Surprise! or Surprise?

Surprise is the emotional response to an unplanned event. It may equally well be the reaction to an event that was planned in advance but did not play out as anticipated.  In either case the resident emotion balances on the fulcrum of a business-as-usual stasis which may accordingly tip either to disappointment and dismay or elation and enjoyment.

There is no middle ground in surprise; a person, thing, or event is either more than you'd hoped for or less.  Getting what you want may come as a surprise, particularly if you'd despaired of achieving the goal, in which case the result is better than you'd expected (because you'd either written it off or put it on hold.)

As long as you are dealing with absolutes, you might as well make the point again:  a narrative without some direct or implied goal is not yet a story; every character of significance has some relevant goal to justify her/his inclusion in the first place.  Dorothy Gale's goal in The Wizard of Oz is to get back to Kansas.  Think how frequently she was frustrated from this goal during the arc of the story.  Think also that the moment she was back in Kansas, the story was over.  Thus the use of surprise in story assumes accelerating importance; when a character believes she has the stated objective in sight, a diversionary event (surprise) adds frustration, disappointment, and longevity to the story.

Surprise may have nuance, even irony, witness the iconic Somerset Maugham story from the early 1930s:"The Appointment in Samarra"

The speaker is Death

There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me.  She looked at me and made a threatening gesture,  now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate.  I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me.  The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went.  Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threating getsture to my servant when you saw him this morning?  That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise.  I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

Think about the emotional effect not only of the characters in the story but on yourself, having read it. Some readers will have articulated at least to themselves the role surprise plays in their approach to fiction, reckoning somewhere in their reading process the role surprise plays in a given story.  Writers understand that reversals and disappointments experienced by their characters help bridge the often impenetrable gap between character and reader.  How many persons do you know who have never experienced a reversal or setback?  Even though it is a part of the human genome to plan for such events, how many of us has gone through any significant span of time in which there were no disasters, disappointments, or need for Plan B?  It is not a moment too soon to recall Robert Burns' poem about the poor, unfortunate mouse whose nest he inadvertently uprooted while plowing a field.  "The best laid schemes o' mice and men/Gang aft agley..." or as some of the remarkable late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Yiddish writers have noted, "Tsouris beliden,"  Trouble aboundeth.

Happy surprises are best watched with caution lest they seem a deliberate convenience; they should not be allowed to lead the reader to the conclusion or outcome without some careful fore-planning to make the reader accept the plausibility.  Thus it is always better to conflate happy surprises with, say, a discovered open zipper on a man or a visible bra strap for a woman, some embarrassment however tiny, recognition that even good things come with hooks.

Reversal

In one of his elegant-but-little-known song lyrics, "So Near and Yet So Far," Cole Porter not only objectifies Fate, he observes as it "steps in and mops up the floor with me." In the song, the singer's romantic ambitions are dealt a reversal; in real life, Fate does not necessarily tread on iambic feet and indeed may enter on roller skates. Reversal is a dramatic turn away from an anticipated shower of good fortune, of success in a venture, the acceptance of a story or book, an A-ticket to all the rides in the park.

Our nature as humans and of course yours as a member of the rejection letter congregation is to look with suspicion upon anything that appears to arrive with ease. Suspicion is wired in, at least to the point where we have a Plan B however vaguely formulated, where we believe the need to work up a sweat before achieving the desired results. In one of the apocryphal accounts of the Old Testament, David's Plan B was to run like hell if the rock he'd launched at Goliath missed its mark. We bestow our deepest regard and harbor our greatest hopes for results on those projects that vex us the most, seem most likely to slip from our grasp. A last-minute reversal that we engage and cope with seems almost a herald of impending success, even though we have scarcely caught our breath from the fright.

To some of us, reversal is an omen of lost power, the power being that sense of invincibility that in so many ways reverts us to our teen years when all was inevitable success, and reversal was like unto a misguided mosquito, strayed from its true course. As a species we are great symbol makers. You have come to believe, for example, that those remarkable drawings of animals on the walls of the caves in France represent boasts of animals safely hunted down into the evening meal and possibly even as expressions of meals yet to come. Thus a rejection slip becomes only a platform, a plateau scaling the heights of ambition. When you receive rejection letters, look how far you have climbed. That sort of thing.

