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Luke Pigeon missed pretending to be good at chess.
This is how my new short story starts. I have no idea how it ends. I also have no idea what I’m doing.
An innocent soul on the Internet: "Oh, you write? What's your story about?"
Me, the writer, who has been waiting for this moment all my life:
I once gave myself an anxiety attack trying to explain the plot of one of my stories.
Not reincarnation, but similar too. See, he’s trapped on a mountain as a cyborg with the sole purpose of preventing the revitalization of The Machine, an antique supercomputer with the power to travel though time. So yea it takes place in both the past and the future, but the bulk of the story has to do with the life of a tour guide in a small city, trapped by his belief of the absence of free will. He’s obsessed the the hills in the distance, a recurring symbol of the people he’s lost...
Giving Your Characters the Introduction They Deserve
Wes Anderson and the Grand Budapest Hotel
The Protagonist: M. Gustave.
Anderson spreads out Gustave’s introduction into three separate scenes, each showcasing a peculiar trait of the main character.
1. Gustave calmly directs 10 of his subordinates and what to do. He speaks sharp and quick and without hesitation.
He’s busy, confidence, and the way he instructs his crew shows that he has been doing his job for a while.
2. He eats breakfast with a woman twice his age. He takes her hand, and after he attempts to console her and says:
“Dear God what have you done to your fingernails!? This diabolical varnish, the color is completely wrong. It’s not that I don’t like it. I am physically repulsed.”
He has a thing for older women, and the way things look is important to him. The way he reacts to the fingernails shows us that things like class, elegance, and appearance matter to him.
3. M. Gustave is sitting next to the woman, his lover, and tells her to hush so he can recite poetry.
He is quirky, brash and sophisticated.
The Takeaway
There is no need to squish an entire character introduced into the first sentence or paragraph. It can be spread out over the course of multiple scenes.
The Antagonist: Dmitri
Andersen employs the triple threat of Appearance, Dialogue, and Action.
Appearance : When we first see Dmitri he is drinking a glass of whiskey, and waiting to see what was left to him in his mother’s will. One of his goons is behind him.
Dialogue: The first line out of Dmitri’s mouth is “That fucking fa***t!” directed at M. Gustave himself.
Action: He confronts M. Gustave and punches him in the face.
Who is Dmetri? He’s a person who seems to care more about the will than his mother. Someone who vulgar, and willing to shout ,offend, and confront. He’s someone who will quickly resort to violence
Applying this to your writing
Using Appearance, Dialogue, and Action is highly effective if you want your reader to immediately know who your character is. This works well for the strong “go get-em” type, or any sort of proactive character.
But say your character is more reserved, sophisticated, mysterious even. Try spreading out their introduction using three difference scenes, maybe three different settings or even three separate conversations.
- - - - - - -
Would you like to see more of this type of stuff? Let me know!
Be Sure to check how How Neil Gaiman Introduces His Characters
Why World Peace Ended
After ten years of world peace, an atomic bomb bonked my father on the head. Chinese officials reported him as the sole casualty of the incident and said if it were anyone other than my father, the whole matter could have been forgiven. His face was on their money, his name mentioned in every pop song, his way of life studied and followed by the progressive youth. Or, so I hear, as news from that half of the world has been hard to come by ever since the first Sino-American War.
I only met my father once, as he lived and worked in China while my mother and I planted our roots in a small Texas city, and I only remember the last thing he said to me, which was, “Do whatever blows your mind.” It’s advice I’ve always fallen back on, and it’s the advice I always give. So, whenever I have the unfortunate pleasure of finding myself in a conversation, and someone asks what I do for a living, I don’t tell them I’m an aspiring inventor or a budding entrepreneur. I look them straight in the eyes and tell them, “I do whatever blows my mind.” Usually people are taken aback, no doubt assuming I’m a pretentious fellow too embarrassed to talk about my personal life. To an extent their assumption may hold true.
“That sounds just great,” a woman once told me. “I hope someday I’ll be able to do that.”
“Well it’s not always what it’s cracked up to be,” I said. “Do whatever blows your mind often takes the form of living near the brink of unemployment.”
Fishing blew my dad’s mind, so that’s what he did. A bomb blew his mind too.
The Silver Shirt Society is a prime example of disorganized crime, driven by unproductive enthusiasm and a poor taste in clothes.
