Gambits

The sooner a narrative or essay attacks a sensory defense or recognizes a sensory need such as curiosity, the more likely a reader will be tugged into the gambit. Make no mistake about it; getting the reader involved is a gambit.

If the language of the previous paragraph is redolent of chess and strategy, it signifies positive effect is being sent forth. Reader involvement--getting readers to care--is a chess game of a sort, with orchestrated opening moves, including the potential sacrifice--not of a pawn in an actual chess game but the revelation of a secret, the flash of surprise, the unanticipated discovery that changes everything. A hint of any of these is the equivalent of an opening gambit.

The defense is a sophisticated mixture of suspicion, negative interest (read lack of interest), not caring what happens to the players--after all, it is well known that they aren't real. But suppose that sensory defense is breached? Suppose the Reader forgets about plausibility long enough to form some kind of relationship with one or more of the characters.

Curiosity is a wedge to get the arms-locked-across the chest of suspicion out of the way. We want to find out more. Want to see how X behaves in Y situation which is coming up. Doesn't hurt that one or more characters can be vulnerable; once our watch out response kicks in for a particular character, we want to see if he or she can safely avoid the emotional trap awaiting, a trap we know is there because we are, after all, readers, which means we know something of consequence is going to spring forth on a character whom we either like or feel a certain arm's-length antipathy toward. Basically the good guy will be hit in the face with a wet squirrel, the sleazy guy will be invited inside for an iced tea.

Everything you could possibly want in a character to whom you give your heart is to be found in the protagonist of Daniel Woodrell's latest novel, Winter's Bone. Bree Dolly is a tough outer shell protecting a loving, caring interior. She wants to get out of her life in a remote corner of the Missouri Ozarks, where her father has gone missing, probably dead in one of his drug-dealing misadventures. Bree has her mother, who is in and out of dementia, to care for and two young siblings, who are close, by her reckoning, to fend for their mother and themselves, allowing her to fulfill her urgent desire to join the army, get a start on making a life of her own. But legalities step in, forcing her to set out in search of her father before she can break free of family ties. It is not enough to say that family ties dog her every step; Woodrell, an elegant and poetic writer, leads us shivering through the Ozark winter on a quest with some unexpected menace. She is remarkable and splendid, you think as you reread her exploits. Her humanity outshines her natural beauty. As she shows one of her siblings how to first hunt, then skin, then cook a squirrel, you are aware of never knowingly having eaten a squirrel. Dozens of them live in close enough proximity to you that you could, were you willing to take more matters into your own hands, experience eating a squirrel. You know that you would do so for her, a safe enough bargain given she is a character, but she is real enough a character that you fantasy her presence.

This fantasy element is key; all you characters must in fact be individuals you more than construct, you fantasy. Until you read other of Woodrell's books, you had never eaten a fried bologna sandwich although you have in your time eaten countless freshly sliced bologna sandwiches. Woodrell made the fried version sound interesting enough so that you bought the first bologna you have purchased in years, then fried it, then plunked the results between slices of bread, in one venture with sliced onion.

All right, here is the equation. You do the things you do because many of them are the acts you are willing to move out of fantasy and wonderment into actuality.

Any Portal in a Storm

fantasy--a novel or story in which magical, supernatural, and preternatural elements are presented as though they were real; narratives in which alternate universes, mythic creatures, imaginary worlds, and extraordinary mental and physical abilities prevail; stories involving clashes of power between rival forces who have rival thematic agendas; stories built on the consequences of spells, curses, and charms.

Ever since Alice (of Wonderland fame) fell into the rabbit hole, fantasy writers have capitalized on the portal or entry way into worlds of their own creation, worlds where often enough there may be intended comparisons between individuals, institutions, and places in the real world. These are worlds where magic--abilities that extend beyond the boundaries of reality--flourishes, but just as contemporary pharmaceuticals do, the magic has a known list of side effects: spells do not last indefinitely, curses may exact a reaction onto the curse giver, and such desirable abilities as invisibility have strict time limits. Portals have led readers and, of course, characters to antique shops, restaurants, book stores, even pawn brokers. The consequence of such visits become manifest when the protagonist of the story attempts to return to the venue of the portal.

