The Story Behind the Story: A Friend in Need

NYC Midnight strikes again! This month's story, "A Friend in Need," comes from my first round assignment in NYC Midnight's 2014 Flash Fiction Challenge. For the second year in a row, my first round prompt was to write a romance. (I think it's a conspiracy.) This one had to be set in an emergency room and involve a mop.

I struggled mightily to get out a draft. Even as I typed, I knew what I was writing was crap. But I submitted it anyway. Then I brought the story to my writer's group, told them I hated it, and asked for ways to fix it.

The group--and the NYC Midnight judges--pointed out that the sensory details I had included were all visual, all about color. All that color distracted from the narrative. I needed to add other senses into the narrative, especially sound and smell, for balance and realism.

The group also pointed out errors in E.R. procedure and policy in that first draft, such as Anna's memory test Anna and Jake being allowed to accompany Anna into the exam room. In my revisions, I fixed the memory test but still allowed Jake to accompany Anna, even though that wouldn't be permitted in a real hospital. Call it artistic license.

I made other changes, too, based on their feedback and the feedback from the judges. It's not the best story I've ever written, but it's much improved now compared to that first draft.

Click here to read "A Friend in Need."

The Story Behind the Story: The Envelope

Back in the spring and summer of 2012, I was working on a massive U.S. history project as part of my day job. As I edited a series of lessons about American involvement in Vietnam, I found myself wondering what it might have been like to receive a draft notice. What would it have been like for a young man who had already lost an older brother to the war?

The more I researched, the clearer the story became. I scoured the Internet and found images of the Orders to Report for Physical Examination and Orders to Report for Induction. Being so used to digitally generated form letters, I was struck by the uneven typewriting on the notices. I had to put that detail in the story. After all, it's those kind of details that bring to life the history in historical fiction.

During the story's planning stages, I thought maybe Quincy would fail his physical examination. By the time I started drafting, though, I knew with absolute certainly that Quincy would pass, forcing him to wrestle with his options. Ultimately, he would decide to dodge the draft, catching a bus to Canada instead of reporting for induction as ordered. But my characters, I have found, often have minds of their own and Quincy was no different. He caught a bus, alright---just not the one I had planned.

I took a draft of the story to my then-writer's group, one of whom is a Vietnam veteran. I admit to being a little nervous about his reading the story. I'd read parts of his memoir about his service in Vietnam, and I wanted very much to do justice to the Vietnam experience. To this day, I cannot recall with any clarity what feedback the other members of the group gave me, but I do remember Dan's. He told me his experience had been similar to Quincy's; he too had kept his draft notice secret from his family. I still cherish his words, because they validated my interpretation of events. I had gotten my story right. Thank you, Dan! (On a side note, someday Dan will publish his memoir. I, for one, can't wait to read it in its entirety.)

Click here to read "The Envelope."

The Story Behind the Story: A Seat at the Bar

God bless NYC Midnight. This story, too, is a product of their Flash Fiction Challenge. It was the second round of their 2013 FFC, and I was assigned a ghost story in a hotel bar with sunglasses.

I'd written most of a story set in the early 1900s when it occurred to me to check the year sunglasses were invented. Turns out, they're a product of the 1920s--1929, to be exact. Oops. Draft 1 scrapped.

On to Draft 2.

I tried using third person narration. I tried a more traditional structure. But this story insisted on being something different. The story didn't flow until I transcribed the bartender's monologue word for word.

The nontraditional format had mixed results. The feedback from the NYC Midnight judges was largely negative, but they award the story more points than my other flash fiction entries. Go figure.

After the competition, I workshopped the story in my writer's group and tweaked it here and there to fix some inconsistencies. The result is the story you see now, over on Fiction First.

Happy Halloween!

To read "A Seat at the Bar" click here.

The Story Behind the Story: Achilles' Heel (Part 2)

For Part 1 of the story behind “Achilles’ Heel,” click here.

So I finished my first draft of “Achilles’ Heel” and submitted it my writer’s group. I knew they’d have plenty to say, especially about the ending.

I was right.

For starters, there was the problem of Alan’s heel. He reached for it far too many times. Okay, I’ll nix a few heel scratches.

Mostly, though, there was the problem of the ending. Considering I just threw it together at the last minute, this was not a surprise. First, there was some disagreement about what the ending meant. Did the disappearance of Alan’s heel itch meant he’d reached peace with his memories of his mother? Did it mean he made peace with himself? Did it mean his mother had died? Note to self: clarify the meaning a bit more.

But there was general consensus that the ending was unsatisfying. Alan needed to see his mother, talk to her, write her a letter—communicate with her in some way. Okay, then. How could I implement that? Should I have the action switch location and send Alan to the hospital to see his mother in person? Do I send him home to write a letter or make a phone call?

I decided I wanted to keep the action of the story in the same location: Dr. Lucas’ office, mostly because I knew Alan would chicken out if left to his own devices. He needed Dr. Lucas to shepherd him through the process. That limited the possibilities to letter writing to calling on the phone. I chose the latter.

Then came the excruciating process of plotting out the phone call. What if Alan called and his mother couldn’t speak on the phone? What if Alan called and found out his mother had just died? What if? What if? What if?

I rewrote the ending in fits and spurts: a sentence here, a phrase there. Know that cliché about pulling teeth? It was kinda like that.  But the teeth got pulled, the ending got rewritten, and now (hopefully) the story concludes on a more satisfying note.

To read the revised version of “Achilles’ Heel,” click here.

The Story Behind the Story: Achilles' Heel (Part 1)

I thought I'd try something different this summer. Instead of a new story on July 1st and August 1st, I thought I'd give a glimpse into my writing process. So, today, July 1st, I posted the first-ish draft of a new story: "Achilles' Heel." Next month, I'll post the revised version.

The idea for story "Achilles' Heel" came out of nowhere. I woke in the wee hours of the morning back in March with the image of a woman dipping her infant in the fountain at a shopping mall, holding the baby by the heel like he was Achilles. I rolled over and went back to sleep--it was the wee hours--and wrote the idea in my notebook later, after I woke up and started my day.

The idea stuck with me. At random moments, I found myself wondering why a woman would dip her baby in a public fountain and what effect did the incident have on the baby as it grew up. It took a few fits and starts of scribbling in my notebook to come up with the scenario: a grown man in therapy, trying to deal with the memory of what his mother tried to do to him.

The actual writing of the story didn't go smoothly, either. I started over half a dozen times. Wrote two paragraphs, deleted one. I started writing the story on March 8th. I finished the first draft June 17th. That's right: six weeks to write 1,494 words. I believe that's the definition of slow.

Early on, I had an image of how the story would end: the protagonist in his car in the parking lot of the hospital where his mother is a patient. However, on June 16th, as I began writing the end of the story, I realized that ending would not work. I did not have a Plan B. I was stuck.

This is what I wrote:

I had a self-imposed deadline of the next night (June 17th), so that I could submit the story to my writer's group. I put the story to rest and picked it up again on the afternoon of the 17th. I decided the last line had to return to the image of the heel used in the first line, and rewrote it accordingly. Then I went back in and added a few more heel-scratches into the story so that the last line would make more sense. I clicked SAVE and uploaded it for my writer's group.

You can read that first draft of the story here.

Next month, I'll share some of the feedback I got from my writer's group and post the revised version of the story.