I’m trying to work out a perfect description of the people in this society... I believe this is a start.
The Things I Miss
An OpenAI generated story
I was messing around with OpenAI, a language model called GPT-2 that generates coherent paragraphs of text one word at a time, and came across this masterpiece.
I miss our Monday night drinking party I miss our family picnics I miss when the sport that was common among the lower classes became our annual Christmas holiday I miss teaching the newest players the 3 in 1 victory technique I miss our pinball nights I miss our cat walk and community house walks I miss getting stuck on the St. Charles Avenue stop and seeing neighbors playing shuffleboard on the street I miss the street races and putting field at the Pickwick Bowling Center I miss that the fishing pier is still here I miss the deep-fried Quokka
52 Likes, 7 Comments - Creating Real Art For Tomorrow (@craftcultura) on Instagram: “📚Self-made and distributed from beginning to end – zine making is one of the best ways to tell our…”
Click the Link to watch!
It’s all about the meaning of short stories and self publishing. I Hope you enjoy!
The Young Mallard
The flood meant the ducks could swim through the edge of the forest. They paddled between the trees, their feathers blending with the bark of the maples as they glided through the shade.
At the back of a line of ducklings, a young mallard looks at the reflection of the water. He sees his green head atop his brown neck. He sees the green of the leaves atop the trees. He wonders if the trees were once just mallards, or if mallards were once trees. He raises his head from the wobbly watery world. He’s fallen behind and kicks hard.
I love this!
Not So Superhuman
Part One
I wasn’t bitten by a radioactive spider, but by the cold resentment of my father. And the number of toxic relationships in my life provided enough radiation to alter my genes, making me who I am today. I now watch the city from the rooftops, hoping one day I can make a difference.
My eyes fail to shoot beams of corrosive light, I still run out of breath quite easily, and my intolerance for both milk products and high-budget action films persists. Do I fight evil because it’s my humble responsibility? Do I protect my city for some greater sense of self? Or is it the fact that my middle school rewards me in service hours?
“Over four hundred hours of community service?” asked Ms. De La Rosa, my favorite counselor at the school. “What exactly does protecting the city entail?” She was beautiful in a mom sort of way, radiating mom energy of yellow flowers and wise words. I often imagined what it would be like to be her kid. I’d show off her homemade sandwiches at lunch for sure. I’d probably turn in my homework on time.
_ _ _ _ _
If you write short stories, send them my way!
Print, cut, punch, bind! 20 tiny pages front and back! What do you think?
#140: When Can You Call Yourself a Writer?
This post was inspired by @christenkimbell’s thoughtful comment on one of my recent posts. Thanks for sharing!
That’s the dream, isn’t it? Calling yourself a writer and have people take you seriously. Some people say you’re a writer when your words earn you a living. Others insist that you should call yourself a writer right now – it’s a state of mind, not a goal post. So who’s right?
A controversial topic, I know, but I believe that the way you treat your identity as ‘a writer’ affects what you leave on the page.
Identity is important. We all want to belong somewhere. And the Internet is making it the easiest it’s ever been to find your tribe, whether it’s a knitting group or the flat earth society. Writing isn’t any different. The term writing life has been around for ages. As diverse a bunch as we are, there are certain traits, appearances and behaviours – on social media and in real life - that bind us together as a group.
Chasing these social norms can be intoxicating, but does that make you a writer? I certainly fell into the trap before. Our society glorifies the process of becoming someone or something, and that doesn’t make it any easier.
When you go through law school, you become a lawyer, right? But what if you then start a coffee shop and run it for ten years. Are you still a lawyer? And what if a doctor did the same? Would you let them do your heart surgery after ten years of making caramel lattes?
What does it mean to be a writer anyway? Ask 100 people and you’ll get 120 different answers. Do you write shopping lists? Emails? Facebook updates? Articles online? Do you sit in cafes? Go to libraries? Live in New York City? Own a typewriter? Do you write books?
The term is so ambiguous that it barely means anything at all. When you tell someone that you’re a writer, almost everyone will ask, ‘So what do you write?’
And that right there is the answer. Instead of trying to fit into the vague idea of writerdom, why not just focus on what you write? As Austin Kleon puts it, ‘forget the noun, do the verb.’