Fantasy worlds often parallel the real universe in most details except for those one or two of the author's choice. Thus in Rachel Maddux's short story, "Final Clearance," written during the days of Congressional hearings and loyalty oaths, the payoff comes in the form of a recently dead atomic scientist being denied actual death because of a failed security clearance.

In one form or another, fantasy has been with us since there was a spoken language; it plays a significant part in, for instance, Gilgamesh, which has fantasy themes revisited in The Iliad and even more so in The Odyssey, where it is often used as a metaphor. The contemporary writer, Ursula K. LeGuin, has written a short story, "Horse Camp," in which two sisters, Sal and Norah, along with a friend, Ev, go to horse camps during the summer and are transformed into equines. In yet another of her fantasies, "The Professor's Houses," there is a thematic counterpoint between the house where the Professor lives and a doll house he has made for his young daughter. LeGuin has done in her book, The Language of the Night, what Stephen King has done for horror in Danse Macabre.

Just as the historical story has done for the mixing of genera such as historical thriller, historical mystery, historical juvenile, etc, so too has fantasy become a pairing genre, often seen as magical realism (See any work by Alice Hoffman). This mixture easily extends to work that is by any account considered literature, Robertson Davies' The Rebel Angels being a significant example.

Hint: Check out via Google and Wikipedia the pulp fantasy magazine, Weird Tales. Also of seminal interest to fantasy writers as a source of inspiration, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series, and the near-iconic Harry Potter books.

Additional hint: Start with a short story in the works, then add to it one magical element, keeping everything else as grounded in realistic detail as possible.

Yet another hint: Do not ever forget The Wizard of Oz, which is not only pure fantasy, it is a paradigm for the structure of a novel, so much so that Margaret Atwood uses it in an essay ("In the Heart of the Heartland" available on Google)in which she shows the connection between Richard Powers's literary tour de force, The Echo Maker, with The Wizard.

Requeum for a Literary Agent

A tall man with wavy dark hair, a genial smile, and mischievous eyes sparking behind rimless glasses, he disarms you as he welcomes you into the cavernous living room, its shelves bulging with lurid and energetic covers from pulp fantasy and science fiction magazines. The room actually smells of pulp , ink, and the unique odor of mildewed paper. There is a sensuality to it that evokes the throb and drone of the rotary presses, whirring out newspapers by day and pulp magazines by night. Nothing prepares you for the explosively dreadful puns with which your host will bombard you at every opportunity. Worse yet, you recognize individuals you thought of as just slightly less than Greek or Norse gods and goddesses; they are the men and women who wrote the fantasy and science fiction stories you took into your being the way a kidney patient undergoes dialysis. Van Vogt. Sturgeon. Leigh Brackett. Henry Kuttner. C.L. Moore. Heinlein. Zelazney. And of course Bradbury, the only one in the room notably drinking milk instead of something shall we say more fermented.

You are in another world, a riotous collision of the worlds of all these men and women, orbiting about the picnic spreads of sandwich meat, bread, beer, wines. Lewis Padgett, one of the funniest writers alive, snarls as you are introduced to him. You look like a beer drinker, he observes, and there is already not enough beer.

Your host is Forrest J. Ackerman, although he has already warned you he does not use the period after the J; people should know it is James and they should know, he insists, that James does not require a period. He gives you a lap around the room, pulling names out of crowds of individuals. Hal Clement. Bob Bloch. John Campbell, who launches into a long serenade to the virtues of Chilean wine, effective, he says, and cheap. Here, Herb Gould; you might want to send him a story now and then. Pays good money. Curt Siodmak. Lured away from his true calling by the movies.

These and more were his clients, many launched into their careers by what he referred to as Ackermischief and Ackermanagement. In time, you appeared in magazines with the, lured them into your office when you were acquisitions editor for a Los Angeles publisher, variously spilled drinks on them or had drinks spilled by them on you at the Ackermansion or one of the other venues for collegial gathering. They all spoke of Ackerman as though he had pulled a sword from a stone, which in a sense he had.

