The Weekend Writer: Story and Short Stories

Two articles turned up recently on Medium regarding story, both of which started out good but then drifted off. They reminded me, though, that I think defining story is significant. And, it turns out, difficult.

In years past when I was trying to do it, I found confusing info. For instance, some people use plot and  story interchangeably. Plot is an element of story, so it cannot also be story.

My favorite definition of story comes from L. Rust Hills in his book Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular. He says that in a story, something happens to somebody and the somebody is changed as a result. I like to think of it as "something happens to somebody and so what."   

Relating to short stories, which I am more interested in writing than I used to be, Edgar Allan Poe had some significant things to say. They are summarized in How to Write a Short Story According to Edgar Allan Poe at Dark Media. One incident, Gail. One central event.

Hmm. With that in mind, maybe one of my short stories is really a tiny novel. 

The Weekend Writer

I noticed I haven't done a Weekend Writer post in a long time. Since I had this drafted, and it's a weekend, here we go.

 Where To Begin A Story?

This is a big deal in writing novels. Where do you actually begin a story? After lots of backstory? In the midst of action? How long will readers be willing to wait to get an idea of what your story is really about?

It's not unusual for writers to realize that their stories actually begin in Chapter Three, say, and they have to start doing some shifting, if not cutting altogether.

Where To Begin A Chapter?

This same question applies to chapters. You can find yourself writing pages and pages of interaction, dialogue, activity, and realize you’re just getting to the point. Do you need all this stuff you’ve churned out? Will anybody want to sit through this witty repartee or step by step movement through time to get to the meat, what the chapter is about?

What To Do? What To Do?

Take the attitude that every chapter should involve a change or a release of new information. Determine what that change or new information will be. Get to that change or where that change will happen as fast as you can. Get that new information out sooner rather than later. If you want to place it toward the end of the chapter in order to connect with the next one, make sure your chapters aren't too long.

It can be helpful to maintain an 'as-you-go' outline in which you list for each chapter what change has happened or what new information has been provided. Then you can be sure that you don't have any chapters that are just bloat.

Another Cooking Binge, Another Podcast: "The Memory Palace"

Podcasts Losing Their Attraction For Me

Last week I was just about ready to throw in the towel with podcasts. I'd been interested in listening to them while working in the kitchen as a way to take in work-related material while doing an unnecessary creative act. I did pick up some good information, particularly on content marketing, but I was trying and discarding a lot of podcasts. Things I liked the first time I listened to them got old fast when I tried them again. When pods involved more than one personality, the ratio of chitchat to important content was often pretty high. I guess you can tell you're an introvert when you can't even take listening to others having a good time.

Big Cooking Binge

But I really like something going on sound-wise when I'm working in the house. Music is a definite option. Nonetheless, last weekend, I was embarking on a big cooking binge and thought I'd take another quick look on-line. Somehow, I stumbled upon The Memory Palace.

All About The Story

The Memory Palace's creator, Nate DiMeo, describes his podcast as "a storytelling podcast and public radio segment about the past." He takes isolated historical events and creates a written narrative about them. If you go back to the early days of the podcast, the story is often just an account of something that happened. But eventually his pieces began to include something on the event's significance. For instance, in his story about nineteenth century singer Jenny Lind, he talks about a major difference between her time and ours. In her day, before sound could be recorded, before recording sound was even thought of, you could only hear music during a performance. In many cases, you would never have another opportunity to hear a singer. Did people even give that a thought? Or was it just a normal part of life?

The significance part of these stories is important. History isn't just a list of facts. It means something. And in terms of The Memory Palace being a storytelling podcast, meaning is huge. Many times without including an understanding of a real event, all a storyteller/writer is doing is passing on a list of things that happened. What does it all mean, Mr. Natural? brings a piece of writing to another level.

Another thing that's neat about these podcasts is they're short. So far, I don't think I've listened to one that's more than fifteen minutes. DiMeo is "interested in keeping things small because I was interested in the smallness of those things" (the historical "moments" he finds) "and the way they added up to a larger picture."

These short podcasts are like flash nonfiction. They are intense and complete. They give listeners an opportunity to see how someone finds meaning in an event in  a quick, concise way. They have the potential, I think, to become a painless model for looking for and finding stories.

Hope I still like them in a few weeks.

I heard about Weekend Cooking through blogging buddy Alex Waugh of The Children's War.  I most definitely cook on the weekend, and it is often somehow connected to writing or reading, as is most things in my life. So this weekend I am taking my first shot at joining the weekend cook/book people at Beth Fish Reads.

interested in keeping things small because I was interested in the smallness of those things and the way that they added up to a larger picture. - See more at: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/66573/20150707/interview-nate-dimeo-memory-palace-podcast.htm#sthash.mXTcUSxE.dpuf

The Weekend Writer: Story Vs. Situation. An Illustration From House Hunters.

Earlier this week, Liz B. from A Chair, a Fireplace and a Tea Cozy and I were discussing an episode of House Hunters over at Facebook. We'd both seen a show involving a couple who used what Liz called "alter egos." Husband and wife were of Italian heritage and would occasionally start talking to each other in stereotypical elderly Italian voices. They referred to themselves as something like Luigi and Lucinda when they were in old person Italian mode.

