March 30, 2021

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 490

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Regarding horror, I found this insight in line with WIRED FOR STORY: “ We seek out…stories which give us a place to put our fears…Stories that frighten us or unsettle us - not just horror stories, but ones that make us uncomfortable or that strike a chord somewhere deep inside - give us the means to explore the things that scare us…” – Lou Morgan (The Guardian)


H Trope: Abandoned Malls
Current Event: http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/12/travel/abandoned-buildings-irpt/

Kehlanna McGee and Trayvon Dehvahn crouched in an overgrown bit of woods that had sprung up around a drainage ditch outside the four-meter-tall cyclone fence, staring at the abandoned mall beyond. She said, “Wha’d’you think they’re hiding?”

Trayvon laughed softly and said, “A shameful past of excess spending at cheesy, overpriced, trendy shops that sold mostly lingerie and salt and pepper shakers?”

Kehlanna bumped him with her shoulder, “Seriously.” She gestured. A pair of city black and white police cars sat in the lot along with another pair of silver cars emblazoned with a security logo.

“I am being serious,” he said, bumping her back.

She rolled her eyes and said, “Salt-and-pepper shakers are so 1950s...”

“Thereby retro and incredibly popular now.”

“Ah!” she exclaimed, lifting a finger, “Now I know you’re wrong.” She consulted her palmtablet and after a few finger swipes, said, “ ‘Arbor Mills Mall, was the destination of a generation of shoppers starting the year it opened in 2001 and was decommissioned,” she paused and rolled her eyes, muttering, “...makes it sound like it was an important aircraft carrier or something...in 2024...” she paused then said, “That’s only half a generation.”

“Be that as it may, are we going in or are we just going to stand here talking about generations and malls?”

“In,” she said suddenly. “But we’re going to have to go back to the trailer and get a few things.” She paused, “And wait until it’s dark.”

Trayvon grinned, nodded and headed for where they’d parked trailer two kilometers away.

***

Four hours later, dressed in knee-high rubber boots and wearing black, they made their way silently through the culvert. No one had taken time to fence it, so they easily slipped under the meager security. Trayvon tapped his earpiece and subvocalized, “What are we expecting to find in here?”

“Treasure.”

He couldn’t help but snort, and Kehlanna hissed at him, sub-vocalizing, “Quiet or they’ll hear us.”

“I’m not the one hissing like a punctured whipped cream can.”

They moved as far as they could in the ravine, then climbed at a likely spot. His night goggles confirmed they were only six meters short of their goal. They scanned for the police and security cars, saw neither, so Trayvon stood up and aimed a very-illegal device at the surface between them and the abandoned mall. After a moment, he subbed, “No active pressure security spots and no evidence of landmines.”

“Landmines?” Khehlanna subbed.

“You said there’s treasure. People protect treasure with landmines and lasers and other high tech gadgets. I was checking for everything.”

She nodded in the darkness a moment later, then subbed, “Let’s go. The map I found has a maintenance door into the rear of one of the anchor stores straight ahead.” She paused, then went up the embankment and scurried across the broken asphalt. He followed three minutes later. By then, she’d cut through the locking mechanism of the door with an infrared laser. Trayvon sprayed the old hinges with a silent stream of lubricant and then door swung open a moment later as Kehlanna pulled it.

They entered the darkness and the goggles switched to a sonar image – the power had been cut to the building a decade earlier when it closed in order to prevent fires. They avoided collapsed ceiling tiles and piles of mouldering cardboard boxes. Trayvon subbed, “If this is the ‘treasure’ we can expect to find, we might as well leave right now.”

“Nah. There has to be something in here that those people are protecting.”

“Hmmm.”

They exited the back room of the store and passed through piles of stacked shelving, display cases, light fixtures, and garbage until they reached the mall proper. In front of him, Kehlanna stopped abruptly and cursed out loud rather than subbing.

Trayvon subbed, “Shut up! I can’t tell if there are audio security pickups in here...” He stopped as he pulled up alongside her. Outside the door with its corroding security gate, a group of three people, linked together by rope tie around their necks, passed by. The figure at the front of their line, holding the rope and wearing an army-style helmet that was twice as large as Trayvon had ever seen before, was a giant creature that looked for all the world, like yeti…

Names: ♀ American, Irish ; ♂ American, Greek

Image: https://cdn.britannica.com/40/11740-004-50816EB1/Boris-Karloff-Frankenstein-monster.jpg

March 27, 2021

Slice of PIE: The Question I Should Be Asking: “Why Don’t I QUIT Writing?”

This essay has been revised and updated from the version that appeared on June 5, 2011, and again since January 2020


Long ago, in this very galaxy, I wrote a column for an ancient blogsite called FRIDAY CHALLENGE in which I answered the question, “Why Do We Write?” I admit, I had a brilliant answer! (;-)) You can read my first thoughts here: http://thefridaychallenge.blogspot.com/2010/12/why-we-write_19.html

Since then though, I’ve had second thoughts about how important this question is to ask.