You all had tales of fantasy and magic that seemed to emit from him like those misty miasmas of cheap sci-fi movies. Your own time of magical thinking began when you walked to his house to deliver a sheaf of manuscripts for which you had elegant expectations beyond your own ability to pay for gasoline. He insisted on a lunch of thick-cut liverwurst on a yeasty pumpernickle, enhanced with sliced pickles and a bottle of Pabst Blue-Ribbon beer, which you were only too willing to oblige him in the offering. Thus the magic began but two days later, when Clarence, the mailman, asked you to sign for a special delivery, you saw more tangible proof of the effect. The return address was Ackerman's and the contents was limited to a check for some wildly satisfyig amount in the range of fifty dollars, drawn against his bank, with a notation linking a magazine called Posse with the title of one of the stories in the sheaf of manuscripts. Every weekday for the next two weeks, a special delivery arrived from him with some similar notation, referencing magazines such as Gent and Dude and Amazing Stories. You became aware of more names of more authors trickling through the Ackermansion, names of authors you grew to read with admiration. You also became aware of Ackerman signing you up for nonfiction assignments which you discovered only after editors of various publications called to remind you of deadlines which you hadn't realized you'd had.

Through it all, Ackerman's mischievous humor, buzzing about like flies at a picnic, before what you like to think of in retrospect as a sort of defining moment. I can get you a considerable sum of money for a story called "I Was a Teen-aged Werewolf," FJA related, to which you muttered some riposte about working for blood money. But he was serious, just as he'd been a month or two earlier about having a sure sale for a story titled "The Naughty Venusienne." There is in fact a motion picture, I Was a Teen-aged Werewolf, the writing credits going to a pair of Ackerman clients and there is indeed a book, The Naughty Venusienne which FJA himself had to write because, as he said sadly, none of his clients believed him. He was many things to many people and like all remarkable sorts, his like will not be seen again. He drew remarkable people to his presence, made them feel the world of storytelling and writing and fantasy had blended into an endless party. He invited you in, took a lap around the room with you, introducing you to an ensemble cast the likes of which you had not seen before. True enough, you were young and impressionable, believing you could take on anything that came your way. In some measure, because of Forrest J. Ackerman, your first literary agent, you are still young, impressionable, confident in the belief that you can take on anything that comes your way. Hail and farewell, Forryack.

The Dark Side of the Moon

When Constantin Stanislavski (1863-1938) said, "Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art." he was primarily addressing actors and in some major the actor he wished to become. We can take his admonition to our writing heart as well because of the way each discipline--the written and the acting--are wrapped about the armature of the creative self, the person who wishes to convey stories, attitudes, behavior, agendas, ambitions through the creation of plausible characters.

In order to engage either craft, you need some basic tools, primary among which is the point of view you have of the world. This is not as simple or simplistic as first blush may suggest. Suppose for instance that your choice of story to tell is the fantasy or the alternate universe. To make your fantasy or alternate universe emerge from the shadows of your imagination into the articulated stage of your story, you must have some sense of the laws of gravity, chemistry, morality, attitude, and spirituality of the landscape, and you must understand the effects such traits have on its denizens.

Supposing you are an unrelenting optimist and create a world (this one, an alternate one, or a fantasy one) in which all are equally optimistic. Trouble arises immediately because there is no story when all are of a similar mind. Thus you must, for all your optimism, be able to create a plausible pessimist, a creation you'd expect to find lurking somewhere within the darker side of the moon that is you, a creation you don't often bring out in public. Not only must you do so, you must invest this person with qualities that will make him or her attractive enough to be a threat to the optimists in your story and perhaps to your readers. If you merely go scouting about in the market where you shop or the school where you teach or the office where you work, you will find second- or third-rate pessimist, a copied pessimist. You will be reminded of all the times when you watched reputedly hard-nosed investigative reporters on television letting some bigot or politician or publicist go without asking probing questions. You felt somehow cheated, which is what your readers will feel with a second-rate pessimist. By creating a first-rate pessimist, you will have brought an entire range of potential to your story, rendering it at once more tense, exciting, thrilling, and threatening.

