from the brink of sleep by the sound above him; he waits for the second shoe, the famed "other" shoe to drop so that he can return his concentration on achieving sleep. Of course he cannot. The wait for the sound of the other shoe dropping has claimed his focus. It could well be that the guest in the upstairs room has realized the consequences of letting the first shoe drop. Out of consideration, he has resolved that the other shoe shall be set down quietly. But the expectant one cannot achieve sleep until he has heard the second shoe drop.

The other shoe dropping may be an actual physicality, such as the lodger in the upstairs room removing his shoes; it may also be an association made by one character or a realization achieved by a character. Oscar Madison, one half of Neil Simon's dramatic odd couple, is used to getting verbal suggestions and written notes from his roommate, Felix Unger, any of which serve to intensify the growing irritation Madison feels toward Unger. But as the narrator of Poe's "A Cask of Amontillado" puts it, "when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge." In this case, Felix Unger's venturing on insult is not at all intentional but is nevertheless seen by Madison as having crossed a line, of having gone too far. What is Unger's step over the line, his dropping of the other shoe? Why, leaving a note for Madison signed merely with his initials. How would you feel if you were on the receiving end of a note signed FU?

Anticipation is a cherished dramatic force, whether the drama is comedic or tragic. Simplistic as it may sound to offer the council that the reader is in a constant state of expectation, it is virtually unthinkable not to mention anticipation

Hint: At some point during the revision process, see if there are any shoes being dropped, any event that would cause irritation or consternation to visit a character, perhaps even an event that refuses to go away. Then exploit it.

Order of Awareness, The

order of awareness, the--impressions received by a character upon entering a scene; sensual priority list of a character in a dramatic situation.

Depending on the age, gender, social rank, and purposeful agenda of a given character, that person will tend to notice conditions, surroundings, and individual traits in a ranking related to the type of story being told. A member of Gang X, for instance, on discovering he is out of his turf, is going to be particularly watchful for males who are potential members or allies of Gang Y; a racially prejudiced white male might find himself looking for possible escape routes when he notices an approaching group of young blacks on the same side of a narrow street. A young man out on the prowl for meeting women will, upon entering a bistro or neighborhood tavern, will be struck by the presence of nubile females. A group of women friends, out for dinner and a movie, will be likely to note the bothersome presence of a group of predatory males.

Men or women, already located in a setting, will probably classify newcomers in terms of their gender, height, and clothing, but not necessarily in that order. Knowing your characters will make it easy to have a director's feel for what they notice and when they notice it. Some men, for instance, note the sexual viability of every woman who enters the place, age being a third- or fourth-place factor in that calculus, behind body type, height, and hair color. Women are more likely to note the posture, height, and dress of a new male addition to a room.

What are your characters going to notice first when they enter a room? Decor? Airiness? Number of persons present? Their height? Perhaps their age. How do your characters enter scenes? What are they looking for? What qualities or presences set them ill at ease? How do these responses help define who the character is?

Hint: A character's individual reaction to persons, places, and things speaks directly to who they are and how the reader may expect them to behave. Added hint: an endangered character is more likely to focus directly on the immediate source of danger rather than what tune is playing in the background or what two other characters in the background are arguing about.

Characters are in a sense like the Hubbel Telescope, sent out to gather images of events. Understanding the psychology of each character along with his or her strong and weak points of observation helps to render them as individuals rather than types, and we know what F. Scott Fitzgerald said about characters and types (opening paragraphs of "The Rich Boy.")

Coincidence

coincidence--two or more events taking place at the same time in a dramatic narrative, seemingly by happenstance; unplanned simultaneous occurrences which appear to cast a meaning of predestination; any events in stories that happen without being planned and which appear to effect positively the outcome of the story.

Accidental pairings of events may add complications to stories. Dick and Jane may be forced by coincidence and a full house to share a table at a restaurant, whereupon they subsequently fall in love, because that is a complication. Coincidences should not, however, play a major role in providing the outcome. The outcome is the result of some decisive and planned act on the part of the protagonist; the reader will feel cheated by any other scenario. Similarly, if Bill Villain, arch bad guy, winds up being repaid for his evil ways by having a landslide bury him, Bill Galahad, arch good guy will have in some way caused the landslide to tumble.