Let me back up about fifteen years, to the year of Clarke’s First Odyssey. The seed for this thought fell on the ground the first time. My wife and two young kids were out garage-saling. We stopped at a house that had kid’s toys and clothing and got out. While my wife checked for treasures, I wandered into the garage.

[Let me pause in the story to give you a bit of local tradition. While every house I know of has a car garage – it’s hard to start a car that’s been sitting out directly exposed to -27 cold for any length of time – when we build the garages, most of us don’t INSULATE them. No reason; like I said, it’s a tradition. Typically, the interior of a garage presents an image of bare pine studs with some sort of exterior insulation laid over the outside on which clapboard or stucco or other siding is attached. From the studs hang numerous brackets, hooks, pegboards, sheet rock, shelves and electrical conduit or Romex® cable and either bare incandescent light sockets and bulbs or an arrangement of fluorescent fixtures and bulbs. Garages are usually utilitarian spaces reserved for cars, tools, lawn mowers, canoes, fertilizer spreader, grass-clipping catchers, roof rakes, snow blowers, garden implements and snow shovels.]

In the garage – in addition to the traditional décor – every space between the studs had a 14-inch piece of pine stud nailed into place at 12 or so inch vertical intervals. On each of the 14-inch pieces, paperback novels were packed side-by-side from the base plate to the rafters.

There were hundreds of books. Possibly thousands and all of the books were marked FOR SALE. I started in a corner and began to scan for titles that contained the words “star”, “alien”, “invasion”, the name of a real planet, a name that sounded like the name of a planet or anything that looked in any way “science fiction-y”

A guy approached me and asked, “Lookin’ for something in particular?”

He was only a little older than me and acted like this was his place, so I said, “Are all of those yours?”

Grinning, he nodded and said, “I’ve read every one of them, too!”

I’d noticed that while it was a broad selection, it seemed to be heavily weighted toward horror, romance and thriller. I was impressed. “All of them?”

“I was gonna be a writer, so I was told I had to read not only in the genre I wanted to break into, but outside of it as well. And I was supposed to keep current, too.”

I wanted to be a writer when I grew up, too! I said, “Did you get many things published?” Thinking I’d found a writer-soul-mate a mere four blocks from my home, I found my heart was racing. I confess was hanging on his every word.

Shaking his head, he replied, “Nope, so I gave up.” He meandered away to help someone fill a paper grocery bag with books, leaving me startled and heart-broken.

At that point in my career, I had no professional publications despite decades of throwing short stories, essays and novels at the heavy, quarry-stone walls of the Citadel of the Editarchs. Even then, standing in that slightly dank garage, I didn’t seriously consider giving up.

Why?

In the cold, hard light of the up-side of the third decade of the 21st Century, I have to honestly say to myself, “Why don’t you just give up? Why don’t you take up a hobby in which you might not only stand a chance of showing improvement, you might even take lessons! You’ll NEVER get really published!”

Of course, since then, I’ve had 73 professional publications, an uncounted number of unpaid publications that others read and comment on (and not including my personal blogs), and I have international publications and the place of a "regular" in one prominent magazine. Yet even today, I confess I still feel that tug of rationality.

Then my inner writer exclaims, “What? Quit writing and give up this luxurious life of fame and fortune? ‘Get thee behind me, Satan!’”

My honest conscience fires back, “I’ll bet you have no idea how many times you’ve had stories, queries, articles and essays rejected.” It adds in a perfect Steve Zahn rendition of his quip from YOU’VE GOT MAIL, “As far as I can tell, the internet is just a new way to get rejected by women.” It adds in a snide voice, “You’ve submitted 973 times and published 93 manuscripts. That’s a pub rate of 9.5% since 1990. Pathetic!”

The inner writer then points out, “While that may be true, the earlier years were typically 0,1, or 2% pub rates. Last year you had only 2 of 32 manuscripts published. That’s only 9.3%, and you didn’t even get paid for either one of those!”

“True, but half of them were REQUESTED! And you’ve sort of become a kind-of regular at ANALOG!”

The argument subsides and I’m left wondering what was it, standing in that garage twenty years ago, that made me go back and keep writing when every logical bone in my body and the thousands of paperbacks on the wall said, “Take up STAR TREK model building! At least you’ll have something to show for it!”?

While there was probably a measure of sheer cussedness in there, I think what kept me going was a deep desire to speak my mind in a way that was so entertaining that no one would realize that I’d spoken it.

Boiled down to its bare bones and reconstructed like a dinosaur skeleton, I find that the reason I’ve kept on writing since I was thirteen might be summed up in the words of Jeremiah, “…read from the scroll which you have written at My dictation the words of the Lord to the people in the Lord’s house on a fast day. And you shall read them to all the people of Judah who come from their cities.” Jeremiah 36:6 (NASB)

I work to write what God directs me to – sometimes better than at other times. But always I want to write his word so that others can read them and see His glory and salvation.