Saying ‘I write short stories and science fiction novels’ makes a lot more sense than ‘I’m a writer.’ It shifts the focus away from your ego to your work. It also makes it a whole lot easier to stop lying to yourself about it.
Instead of worrying about belonging to a tribe and being like the other people who call themselves writers, all you have to do to live up to your Instagram bio is to keep making things up and putting them onto the page. Writing is hard. Making your work a part of your identity might just compel you to do it more.
Don’t say you’re a writer. Tell us what you write.
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Past Editions
#139: What Can You Do to Fail More?, April 2020
#138: 5 Ways to Focus on Your Writing, April 2020
#137: How to Create a Writing Routine for Life, April 2020
#136: The Words Will Add Up, March 2020
#135: Quarantine Survival for Writers, March 2020
It centers around definitions. Everyone has a percied notion and established difinition of the word “writer.” There are also a lot of assumption built up in the title of a “Writer.” The dream isn’t to chase a title. The dream should be living out the lifestyle and having the opportunities to make progress in your craft.
I love line in this that says “Tell us what you write.”
Describing the work you do is a lot more genuie then just giving out a title.
Good post!
Peace.
Everything Reminds Me of My Old Shadow.
Everything reminds me of my old shadow. The new one isn’t what I thought it would be. The jokes it tells are stale and it’s afraid of the dark. My old shadow would weave jokes in with it’s stories, and often leave me thinking deeply about a central pillar of life, like hope and justice. The new one asks me things like “what did the mama buffalo say to the baby buffalo?” I’ve since stopped watching comedy altogether.
Mayonnaise, believe or not, reminds me of my old shadow. It would guide me on how to make a sandwich, give me tips on how to improve knife skills, and whisper archaic chants while I ate. The archaic chants were part of the reason I had to have it returned. But, I really do miss them.
The stack of books on my dresser brings back some painful memories. My old shadow would sleep in between by bed and the wall, and read me a story. If he ever read a scene it found funny, it would laugh so hard I couldn't help but join.
The flickering lights of my bathroom remind me of how my old shadow used to malfunction, spaz, and sometimes grow so large it’d cover the walls. When a recall was announced on it’s model number, I wasn’t the least bit surprised.
Tino’s One Shot
Tino double knotted his shoes, pulled up his white socks, and picked up a basketball. The noise from each dribble rattled the empty and worn-down bleachers. He shot from the three-point line, smiling not because the ball went in, but because no one was around to see his fantastic airball.
“Tino! Pick up that ball and sweep the floor real fast would you?” Coach Jacobs and the team burst through the door, the team laughing and roughhousing while star player Jackie Hernandez spun a ball on his finger. Tino was the team manager for the Keller High basketball team, mostly out of pity, and partly because Tino loved to sweep. Nothing could rival Keller High’s wooden floor after a Tino sweep.
“Sir, yes sir!” said Tino, always giving his best attitude in hopes one day he would get promoted to a backup position. But his dream seemed to be running out of time since tomorrow was one of their final games, the Regional Championship.
For lunch that day, Tino sought out his best friend Lupe, who sat with his food spread out on the steps to the band hall, his trumpet beside him.
“All you have to do is chant my name. Chant my name, Lupe!” Tino grabbed Lupe by the shoulders and shook.
“Why am I chanting your name?”
“Tomorrow is the Regional Championship, and it’s a no brainer we’re going to dominate.”
“That’s great. But why would I cheer for you if you're not playing? You just sweep and hand out water.”
“Not cheer, I didn’t say cheer. I said chant.” Tino spoke with a determined precision. “When a team has a huge lead like we’re gonna have tomorrow, coaches sometimes put in the second strings, so they can get some practice. You know? But, if you chant my name, and the crowd joins in, he might put me in, and I’ll finally be able to play. See?”
“So, I just chant, Tino! Tino!?” Lupe asked while manhandling a burrito. “And why would he put you in over a someone who can actually shoot?”
“Because it’s the Regional Championship! Think about the headlines! Team Manager Plays in Region Finals! It’s a Cinderella story. People live to see stuff like this. It’s a win-win. I get to play, Coach Jacobs looks like the best coach in the state for giving the team manager a shot, and we win region. A win-win-win. If Coach was interviewed he’d probably say something like, ‘Oh I always had faith in the boy, and I wanted to give him a shot because I knew he could do it,’ and he’d look like a saint.” Now the plan was clear to Lupe. And it was true, everyone waited their entire lives to see a moment where the underdog is given a chance. Everyone loves it when a nobody becomes a somebody. “Yeah, ok I get it. Alright,” said Lupe. “You’ll be a hero. Coach Jacobs will look like a saint. I might even be a hero for starting the chant!” But the chant has to be something catchy.” Lupe said with a mouth full of beans. “Something with a little umph. Like, put Tino in.”