Liz and I were in agreement that this was an odd aspect of personality to want to expose on TV. However, the real estate agent for the episode, who was a friend of the wife, said the house hunting couple used the Luigi and Lucinda characters to help them work out disagreements. This made sense to me, though I still wouldn't have wanted strangers, or maybe even anyone else, to know about it.

What does this have to do with us? Well, Lucinda was pregnant. And while Liz and I were going back and forth about this, I pointed out that some day after that child is born, s/he is going to hear those voices coming out of Mom and Dad. I suggested it was a book idea.

But what kind of a book idea? 

That set-up--a child with parents who speak to each other in funny voices--is a situation. It is not a story idea because it doesn't describe something happening to someone and, even better, suggest why it matters.

Situation: A child has parents who speak to each other in accented, elderly voices.

Story Idea: A child, realizing the accented, elderly voices his parents sometimes use when speaking to one another actually belong to the spirits of people from the past who have forced themselves into mom and dad's bodies, must find a way to free his folks and bring happiness to his family for the first time.

A situation is static and doesn't give writers much to work with. A story idea is far more dynamic. It gives writers a direction to work in and even gives a hint of some action.

The Weekend Writer: Hunting For Your Story With Characters

Okay, so, if all you have for an idea is a situation or scene, how do you get to a real story idea, one in which something happens to somebody and so what? Well, remember the elements of fiction, the basic parts of a story? I mean the most basic parts that you may have studied in middle or high school, not more involved, elaborate ones from college or graduate school or...you know...somebody's blog? I'm talking character, setting, point of view, theme, and plot.  Every story has these elements/parts, and sometimes if you can work on developing those, you can use the material you generate to get to what happens to someone and why anyone would care.

Character--Try working on some characters, particularly the one who might end up being your protagonist. You can end up changing your mind about this. You can find various charts to help you do this. Some people suggest that these charts go over the top. How much does anyone need to know  about another human being, especially one who only exists in your mind and who you might end up deep-sixing before you start the writing? There's also the possibility of overwhelming yourself with detail. I used character charts for a couple of books, but  quite honestly, I haven't sold them. But beyond that, yes, working on characters can help you determine what these people have to do with your original situation or scene.

Some things to consider: How this character may change because of the scene, it's impact on him or her. Also, you can't go wrong dwelling on the classic journalistic questions of Who, What, When, Where, Why in relation to this character, not the story as a whole. Who is this person, of course, but additionally what is she doing in the scene/situation, when is this scene/situation going down, where, and, most importantly in my humble opinion, why.

This should give you some material that will intersect with the other elements when you start working with them. More on that next weekend.

The Weekend Writer: Droning On Some More About Story

Why am I going on and on about story when I'm supposed to be going on and on about writing and, specifically at this point, getting started on a writing project? You know, getting started on writing a story? I'm obsessing on this because story, in my meandering research on the subject, is very ill-defined. How can anyone do a job they can't define, if they don't really know what they're doing? I read once that organic writers (I'm one! I'm one!) will sometimes use an entire first draft just trying to find their story. That kind of thing makes writing hell, let me tell you. If we knew our story, if we could find the damn thing, before we started writing, wouldn't we work more efficiently and suffer less?

Well, that's my theory, and that's why I've developed a story obsession.

I've mentioned before that some people would say that story and plot are the same thing. There's a famous quote from E.M. Forster regarding the difference.

"The King died and then the Queen died is a story

The King died and then the Queen died from grief  is a plot."

I've never understood Forster's definitions. (But I never understood Forster's A Passage to India, either.) To me, "The King died and then the Queen died from grief" is the story. Something happened to someone and why it's significant. What Forster might have been trying to get at was that plot is supposed to have cause and effect--Plot Point A leads to Plot Point B, leads to C, and so one. Otherwise, you just have a list of unrelated events, as in "The King died and then the Queen died." But why is a list of unrelated events a story? 

"Story is an account of incidents or events that convey a deeper understanding of the human condition," according to Laura Cross at The Write Network. Doesn't that sound like "The King died and then the Queen died from grief?"  "Plot," Cross says, "is how those events are arranged to achieve an intended effect." 

So once we have our "account of incidents or events that convey a deeper understanding of the human condition" or our "something happened to somebody and so what?" we work those incidents to tell the story the way we want to.

The Weekend Writer: Seriously, You Ought To Have A Story

So last weekend we started talking about how our writer lives will be much easier if we begin writing with an idea to write about, an idea that involves something happening to somebody and the  significance of that event. We need an idea for a story.

In Wired for Story, Lisa Cron talks about how humans evolved listening to stories. The telling of and listening to stories was how we passed and received information, much of it being important information we needed to stay alive. We listened to stories about things that had happened to other people so we would have information about how they survived (or didn't) in various situations that we might find ourselves in at some point. A story well told could save lives. Our interest in them was a matter of life and death. Presumably those listeners who could  best appreciate a story were most likely to survive and get their genes into the gene pool. (That's me running with Cron's info.) Appreciation of and desire for story was a life skill. It is a life skill.