And THAT’S the real reason I don’t quit, and after rereading this in 2021, in the waning months of the COVID19 pandemic, it still all holds true…

Image: https://thewornbookmark.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/lr-b-small-3.jpg

March 23, 2021

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 489

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Regarding Fantasy, this insight was startling: “I see the fantasy genre as an ever-shifting metaphor for life in this world, an innocuous medium that allows the author to examine difficult, even controversial, subjects with impunity. Honor, religion, politics, nobility, integrity, greed—we’ve an endless list of ideals to be dissected and explored. And maybe learned from.” – Melissa McPhail.


F Trope: good versus evil

Khloe Garcia shook her head and said, “I don’t think there’s anything to the whole idea that there’s even such a thing as ‘good versus evil’.”

Glaring at her, Santiago Tremblay said, “You’re not serious, are you?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? Look around you. Nothing is clearly good or evil. Every single time we’ve called something ‘evil’, it’s all a matter of perspective. One side of the disagreement says they’re good and the other side’s evil. The other side…”

“What was the good side of Nazi Germany?”

She rolled her eyes, “That’s history. This is the middle of the 21st Century. Socially, we’ve evolved far away from any kind of clear demarcation of ‘good’ and evil’.”

“I’ll give you five seconds to tell me the ‘good’ side of Nine-Eleven-Oh-One.”

“History. There’s nothing comparable since the turn of the century.”

“So Humanity has evolved socially that much in forty-three years?”

“Sure. It’s possible...”

“Unlikely.” He paused then said, “So you wouldn’t have any trouble summoning a demon then? Because...”

“Demons are mythological creatures no more real than Godzilla...”

He pulled a heavy book from the backpack he’d dropped on her roommate’s bed when he came into her dorm room and set it down on her desk, letting it fall open. “So you won’t mind if I read this curse from this book. It was in the ‘Religion’ section of the old library – you know, the place they kept books before ebooks replaced everything. I bought it. Paid the librarian four thousand...”

She hesitated then said, “Read your stupid curse and we’ll see how real it is.”

He shrugged and read the words casually. He waited. She waited. Nothing happened. “See what I mean?”

He nodded slowly. “OK. I’ll just summon a demon for fun, then.” He bent over the book and when he stood up, he looked up at her, then down at the book and began to read. Not casually this time, but with a voice changed. A voice that spoke of education. Money. A voice rich in timbre and facile with the words it read.

The floor of the room began to tremble...

Names: ♀ Canada, Mexico; ♂ Mexico, Canada

March 20, 2021

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY: Climate Fiction (and the Apocalypse Thereof) as an Exploration of Climate Solutions

Using the Programme Guide of the 2020 World Science Fiction Convention, ConZEALAND (The First Virtual World Science Fiction Convention), I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. I will be using the events to drive me to distraction or revelation – as the case may be. The link is provided below where this appeared on Sunday, August 2, 2020 at 0900 hours (aka 9:00 am).

Living and Reading the Apocalypse: Ecological Disaster and Science Fiction
Post-apocalyptic fiction provides pathways for navigating ecological apocalypse. These crucial imaginings are particularly relevant to current environmental issues such as climate change and biodiversity loss.


Octavia Cade: writer
Julie Hofmann: AD Medievalist
Dr Gillian Polack: writer, editor, historian and teacher

Despite my rants against “dystopian literature”, a chronological descendant of “apocalyptic literature) (https://www.sfwa.org/2012/07/11/guest-post-when-did-science-fiction-and-apocalypse-become-interchangeable/) and a recent essay reflecting on the drift toward “dark and gritty realism” in the “literature of ideas”, aka Science Fiction here (http://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/2021/03/putting-my-writing-where-my-mouth-is-by.html) – I had NEVER thought about this kind of literature as a drill for navigating an ecological apocalypse!

Briefly looking at Cade’s and Polack’s books give me a hint that they’re about positing a climate-destroyed world and what resilient life and characters might do. As a Medievalist, I suspect Ms. Hofmann’s primary interest is in how society will collapse, reverting to Medieval times, which Wikipedia suggests is “One misconception, first propagated in the 19th century and still very common, is that all people in the Middle Ages believed that the Earth was flat…lecturers in the medieval universities commonly argued that evidence showed the Earth was a sphere…Christian scholar[s] of the Middle Ages…acknowledge[d the] [Earth's] sphericity and even know its approximate circumference’. Other misconceptions: ‘the Church prohibited autopsies and dissections during the Middle Ages’, ‘the rise of Christianity killed off ancient science’, or ‘the medieval Christian Church suppressed the growth of natural philosophy’, are all cited by Numbers as examples of widely popular myths that still pass as historical truth, although they are not supported by historical research.’”