Some in our midst see reversal as calamity; you have had your share of calamities to the point where you can no longer call to mind which among them was the most calamitous, preferring instead to think that the potential for future reversals is a sign you are still in the game. You suppose the game you are talking about in that sense is the game of life, but it could also be the game of writing, the game of editing, the game of teaching, and ah, the game of romance, except that some critic may impute your lack of serious intent in all these ventures to your consideration of them as games rather than endeavor.

Reversal is the force that knocks you on your ass with enough impact to cause you to marshal the intent to rise and go forth again--simple up endings do not count because those may only arrive as distractions. The measure of the reversal is in direct proportion to the effort necessary to recover from it.

Every story needs reversal. Every story needs that whoosh of impact that lays one or more characters low enough that the primal breath and intent is knocked from them for a time. The things you get up from, make sense of, translate into the poetry of newer energy and a sharper, clearer music are the things that make you who you are, that influence the vocabulary you chose from the available wonders of feeling and harmony about you. Grim determination is no small thing, not at all to be dismissed, but beware the you who gets of from the floor humming the music of the spheres, delighted with the sound of it while simultaneously wondering how it ever got in where you could hear it.

Risk

If you practice enough, the common wisdom proclaims, you may not achieve perfection (although you might), but you may indeed achieve muscle memory, that precious ability that allows you to do without thinking and thus reach beyond the received standards of excellence. Buoyed by your muscle memory lapel ribbon, you may even achieve freshness, invention, ownership however temporary of the ability to demonstrate your art.

At some early age, most individuals are urged by their parents and teachers to practice. This urging is often at odds with a young person's own interests and enthusiasms, producing a stand-off in which there is no real winner, loss emerging as the dominant residue. You will appreciate in later years, the parent and/or teacher admonishes. Yeah, right, thinks the young person. There are those young persons who are drawn into practice by their own interest and curiosity, rendering it a form of play rather than a relative of discipline. Some of our cultural icons, Mozart, for instance, or Beethoven, or Schubert or Gershwin, and yes, girls, too, thinking Mendelssohn's sister, Fanny, and the likes of Margaret Drabble and her more famous sister, Antonia Byatt, strode forth in youthful play, developed their craft and their talent for craft. Others among us practiced at another level to the point where we became adept, yea, even unto the point of achieving muscle memory, but not at piano or poetry or composition, rather at loafing or scattering such attention span as we had in the interest of being well-rounded.

The result: a good deal of catching up by way of no longer reading for mere pleasure but for content; writing not for mere familiarity with the sixteen verb tenses of our language but for the ability to sketch in emotion and implication, the steady hand of subtext underscoring the even steadier hand of substance.

Thus at some relatively advanced age, the age beyond which we first had crushes on older persons such as teachers or the parents of our friends, or even the friends of our parents, into the age where we experienced hopeless crushes on contemporaries or near contemporaries. Thus we suffered the anguish of romantic loss, perhaps cataloging that loss with the loss of beloved pets, possibly grandparents, possibly even parents.

The next step on the learning curve was risking a full commitment for some achievement. Ah, the hours you spent trying to master the techniques needed for being an effective center fielder in the game of baseball! They were satisfying hours, emphasizing some abilities you didn't know you had such as speed and a sense of where a given batter might hit the ball. But there was the sinking--no pun intended--feeling that went with the increased knowledge that you could not hit the curve ball, and the growing awareness of others with whom you played that your knowledge was no secret. It took some--but not many--years for you to recognize that you were not much for spectator sports; your interest was in playing. A fond, avid reader, your interest similarly was predicated--note the verb there--on writing. You read others to write you.