You will have created a character whom your protagonist optimist will eventually defeat in some degree, allowing your reader to feel that your protagonist was in a serious, threatening contest instead of the sort of warm-up game many sports teams engage at the early days of a season.

It is not enough to merely say I want to tell stories; you need to be more specific than that, focusing on the types of stories that touch you on some basic emotional level which will be transported into the stories you write. Even if you are the sort who watches the market and picks stories based on your judgment of which kinds of story sells the most copies, you will still need to give something of your hidden or darker side of not something of your special technique with which you feel confident. If all you have to bring into your story is a statistical ability to replicate all the other commercially successful stories about you, there is still not enough in your toolkit to cause an editor to encourage you, a publisher to take you on, a readership to embrace you. The editor, publisher, and readership already have available the things you would imitate; what they want from you are the things you originate; they want from you your take on the real world or the fantasy world or the alternate world or the romantic world.

Ball's in your court.

I Have Said It Thrice

"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair.
"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What I tell you three times is true."
The Hunting of the Snark
Lewis Carroll


Being the person I am, tidal in nature, certainly as mercurial as my September birth would indicate astrologically, I would nevertheless try to give as concrete, earth-bound answer as I could were you to ask me if I knew where, at a given moment, I was. High probability of an I-don't know answer, equally high chance of exact coordinates or some similar sense of exactitude. Almost no chance you'd get an it-all-depends answer. Travel with me has certain risks involved. If you are the sort who insists on knowing your destination and arrival time in advance, whether the travel is automotive, ambulatory,or in such literary excursions as essay or story, we are probably going to experience certain friction.

I am most likely to stop and ask for directions if involved in a story, proportionately less likely if engaged in an essay, bordering on surly if forced in real life to ask. Previously involved closely in the lives of three Blue Tick Hounds (the second-best nose in dogdom), and currently partnered with Sally, a compact mix of Aussie Cattle Dog and Aussie Shepherd, I have come to recognize the ease with which scent hounds become distracted, drawn off task as they say, by an interesting smell. My own life has become a fond imitation, drawing me off the lesser scents to the scents less traveled.

Accordingly, I have been drawn off scent by such recent distractions as denouement and roman a clef, finding myself drawn even farther afield by blog chum Marta's meme for willing suspension of belief, our collective token tossed into the collection bin at the phantom toll booth we have come to think of as story.

In the real sense, story is an impossible construct, a hopeless and helpless bystander to the formulas of quantum physics, those no-nonsense depictions of how things behave in the universe, how they combine or not, how they influence or do not, where they go, how much they weigh, and what they'll do if cornered. From observation, we know a certain amount about how our species and others will behave in many situations, but not all situations. The quantum persons are working on articulating how it all began, a seemingly impossible story to articulate, which makes the comparison between story and physics formula lass tenuous than it might seem.

Story is a systematic accumulation of cultural and mythic data, personified, placed in the laboratory beaker of the imagination, and subjected to the heat of conflict, tension, suspense, and agenda. The storyteller applies enough heat to cause combustion, then reports the results. My chum and collaborator Digby Wolfe visualizes the dramatic big bang as a riddle:


"The core [or plot ] of the riddle should be cleverness – hiding that which is in plain sight.

The tension of your riddle should come from the conflict between what happens as opposed to what seems to have happened."

We begin the process of buying into the riddle--suspending disbelief--when the individuals involved become human enough and vulnerable enough to cause us to feel--repeat, feel--concern for them, to become curious, even worried about what will happen to them. Rational, scientific, practical as we are, we want to push the boundaries of physical behavior on their behalf, extending our own wish to supplement with magic our impatient desire to cause things to happen or to withstand impending events on our own behalf.

And there it goes; we're in. To a degree, we're more than in; we're in love, we're smart, we're powerful. In the accelerated process of identification with characters and rooting for them, we experience the sensual thrill of running, swimming, moving briskly and efficiently through more than air and water; we move instead through obstacles, limitations, problems, physical and mental conundrums.

Only one problem: we have to give our fantasy legs, make it seem do-able, bring the miracle from the macro to the micro, and the starting point, the big bang for this process is to feel the inherent life and possibility of our fantasy with such clarity that we are able for just enough time to see the miracle in everything.