I find this interesting, especially because outsiders (those who are not in the Christian faith) in the third decade of the 21st Century seem certain that climate apocalypse will lead quickly to the death of science-as-we-know-it. As a Christian myself, I wonder how many Christians doubt Climate Change – certainly it’s more than “none” (see the NPR podcast below). I certainly don’t doubt that the climate is changing, it just irritates me that some anthropogenic climate change people keep messing with the very definition of what “climate” is. For example, Wikipedia writes that “Climate is the long-term average of weather, typically averaged over a period of 30 years.” This definition was posted in 2016. The sentence following the first states, “More rigorously, it denotes the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorological variables that are commonly measured are temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, and precipitation. In a broader sense, climate is the state of the components of the climate system, which includes the ocean and ice on Earth. The climate of a location is affected by its latitude, terrain, and altitude, as well as nearby water bodies and their currents.” On a kids website, the definition was a bit closer to the definition my professor used in 1979 for climate (which has obviously been altered since then to fit the data: “Climate is the average weather in a place over many years. While the weather can change in just a few hours, climate takes hundreds, thousands, even millions of years to change.”

By limiting “climate” to a LESS RIGOROUS period of 30 years, it’s easy to say that Humans have dramatically altered the climate of Earth – that’s like since 1991... Of course, the next sentence informs me that between August 2020 to today, March 2121, the climate of Earth has changed drastically: six months ago, the climate conditions were as follows: T = H 83F, L 69F (avg: 76F) ; it was sunny, and the wind was out of the south. Humidity was in the mid-to-low 80%s, barometric pressure was steady at 30.03.

Today, T= H 54F, L 34F (avg: 44F). It is sunny, the wind is out of the south at 14 mph. Humidity is 27%, barometric pressure is steady at 30.5. By the somewhat restrictive definition that is currently in use, the climate in Minnesota has altered dramatically.

None of those changes has anything to do with Humans. They’re seasonal temperature variations that happen over a period of 12 months.

Has the climate in Minnesota changed? Yes.

10,000 years ago, where I am sitting as I write this, there was a solid sheet of glacial ice OVER A MILE THICK. I have water skied on a lake that once held the remnant of a piece of ice broken off of the main glacier.

Did I cause it? No. In fact, at that time, the entirety of Human population would have fit into present-day Minneapolis or Bangkok (between 1 and 10 million Humans), though widely scattered and occupying parts of every continent except Antarctica. Absolutely the climate has changed over the past 10,000 years. 1000 years? Likely, yes, as there were major population centers all over the planet. https://media.springernature.com/lw685/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1038%2Fsdata.2016.34/MediaObjects/41597_2016_Article_BFsdata201634_Fig5_HTML.jpg?as=webp

But had the CLIMATE changed because of Humanity? THAT is the question I shake my head at when climate change scientists answer with a resounding “Yes!”

I think it’s unlikely, even Climate Change Scientists can only demonstrate that anthropogenic climate change has taken place in the past 250 years or so (coinciding with the Industrial Revolution). Prior to that, evidence becomes hard to find and records are spotty and certainly not gathered anywhere – though there are absolutely records of rainfall, temperatures, weather, and insect plagues. All of that data is connected solely to agriculture.

Currently, the reason that the definition of “climate” has changed and grown repeatedly shorter is to accommodate the impact of Humans. Why? Because…well, they’re worried that people who aren’t scientists are ruining the world. Scientists aren’t, because knowing what they know, they work twice as hard to minimize their carbon footprint; drive electric cars, often do “staycations” instead of flying to Paris and Cancun to attend Climate Change Conferences, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Climate_Change_conference) and shop local.

The purpose of Climate Speculative Fiction or CliFi (coined by NPR on August 20, 2013) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_fiction) is to explore both the dangers climate change poses and (sometimes) offering ideas to either ameliorate climate change or alter society to survive climate change. The ideas are flowing, though sometimes they submerge the story in blame and shame and preening, but peeking behind the virtue signaling, I’ve seen some fascinating ideas and explorations of methods and dangers of restoring balance to Earth’s climate.

Program Book: https://sites.grenadine.co/sites/conzealand/en/conzealand/schedule, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages#Modern_perceptions, https://www.npr.org/2020/10/14/923715751/the-loneliness-of-the-climate-change-christian, https://eo.ucar.edu/kids/green/what1.htm
Image: https://mrbdc.mnsu.edu/sites/mrbdc.mnsu.edu/files/public/mnbasin/fact_sheets/graphics/glaciers/us_glacier.gif

March 16, 2021

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 488

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Octavia Butler said, “SF doesn’t really mean anything at all, except that if you use science, you should use it correctly, and if you use your imagination to extend it beyond what we already know, you should do that intelligently.”

SF Trope: Human Interplanetary Voyaging!
Current Event: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/04/11/nuclear-fusion-rocket-could-reach-mars-in-30-days/
Historical Background: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct

Zubrinka Lakewood glanced at Penelope Ok.

Penelope glared back at him.

Zu said, “So, how are we supposed to get out of this?”

Aware of the cameras trained on them from all sides as well as their distance from anything she could push off of, Pen replied, “We’re supposed to work together...”

“Duh,” snapped Zu. “They want us to make nice so we can pretend to work together on our way to Mars.” He shrugged and floated slightly off kilter from Pen’s orientation.

“We’re not supposed to ‘make nice’, we’re supposed to work...”

“Yeah, I know. I was in the same class you were.”

“What was your avatar?”

Zu snorted. “Same as yours, what do you think?”