Hail, your arrival at the risk plateau! Everything you read involves a series of risks. It is not merely that Writer A is more advanced or prolific or proficient or even more insightful; the risk is that you might find yourself taking chances that, even if successful, are derivative or worse, which is to say cliche. How do you like that? You don't, any more than you like the fact that a risk may not pay off. No wonder you feel such an affinity for Wile E. Coyote, thinking himself shrewd in his agenda to bring down Roadrunner, but more often than not finding himself having just overrun the edge of a mesa, nothing under him now but cubic meters of warm desert air to cushion the inevitable fall. Wile E. Coyote's destiny is to be humiliated as a result of his attempts to catch Roadrunner. You found ways of publication early enough on to give you the (mixed metaphor coming here) albatross of the Young Wonder, and it took you considerable time to get beyond that.

What do you risk when at the very outset, you abandon thought and proceed as though seeking your way in the darkness?

The simple and simplistic answer--for they are the same--is fresh discovery. A more sophisticated answer is an accidental insight or implication that supplies new dimension to the work at hand.

Both these qualities relating to discovery and potential art via accident may as well appear as the result of thought and, indeed, careful planning--but as well, they may not. Both qualities do not put in guaranteed appearances when you abandon thought before plunging into a work, leaving you with the quandary of what to do as (1) the beginning, and (2) any moment of having found a narrative wall you cannot scale or otherwise avoid smirks at you while waiting for your decision.

You move forth in as close a relationship with one of your characters as you possibly can, reaching toward one of that character's goals, feeling as much as possible that character's emotions and needs. This empathy forces you toward visualizing a specific scene where the goal is alive and radiating within the character. Now an obstacle, reversal, or distraction--all three, if possible. Whatever comes first.

Time later, after it has been written, to approach the ways of making it seem plausible.

A little less fish, a lot bigger barrel, please

fish in a barrel--a metaphor for removing the need for skill in a contest or competition; tilting the conditions of a confrontation to a degree that insures easy solution; purging the doubt of final outcome from a dramatic narrative, thus an easy outcome from an endeavor.

This trope is an important one for the writer to remember. Readers do not want--cannot abide--results that come too easily. Even now, in the twenty-first century, there are those who think David got off too easily in his "contest" with Goliath, whom they try, in their revisionist history of the legendary sling-shot event, to represent as overly given to hubris. While it is true that readers respect and admire skill and cunning, they want these qualities to bring results after some pattern of trial and error. The scientist should not be allowed to come forth with a cure for cancer after spending only a week or two in the lab; she should have some added burden or incentive as a goal or as part of an emotional partnership approaching that of Capt. Ahab and Moby-Dick or Santiago and the great marlin.

The actual phrase "shooting fish in a barrel" has many possible meanings, beginning with the obvious question, is there any water in the barrel? Fish in a waterless barrel would likely be dead, making them a stationary target for the shooter. If there is indeed water in the barrel, discharging a gun into it would probably kill all the fish, thanks to the reverberation of sound. The common denominator in the concept is the absolute ease of outcome. The applicable dramatic denominator here is: Never take the reader where the reader wants to go, which is to say make things such as risk, misunderstanding, reversal, and surprise exponentially more likely to join the party as the story progresses.

A fish-in-a-barrel narrative is one in which the goal was not exquisite enough or was achieved too quickly and/or too easily, leaving some doubt in the reader's mind whether it was actually a "real" story or merely a shaggy-dog story. When a reader comes upon a story where some stated goal is achieved early on, the reader intuits the sinister hand of consequences, reaching metaphorically out to bring big time complication raining down on the protagonist. The reader waits for these complicating consequences.

Thomas Hardy rode into the twentieth century with a number of notable anti-fish-in-a-barrel novels, notable among them Jude, the Obscure, in which the protagonist had a specific goal for which he was emotionally and intellectually qualified and which, had Horatio Alger been the author, Jude would have at last achieved. But Hardy was Hardy, and Jude's seemingly reasonable goal met some fatal complications.