“Yes, oh that’s good. Say that, put Tino in. You're a section leader in pep band, right? Tell all the freshmen if they don’t follow along you’ll make them run laps or something. Make everyone join in, blow your trumpet if you have to.”
“But I’m only supposed to do this if we are winning, right? Like if we are up by thirty points or something?
“Or twenty-five. Even twenty. It doesn't matter, nobody can resist a chant.”
“And what makes you so sure you’ll be up by that many points?”
“Uh, have you seen Jackie Hernandez play?”
The fourth quarter came. The home team of Keller High was leading Central by twenty-five points. Jackie Hernandez could, in fact, play. Tino tripled knotted his shoes and caught Lupe’s eyes in the packed stadium, giving him a slight nod of his head. After Jackie Hernandez sunk his tenth three-pointer, Central’s coach called a timeout, the home crowd of Keller High roared, and the team exchanged hugs and high fives to the fight song.
“Hell yeah!” Said Coach Jacobs. “Keep it up, and we’re going to state!” Coach Jacobs yelled as he slapped Jackie Hernandez’s butt.
“Don’t slap my butt,” Hernandez said.
“This has to be it,” Tino said to himself. And as the roar of the crowd settled, Tino heard Lupe’s voice.
“Put Tino in!” Lupe said in a slow rhythm. “Put Tino in!” He clapped his hands three times to the words and nodded for the rest of the trumpet section to join in. “Put Tino in!” The trumpets section started chanting in unison.
Murmurs in the crowd, “The sweeper boy? That scrawny kid with no athletic ability?”
“Put Tino in!” The rest of the band chanted. “Put Tino in!” The whole right side of the stadium chanted. “That nobody? That kid who was never even given a shot?”
“Put Tino in!” the entire crowd, even the away team, chanted. Coach Jacobs stared at the crowd and gave out a laugh, “Haha, would you look at that? Aw what the hell? Tino, get in there!” Tino shot up and held his hands over his head, sending the crowd into a frenzy. Popcorn flew in the air and the drumline played a cadence. It was as if they had already won the state title. It was as if Tino were already a hero. It was as if this was the moment everyone had been waiting for their entire lives.
Game on. Tino squatted low and spread his hands wide as Central High’s number ten dribbled up to meet him. Number ten dribbled in between his own legs and spun in an attempt to pass up Tino. The entire crowd gasped. But with quick wits, Tino reached out his arm, just barely slapping the ball the ball away, gaining possession as the crowd hollered and shook the stands.
“There you go!” called out Coach Jacobs. “You got it!”
Tino dribbled the ball three times, jumped up as high as he could, and shot. Tino watched the ball soar in slow motion, perfect. The crowd moved their heads to follow the arc, watching as the ball went into the wrong basket. Three points were added to the away team’s score.
The crowd went silent, not a single player moved, and the basketball awkwardly bounced back to Tino’s feet.
“Hey,” someone from the crowd said, his voice confused and betrayed. Hardly anyone moved a muscle. Tino turned to face the man in the crowd who went by the name Eddie. “We all chanted for you man.” Eddie shook his head, partly because he wanted to be part of a Cinderella story, partly because he placed his hope in Tino. In fact, the whole crowd wanted to be a part of something special and cool, something that could be shown on the news to cheer up people's day. Tino didn’t know every man woman and child wanted to see him succeed, as the success of a nobody is impossible not to love. And with love comes elation, and with elation, there is no room for fear. What was the crowd afraid of? Death, maybe. Becoming jaded and hopeless, probably. I personally think everyone in the gym knew they would all turn out to be nobodies, which is why even Jackie Hernandez started to tear up. They just wanted something to believe in, anything. They wanted proof of goodness and God, proof that life was, in fact, worth living, proof they were not worthless, good for nothing, powerless in the face of oppression and evil. They wanted proof that time was not void of beauty, that being a good person actually means something, that it’s not wrong to put complete faith in a person. Was it too much to ask? Apparently.