Pen snorted and flapped her hands experimentally. She floated in the opposite direction of Zu, leaving them with their heads at a ninety-degree angle. “So what are we going to do? The whole station is watching.”

Zu made a face, for a second his obnoxious self-confidence disappearing into worry. Then he said, “I could fart.”

Pen sighed, sympathy for him draining away. “This is a competition even though it’s a competition to see how well we can work together.”

“So I can work together better than you can.”

She blinked at him then reached out and grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling him until they were nose-to-nose, “We can fight about it...”

Names: ♀ Greece, Turkey ; ♂ Ukraine, America; ♀
Image: https://mk0spaceflightnoa02a.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/49956692363_f73a7a6a69_k.jpg

March 13, 2021

WRITING ADVICE: Short Stories – Advice and Observation #9: William Sydney Porter “& Me”

In this feature, I’ll be looking at “advice” for writing short stories – not from me, but from other short story writers. In speculative fiction, “short” has very carefully delineated categories: “The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America specifies word lengths for each category of its Nebula award categories by word count; Novel 40,000 words or over; Novella 17,500 to 39,999 words; Novelette 7,500 to 17,499 words; Short story under 7,500 words.”

I’m going to use advice from people who, in addition to writing novels, have also spent plenty of time “interning” with short stories. While most of them are speculative fiction writers, I’ll also be looking at plain, old, effective short story writers. The advice will be in the form of one or several quotes off of which I’ll jump and connect it with my own writing experience. While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do most of the professional writers...someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. When I started this blog, that was NOT true, so I may have reached a point where my own advice is reasonably good. We shall see! Hemingway’s quote above will now remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales! As always, your comments are welcome!

Without further ado, short story observations by William Sydney Porter – with a few from myself…

I suppose I should start off by saying that William Sydney Porter is most famously known as O. Henry…

Unfortunately, he only gave one interview during his career, and that was in 1909. A long-time recluse, all the world ever saw of him was his work. I’ll be drawing heavily from the interview. However, other people have analyzed his works as well and some have deduced lessons from O. Henry. Herewith, I offer a few.

To begin, “[Poet] James Whitcomb Riley thought of [Porter] only as a literary genius who with pen wand conjures from his ink pot ‘delectables conglomerate…In spite of the fact that for the past six or seven years O. Henry has been one of the most popular short-story writers in America… acclaimed by many…as one of the greatest of this country's tellers of short tales.”

Physically, at the time the interviewer described him as “short, stocky, broad-shouldered, ruddy-faced, clear-eyed, and none of his hair missing. He has none of the wan intellectuality, none of the pale aestheticisms that are conventional parts of the make-up of the literary lions that disport themselves at afternoon tea parties, One can readily see that he is the natural father of ‘the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating’, which moral reflection is the thread upon which most of his stories are strung.”

OK – now we’re getting somewhere. I’m going to gather all of these threads together at the end of this essay and reflect on how his work ethic and mine coincide or clash.

After several…florid starts at various careers, he started to write in earnest in New Orleans: “I sent stories to newspapers, weeklies, and magazines all over the country. Rejections? Lordy, I should say I did have rejections, but I never took them to heart. I just stuck new stamps on the stories and sent them out again. And in their journeying to and fro all the stories finally landed in offices where they found a welcome. I can say that I never wrote anything that, sooner or later, hasn't been accepted.”

The interviewer asked for advice to young writers, “…[Here’s] the whole secret of short story writing…Rule I: Write stories that please yourself. There is no Rule II…If you can't write a story that pleases yourself you’ll never please the public. But in writing the story forget the public…I get a story thoroughly in mind before I sit down at my writing table. Then I write it out quickly; and, without revising it mail it to the editor. In this way I am able to judge my stories as the public judges them. I've seen stories in print that I wouldn't recognize as my own.”

The interview concluded with the announcement that he was writing a novel that would soon be published. But just before that, he said, “…change Twenty-third Street in one of my New York stories to Main Street, rub out the Flatiron Building, and put in the Town Hall and the story will fit just as truly in any up-State town…So long as a story is true to human nature all you need do is change the local color to make it fit in any town North, East, South, or West. If you have the right kind of an eye--the kind that can disregard high hats, cutaway coats, and trolley cars--you can see all the characters in the Arabian Nights parading up and down Broadway at midday.”

The essay points out aspects of what made – and continue to make –O. Henry’s work vivid. “…humorous languages. He is a master of using paronomasia [aka “word play”, in its crudest form, “puns”], metaphor, irony...skilled in conceiving the surprise but logical ending…the result always changes suddenly and contrary to readers' expectations. The unexpected endings can make people think more about the problems or situations that the story has revealed…[He writes in] the style of “tearful smile”, which is the combination of comedy and tragedy…even though the ending is sad, there are usually some hopes and lights in it.”

And finally, O. Henry wrote with common themes: “…deception (such as turning the tables on Haroun Al-Raschid,” the caliph ancient time who would mingle with the common people), mistaken identity, the effects of coincidence, the unchangeable nature of the fate and the resolution of seemingly unsolvable difficulties separating two lovers… the pretense and reversal of fate, discovery and initiation through adventure, the city as a playground for imagination, and the basic yearning of all humanity.”