Bottom line: Something has to be given up, lost, or at least tempered before the goal is achieved, an observation that can lead to the ironic ending comparison between what has been gained and the price paid to achieve it. Not all endings are or need be ironic, yet it is nice to know that irony is there, waiting to be invited in.

Waiting for Mr. and Perhaps Ms. Right

anticipation--the visualization of a future event or condition by a character, usually accompanied by an emotion; an intimation of a forthcoming emotional and/or political climate; anxiety over potential consequences as exhibited by a character; a reader's expectations about the fate of characters, the turn of plot, and critical scenes within a long story,

Characters come into scenes with anticipation and intent; readers come into story and longer works with concerns and hopes which are massaged by the writer; writers come into story with anticipations just as well, with expectations of how the story will develop. 

 Thus anticipation becomes a metaphoric presence in an equation involving reversal of fortune, fortuitous turns, dumb luck, and a protracted campaign against some character's agenda. More so even than the characters, readers expect persons in a story to experience frustration, defeat, disappointment, from which point they reorganize, set forth once again to accomplish a cherished goal, mindful of all the successes and failures to be found in literature.

A character who has no Plan B has given up the right to have readers care; a character who anticipates an easy go in a venture, then proceeds to have just that very stress free time is robbing from the reader such senses as suspense, concern, and fear.

Some characters have as a trait the anticipation of success in every venture while others have been led by experience and propaganda to expect nothing. The anticipation of success, so says one philosophical side of an argument, passes along a greater burden; he or she who has neither anticipation nor expectation has nothing to lose.

Anticipation livens up a character, animates and motivates him, sets him up to go forth into some further scene and venture, there to meet the future which, in fiction, is sure to be a challenge.


romance--a type of genre in which a character is forced by circumstances of plot to make choices which will effect her lifestyle; the tracking of a attraction and desire between two persons as they pursue the potential of a partnership; a story in which two individuals seek a partnership based on love and affection; a dramatic narrative in which such added themes as adultery, career, homosexuality, death, old age, historical settings, and abusive behavior may be dealt with; a major pillar of genera fiction.

What's the Story?

reversal--one or more points within a story in which the plans of the protagonist takes a punishing hit a disastrous turn; one in a series of accelerating blows to the aspirations of a main character.

Story is enhanced by reversal of fortune; the more serious the reversal the higher the story is borne along. The more plot-driven, formulaic stories use reversal as a vehicle for making it appear to the reader that the lead character's aspirations are done for, that the lead is defeated in some vital enterprise, perhaps even a candidate for a place in the morgue. Without some form of reversal or a direct threat of it, there is no conflict. Without conflict, there is narrative only--but no story.

In novels and longer short stories, reversals may appear as minor irritations, increasing in intensity to the point where one or more of the characters will wonder aloud, "What more could possibly happen?" And once again the doctrine of the Unthinkable, come to pass is evidenced because--if the story is effective--something more always can and does happen.



story--a bundle of information bits about characters, strategically deployed to produce a series of on-going emotional responses, culminating in a thematic, emotional payoff. Story is the resulting product of one or more individuals who make plans, experience frustration or reversal, then achieve some progress toward their goal; it is a condition reflecting the pursuit of agenda against odds; at the very least it is a dramatic expression of volition and intent.

Longer stories, those over 10,000 words, often referred to as novellas or novelettes, depending on their length, actually move one or more characters fo some kind of change in personality, life style, or understanding. Shorter fictional works running from about fifty words to 10,000 are called short stories. Because of their comparative length in relation to the novel, there is less likelihood that shorter works can track a character from the point of awareness of a problem or goal all the way through a complex ending and subsequent change in the character's perspectives.

Short stories may end with a realization or epiphany of stunning emotional impact, as in James Joyce's memorable "The Dead." Stories may also end on a note in which one or more characters, having realized something, resolve to change a course of action, but this resolve stops short of actual change.