Eddie’s eyes started to water, “Take Tino out,” he said, breaking into a sob. This was the first time Eddie had left the house in over a decade, as he suffered from depression ever since the great fire station accident of 2013. He left to see this basketball game. The woman standing next to Eddie was named Shauna. When her father past away with cancer, she refused to believe in heroes, fate, and God. “Take Tino out,” she said.
“Take Tino out,” the crowd chanted. “Take Tino out.”
“Wait!” Shouted Tino, his heart beating fast under the pressure. “Don’t you guys get it?” Eddie wiped his eyes, Coach Jacobs took off his hat, and the crowd gave Tino their full attention. “We are not a single drop in the ocean,” he said. “We are the ocean in a single drop.”
Eddie said, “That’s a quote from the 13th-century Persian poet, Rumi.”
And Tino said, “So what?” His words rung throughout the gym. “So what? So what if we’re nobodies, if we’re deadbeats, has-beens, never-weres, never-will-bes, stuck in the past, forgotten, broke, ugly, stupid, poor? So what if my words were his words, if his words were their words, if I’m me and you’re you? So what if I just shot a hoop in my own basket and ruined everyone’s Cinderella moment? So what if we all die, and everyone forgets our names, if the bad guys win, if love is never enough, if it’s impossible to believe, if perfect things don’t exist. It’ll never change the fact that we shared this moment together. It’ll never change the fact that we are an ocean.”
And Eddie was no longer afraid of death.
And Shauna once again believed in heroes and fate and God.
And Jackie Hernandez went on it make it big.
And Coach Jacobs became a saint.
And Lupe cured cancer.
And Tino was never taken out.
Other Summer Short Stories
How to Make Tex-Mex Ramen
The first and arguably most important ingredient is the Arbol Chile pepper, also known as the rat’s tail, bird’s beak, eagle’s feather pepper.
Don’t pick it right away, not unless you want to fall under the curse of La Mudragada, not unless you want to be plagued with sleepless nights and loveless days.
You must wait until the coldest day of summer to pluck the red pepper from its plant, using the rest of the summer heat to let it dry out. The crows will swarm, trying to claim the pepper as their own. The stray dogs will bark and growl and drool. The Longhorns will thrust their horns in the air in an attempt to intimidate you, in hopes that you will abandon the pepper.
For the rest of the summer, you must not let the pepper out of your sight, not even for the birth of your son or for the grand opening of the new Mama Margies, a restaurant that makes your favorite tortillas. It’s best to learn how to sleep with your eyes open.
Learn how to judge the length of the day, because once the duration of daylight becomes noticeably shorter you can stop watching over your now dried pepper. You can now grind it up in your traditional molcajete.
Now, to obtain the wheat for your noodle…
Read my other Summer Short Stories
How to Make Tex-Mex Ramen
The first and arguably most important ingredient is the Arbol Chile pepper, also known as the rat’s tail, bird’s beak, eagle’s feather pepper.
Don’t pick it right away, not unless you want to fall under the curse of La Mudragada, not unless you want to be plagued with sleepless nights and loveless days.
You must wait until the coldest day of summer to pluck the red pepper from its plant, using the rest of the summer heat to let it dry out. The crows will swarm, trying to claim the pepper as their own. The stray dogs will bark and growl and drool. The Longhorns will thrust their horns in the air in an attempt to intimidate you, in hopes that you will abandon the pepper.
For the rest of the summer, you must not let the pepper out of your sight, not even for the birth of your son or for the grand opening of the new Mama Margies, a restaurant that makes your favorite tortillas. It’s best to learn how to sleep with your eyes open.
Learn how to judge the length of the day, because once the duration of daylight becomes noticeably shorter you can stop watching over your now dried pepper. You can now grind it up in your traditional molcajete.
Now, to obtain the wheat for your noodle…
Read my other Summer Short Stories
Sometimes I am sitting in the stuff that universes are made of.
I know what to do now. The darkness gives my hand one last squeeze, and then it lets go.
I shake my fingers to loosen them up.
I am real and the darkness is real and all the living beings are real, but nothing else is. Midnight Hollow is still there, if I want it, but so is everywhere else.
I am real and I exist and I feel and I think, and I walk through images and shadows that I create.
I reach up into the white, and I shape it into a universe.