Everyone knows that O. Henry was an absolute master of the surprise ending: “[His stories] lead you on it the beginning with a thought that everything is going according to plan. He lets the reader…think that we have it figured out, [but] He has something waiting for us at the end of the book. Something that would seem like it came out of nowhere” but is perfectly logical on later reflection!

It's clear that this master had a way with words, but is it something someone like me could imitate?

Maybe. Laid out plainly, there are six things that O. Henry did:

1) Start with a quick opening that pulls the reader into the action with surefire ‘hook’
2) Add a confiding narrator who holds back important information until the last moment
3) Write with a pleasant and worldly wise tone including chitchat, wit, satire, philosophy, and swank (ie, behavior, talk, or display intended to impress others)
4) The open-minded use of a ‘humane renegade’
5) Make sure you add a dash of coincidence usually with a reversal in which everything is saved and set right
6) Last of course, is his signature surprise ending

In my own writing, I’ve learned to do the first. I’ve practiced so much that I can usually turn out a quick hook. The second thing may have changed since the early 20th Century. I’ve heard it said that we don’t hold ANYTHING back – at least not important information. That said, it’s no problem if we convey information that SEEMS unimportant but IS…and this is a problem that can only be resolved through practice.

My narrators seem to be one of my weaknesses. Sometimes I can create great ones, other times, they fall flat and are boring. Even to me – I’ve discovered that the fourth viewpoint character in my WIP is boring…who knew? I can communicate well with realistic dialogue, but wit, satire, and swank…hmmm. Not so much.

The “human renegade” is a concept I never considered. BUT, looking at some of my favorite books and stories, I can easily see the character now. That’s something I’ll have to work on. As for coincidence, I’ve heard it said many times that our writing isn’t REAL LIFE…it’s LIKE real life with all the boring parts cut out. I happen to prefer “happy endings” to ones where the hero dies a gruesome death through no fault of their own. OTOH, if you’ve ever read Craig Johnson’s LONGMIRE books, you know that it’s contrived coincidence that has kept him alive through twenty-three stories, novellas, and books!

And the surprise ending – sometimes known as the “punchline”. There are editors that abhor this kind of writing, but I think people still LIKE the unexpected. When novels and stories pretend to mimic the random disasters of life, it makes me put the book down and say, “If I wanted to read something realistic, I’d go to BBC.com…” I don’t always want to read something that’s realistic. Sometimes I need to read something that SEEMS realistic, but isn’t at all.

Anyway, I’ve learned a bit from this. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go make some changes to my WIP!

References:
The only interview O. Henry ever gave: https://library.greensboro-nc.gov/research/north-carolina-collection/o-henry-portal/resources-at-the-greensboro-public-library/o-henry-s-only-interview
A Brief Analysis of the Typical Writing Styles of O. Henry: https://www.atlantis-press.com/proceedings/iconfem-16/25867465#:~:text=Another%20writing%20style%20of%20his,surprising%20endings%2C%20and%20tearful%20smile.
Themes, Style, and Technique of O Henry: https://www.ukessays.com/essays/english-literature/themes-styles-techniques-ohenry.php
Image: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41JNnybcihL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

March 9, 2021

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 487

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Regarding horror, I found this insight in line with WIRED FOR STORY: “ We seek out…stories which give us a place to put our fears…Stories that frighten us or unsettle us - not just horror stories, but ones that make us uncomfortable or that strike a chord somewhere deep inside - give us the means to explore the things that scare us…” – Lou Morgan (The Guardian)

H Trope: creepy basements
Current Event: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2175774/JonBenet-Ramsey-murder-New-clues-revealed-detective-shed-new-light-case.html

Mattie Capp Washington – I hated her. She was cute where I was ugly; she was short where I was tall; she was light where I was dark; she was popular where the world loathed me.

Everyone mourns her passing which the police and the rest of the country suspected was a murder. I’m the only one who actually saw anything, but if I talk about it, then I’ll be a suspect and even though their suspicions wouldn’t be entirely true, it would probably be enough to convict me.

It would certainly be enough to get me sent to the electric chair (if they had one any more) in the courtroom of public opinion.

I suppose I should back up a bit. I could probably start at the part where the world loathed me. I’m pretty sure you think I’m exaggerating when I say that, because there’s pretty much nothing that the world uniformly loathes. On the other hand, a paper I read once stated, “In virtually every culture there has existed some word for evil, a universal, linguistic acknowledgment of the archetypal presence of ‘something that brings sorrow, distress, or calamity...’”

Even the etymological root of the word is practically prehistoric! “PIE *upelo-, from root *wap- ‘bad, evil’ (source also of Hittite huwapp- ‘evil’). “this word is the most comprehensive adjectival expression of disapproval, dislike or disparagement" [OED]. Evil was the word the Anglo-Saxons used where we would use bad, cruel, unskillful, defective (adj.), or harm (n.), crime, misfortune, disease (n.)”