The structure of the contemporary short story has changed, moving away from the moral finality or tidy outcome of the ending, although beginnings often set a major character in a situation where there is some need for a decision. Middles provide occasion for tension and suspense by encouraging the turning up of dramatic heat on the protagonist and/or by adding an atmosphere of texture and complexity to the narrative. Endings propel the lead character to some point where their physical or emotional state produces a direct response from the reader. Most of Alice Munro's and William Trevor's short stories well illustrate the current elliptical state of endings in the short form.

Another characteristic of the aggressively contemporary story is the way authors break further away from the traditional narrative restraints and conventional formats. Accordingly, Rick Moody's memorable "Boys" abandons the tradition of a first- or third-person narrator; short stories by other writers will render narrative as a series of numbered paragraphs, and yet other writers will either shift from the usual past tense to a present tense delivery or depart fro conventional spelling and usage in favor of Internet chat room or electronic mail abbreviations, acronyms, or symbols.

From time to time, authors will also cast novels i the present tense, use a larger ensemble of characters as active narrators, abandon quotation marks or, as Vikram Seth did in his novel, The Golden Gate, render his entire text as a series of Petrarchan sonnets.

As a dramatic entity, story is nuanced and satisfying enough to allow adjectives to be attached to it, suggesting types such as mystery story, which by convention has come to mean a story with a focus on the discovery of at least one corpse and the detection of the individual who caused that corpse to come into being. A romance story is taken by readers to mean a series of events in which an appealing but not necessarily attractive protagonist is faced with the choice of romantic partners. A fantasy story is set in a more or less conventional venue where the outcome is influenced by a strong element of magic.

There are two basic approaches for the writer to take with the short story, the first being the literary equivalent of paint-by-the-numbers approach of arranging a lead character in a beginning-middle-end configuration in which a goal or problem is introduced, followed by a resolve to achieve the goal or solve the problem. Then comes frustration and reversal to the point where the goal or solution seems helpless or pointless. Finally, through action and some form of determination, an outcome is forged. Such formulaic approaches can be and often are satisfying, if only momentarily.

The second approach for the writer to take with the short story is to define his own vision of story, including how problems or goals are introduced, and how relatively transparent the characters are, pursuing the avenues of collision and opposition the characters experience to the point of some fireworks display of emotion that will end the story arc. This is not merely a case of the individual writer moving away from a one-size-fits all approach to story, rather a case of wanting to establish a defining take on what story should do and what it ought not do; this becomes a matter of the individual writer imposing his individual personality on the story form.

Making a Scene

1. The scene is the basic unit of drama.
2. Most short stories and novels are compilations of scenes strategically arranged for the most effective dramatic result (which is an emotional impact of some sort).
3. Scenes in novels and short stories are often--but not necessarily--connected by narrative, which is in effect stage directions writ large, including but not limited to a particular point of view, an indication of intent, a benchmark of story development, and/or a summary adduced or deduced from things characters have said, done, or not done in earlier scenes.
4. Scenes contain but are not limited to:
A. Landscape/setting
B. Characters
C. Dialogue
E. Tempo
F. Conflict
G. Suspense
H. Tension
I. Beats (events)
J. An awareness of power being exerted or exchanged
K. Reversals
L. Surprises
M. Point of view
5. Characters enter scenes with expectations of some outcome, a hot slot machine in a casino, an argument, approval, being ranked on, being ignored
6. Characters enter scenes believing they are right and/or entitled or...
7. Characters enter scenes wanting to restore some status or balance
8. Successful scenes may lack two or three of 1-7 supra, but fall into the category of endangered species if they lack four or more
9. Epistolary stories do not necessarily have scenes
10. Postmodern stories may have formats (emails, IMs, recorded messages) that do not contain scenes but which nevertheless suggest the presence of past, present, and future scenes
11. Thus scenes have an awareness of time past, time present, and time future
12. Scenes have some relevance however tenuous or thematic to the story at hand
13. A story without scenes is of a piece with a body lacking in cells
14. The arrangement of scenes in a story does not demand a strict chronology or, indeed, any kind of chronology
15. If feng shui works for rooms, there is no reason why it cannot be a useful concept for placement of the scenes in a story.