And, thus, having an idea for a story is important for writers in terms of humankind, the Big Picture, and all that. Additionally, it's important because every single thing writers do while writing must support that story idea.

So, seriously, you ought to have a story.

The Weekend Writer: First, You Really Ought To Have A Story

Okay, this week we are going to the very beginning of a piece of writing.

We can say all we want about wanting "to be" writers, but in order to write something, we need to have an idea to write about. In my experience, writing is a lot easier if that idea is an idea for a story and not for, say, a situation or a scene, a scene in the sense of a moment you see, not a literary scene.

For instance, you've been reading books with your kids about children being evacuated from London during the Blitz, and you think, Gee, what if alien children were evacuated to Earth because of a war on another world? And what if you saw the alien children playing out on the lawn at night with human children and they all look up at the sky, wondering if the war could find them?

If that's all you've got, that is not a story idea. It's just a situation and a scene. Getting a book from that will be difficult because there is no story there.

This should raise the question, What is a story? Unfortunately, this is not an easy question to answer. There's not a lot of agreement. Some authorities will say that a story is the things that happen in a story. Some will say that plot and story are the same thing, no difference. This is interesting because so many writers have problems with plot. So if you define story as plot, writers have problems with story.

I don't like the plot-is-story definition because plot, along with character, setting, theme, and point of view are all classic elements of fiction, or, I would say, story. How can something be both part of a thing and that thing? It's confusing and unhelpful to me as a writer.

I prefer Rust Hill's definition of a short story. "Something happens to somebody," he says over and over again, and that seems to me a good beginning definition for story, period. "Something happens to somebody." I'd add, "and so what?"

A story can be defined as something happening to somebody and its significance. Thus you know who the story is about, what happens to him or her, and why it is significant. If you know your story to begin with, you'll have a better chance at understanding your theme early on and coming up with plot, characters, setting, and voice should be dramatically easier.

So the story is the beginning.

Another Plotting Breakthrough?

In the spring and summer, I often replace some of my workout time with yard work. Yard work seems to be very conducive to breakout experiences.

I've been thinking about plotting recently, and yesterday I did a little research on the difference between plot vs. story. Many people use those words almost interchangeably, which I don't think is appropriate at all. Plot is part of story. How can it be defined as being the same thing? Character is part of story. Are we also going to define that interchangeably with story, too?

Here is my story definition (to date): Story is an account or retelling of something that happened told in a way that expresses meaning.

Here is my definition of plot: Plot is the action steps used to tell a story, each step having a causal relationship with the ones before and after it.

So here is the breakout thought I had this morning while cleaning up the periwinkle, totally as a result of my researching yesterday: My initial ideas for stories often come in just a scene or other very small element. My huge problems with plotting may come about because I don't yet have a story. Plot is part of story. It supports the story. The story ought to be there first. How can I create a plot, characters, setting, etc., when all I have for a starting off point is an elderly man suggesting to a young boy that he come to his camp with him and his wife and help him set up his computer? (Saving the Planet & Stuff) Or  a group of kids, one of them an alien, playing on the lawn in the evening and looking up at the sky because they know a war is being fought on another world? (Becoming Greg and Emma, which hasn't yet sold.)

When I'm getting started struggling with a new writing project, I'm not just struggling because I have no plot. I'm struggling because I haven't yet found the story that a scene or question has suggested to me.

Summer Study

Over the summer I've been trying to study up on the writing of short stories, since I've had such stunning lack of success selling the things. I've just finished reading Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular by Rust Hills, about whom I can find very little on-line, though he appears to have been an editor for, I believe, Esquire. I chose this book, quite honestly, because it was the only one on writing short stories I could find in two different bookstores.

I got a lot out of reading this book, a lot of stuff I hadn't heard of before--the difference between static action and dynamic action, for instance. I tend to write slice-of-life types of stories in which I try to expose someone's soul. I like to write about characters who aren't aware, themselves, of what they're really like. Hills insists over and over again that short stories should be about something happening to someone--the someone should change as a result of something happening to her. In my stories the main characters often don't change. What's supposed to change is the readers' perception of her.

Hmmm. Perhaps this is what I've been doing wrong?

I think reading this book has actually changed how I read short stories. As I'm reading them, I am aware when they seem to fit into Hills' philosophy. For instance, on July 3 The Hartford Courant's Northeast Magazine (a publication I'm not terribly fond of, as a general rule) carried two marvelous short stories. As I was reading Experiment by Jennifer Vanderbes and Monsters by Sabina Murray, I kept thinking, "Yes! Yes! That's exactly what Rust Hills was talking about!"

I must say, though, that I also found Hills' book somewhat disorganized and rambly. I need organization to help me retain information. After getting about halfway through the book, I had to go back and take notes to try to get a better grasp on the content. Hills has a very conversational style that seems very down-to-earth on the first page. By the middle of the book, it starts to become really grating.

I mentioned this book in this blog back at the end of April. It really isn't that long. It shouldn't have taken me two months to read it. Wanting to remember what I was reading slowed me down.