So if every culture has a word for it, then the word must have been invented to describe something – ‘cuz that’s what Humans do. We put labels on stuff as soon as we want to get a handle on it. It’d be interesting to see which came first – the word for “evil” or the word for “God”.

I’m it – the thing that every culture has named. And almost without exception, I live in dark places. In the middle of the 21st Century, while there aren’t many caves left, there are lots and lots of basements. That’s where you’ll usually find me – evil lurking in basements.

It’s funny, ‘cuz bad guys always act like they’re looking for me. The real nut cases say that they’re seeking me to worship me. Those are the ones that amuse me the most because no matter how hard they tried to find me, no matter how many millions of dollars they spent or how many people they murdered to come to me face-to-face, the second they look at me, they completely lose it and beg to leave; they grovel, roll around on the ground, mess themselves and volunteer to sacrifice to me anything and everything they have.

And I’m not even Incarnate – I’m excarnate. I’m the one who DOES the dirty work because I am the one who is Unmade flesh. I was alive on Earth at one time and when I joined the ranks I became excarnate and now I serve. In basements. All the time.

Someone came down the stairs: thud, thud, thud; male heaviness. The young Ms. Washington was here, too. But there might have been a surprise or two in the offing.

I smiled an excarnate smile and opened my mouth.

Names: Multiple origins (see above) – “this word is the most comprehensive adjectival expression of disapproval, dislike or disparagement”
Image: https://cdn.britannica.com/40/11740-004-50816EB1/Boris-Karloff-Frankenstein-monster.jpg

March 6, 2021

WRITING ADVICE: What Went RIGHT #49…With Articles! (Several Articles, see links below for some of them…)

In September of 2007, I started this blog with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, Lin Oliver speak at a convention hosted by the Minnesota Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Since then, I have shared (with their permission) and applied the writing wisdom of Lin Oliver, Jack McDevitt, Nathan Bransford, Mike Duran, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, SL Veihl, Bruce Bethke, Julie Czerneda and Lisa Cron. Together they write in genres broad and deep, and have acted as agents, editors, publishers, columnists, and teachers. Since then, I figured I’ve got enough publications now that I can share some of the things I did “right” and I’m busy sharing that with you.


While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do all professional writers...someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. When I started this blog, that was NOT true, so I may have reached a point where my own advice is reasonably good. We shall see! Hemingway’s quote above will now remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales.

Sir Francis Bacon said, “Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.” That’s an ideal I set before myself when I write articles.

As you can tell by the 1682 posts I’ve made here since June of 2007 – fourteen years ago, I ENJOY writing articles. In addition to the ones below, I’ve had articles published in the local newspaper, the Brooklyn Center SUNPOST and the STARTRIBUNE, the major newspaper in Minneapolis, MN.

I LIKE writing articles! I’ve been paid for my work – for both my opinion and for passing my research on. The main venue for passing on research has been tracking the journey of my wife and I through breast cancer, and more recently my own journey with my dad through Alzheimer’s (https://breastcancerreaper.blogspot.com/)

But as a fiction writer, how could I possibly manage writing about REAL things? How could I manage movie reviews? Interviews? What went right for me writing articles?

Writing articles drew on two of my deepest personality traits: expressing my opinion and research. I love both and I’m pretty sure it would be impossible to write an article if you didn’t have both.

Of COURSE I’ve done pure opinion pieces, ones that require no research at all and are, ultimately, “all about ME!”. I’ve done them for both the local newspaper, the SunPost; and one of the two main newspapers of Minnesota, the StarTribune. Even so, my real strength is one that also gave me a career that lasted over thirty years, bracketed by behavior I’ve entertained since then and started (clearly) when I was about sixteen. (LITTLE BIT Magazine, an article about high school teenagers in 1973 getting haircuts for a production of Rogers & Hammerstein's "South Pacific").

The desire to explain thing is so much a part of me, that virtually everything I write has this component. The samples of my work below show that I like to both understand and explain stuff. With over 1100 hits, my article on mosquito bites and how they affect the lymphedema of recovering breast cancer patients is one of the most popular I’ve ever written (which also means it’s something that gets “Googled” quite often.) They illustrate just a few of the ways I’ve used that skill to pass onto others things that I know, or understand, or THINK I understand.

Thee are steps I subconsciously follow that I’ve never really thought about until now. They might even match your own experience, but they’ve worked for me for a long time.

1) Know what you want someone to understand. From movie to book reviews, to explaining how esoteric cancer treatment drugs work, you need to have a very specific goal in mind. Even in opinion pieces or letters to the editor, your GOAL should be clearly expressed either right away, or summarized succinctly at the end.

2) Have sources. Unless your article is purely opinion (if it doesn’t have some basis in fact, I’d call it a “rant” rather than an article. Rants are fine, but tend to be read by people who already hold the same opinion you do, so the end result is that you’re just getting an echo of your own voice. If you’re doing ARTICLE, you need sources, preferably as close to the original event or research as possible.

3) Once you have your sources, lay out your intended message along with quotes from sources outside your personal echo chamber.* You can use opposing opinions to make sure you’re open-minded and practice debating ephemeral words. If you’re doing what I called “translating the doctors” on my GUY’S GOTTA TALK ABOUT…, then you need sources to help you explain complex procedures. (With a BS in Biology, I have a reasonable background to understand original sources such as journal articles). For a Writing To Get Published class I’ve taught for the past 25 years to gifted kids during a week-long, all-day, seminar, I’ve now been published professionally enough times to be able to have some credibility (see the list to the right of this article). I can also explain in plain English how breast implants are inserted and anchored; and confirm the typical stages of decline in Alzheimer’s Disease as I watched my father slip away.

4) Explain the procedure or process so clearly that your reader can visualize it and understand or replicate it.

5) Talk about successes – not to promise results, but to give examples of how the application of your methodologies or beliefs or actions produce results outside of your echo chamber. Also, use successes very sparingly. Patting yourself on the back too hard can make you look stuck up or it can depress others who might feel they can never measure up to you.

6) Last of all, you can’t be afraid. If you aren’t bold enough to put possibly irritating ideas “out there”, why would people want to read your work? Everybody likes a little spice in their life. Even Jan Karon, whose novels of pastoral gentleness, occasionally uses mild spice to drive her narratives!

*[Definition of “echo chamber”: (Wikipedia, though they’re hardly ones to come up with an unbiased definition!) “In discussions of news media, an echo chamber refers to situations in which beliefs are amplified or reinforced by communication and repetition inside a closed system and insulated from rebuttal.”

A selection of articles I’ve written and were published (NOT on my own blog…):

THE WRITER (Yeah, THAT one…)
http://theworkandworksheetsofguystewart.blogspot.com/2015/01/writing-advice-matter-of-time.html

SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY WRITERS OF AMERICA BLOG
https://www.sfwa.org/2012/07/11/guest-post-when-did-science-fiction-and-apocalypse-become-interchangeable/

THE WORKING WRITER
http://theworkandworksheetsofguystewart.blogspot.com/2020/11/ideas-for-how-to-teach-writing-class.html

STUPEFYING STORIES BLOG
http://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/2020/11/writing-as-newborn-9th-gendered.html
http://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/2018/06/talking-shop_27.html
http://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/2021/02/michael-shaara-wishing-for-killer.html
http://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/2021/01/movie-review-wandering-earth.html

GUY’S GOTTA TALK ABOUT…
https://breastcancerreaper.blogspot.com/2012/07/lymph-node-excision-mosquito-bites-and.html

Image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/9f/22/3b/9f223b1e57a36e14db3eb13715fbe3f9.jpg

March 2, 2021

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 486

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Regarding Fantasy, this insight was startling: “I see the fantasy genre as an ever-shifting metaphor for life in this world, an innocuous medium that allows the author to examine difficult, even controversial, subjects with impunity. Honor, religion, politics, nobility, integrity, greed—we’ve an endless list of ideals to be dissected and explored. And maybe learned from.” – Melissa McPhail.


F Trope: hunter hunts Humans
Current Event: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/12/AR2011011204703.html

In a world with seven billion people, there aren’t many frontiers left. There aren’t places for people who want to “make their lives meaningful” to go. There’s no ground to break.

This is what Behiye Ozan’s parents think. Emigrated from Turkey, they came to the US to start a new life. It happened, but that life included them living in a crappy apartment in a crappy neighborhood and her going to a crappy school.

She wants something better. She joined the basketball team, but the team is so bad, it’s a city-wide laughingstock. She tried theater and choir with the same result. Now it’s her senior year and the only college she’s liable to go to – despite her straight-A average and being captain of both the basketball team and the lead in the spring play, ANTIGONE, there’s simply no money for her to go. The economy is bad and she’s desperate.

While taking the bus home from school, she gets off at the corner store, a health food and natural food place. She tried to get a job there once, but they weren’t hiring. In front of the door is a wide cylinder with corkboard on it where it seems everyone in the neighborhood staples, tapes, or nails posters.

Waiting for her next bus, she notices a small, white note card near the bottom of the riotously colored cylinder. On it, in block letters, are the words, “Feel Hunted?”

She blinks in surprised – she’s NEVER felt hunted. NEVER had the feeling anyone wanted her, not even her parents. What would it be like to have someone after her, intent on finding her, WANTING to catch her?

She squats down and reads, “FEEL HUNTED? I am a wizard in search of a quarry. To pass into the next level of wizardry, I must find a person whose sole purpose is to hide form me. I will use no black magic, only Earth magic. If you are interested, email me at earthsyoungwizard@gmail.com

She takes the card from the cylinder. It seems to cling to the surface, but with a tug, it comes free. Behiye pulled out her cellphone as the bus arrived and she absently got on, staring at the cellphone screen. As the doors snapped closed behind her, she sat down in her usual seat, typed, “I’d be interested”, entered the address – and sent it…

Names: ♀ Turkey (both)