No beginnings, no middles, no ends
Three story sketches slowly taking shape... Should I write #1, #2, or #3?
Two of them have no beginning, middle or end. The third has only a beginning, middle and an end. And I only have the faintest outlines of characters.
But I’m poking a stick at these three, hoping a hot spark will pop out of the fire and onto something extremely flammable.
My mind.
Sketch #1: “Beta”
So, say, there’s a woman who owns a fancy boutique. She’s an Alpha, and she has a Beta frenemy who works for her. The Alpha is sleeping with the Beta’s husband.
The Beta begins to steal from the shop to get her back, and, when caught thieving by her own husband
— and here’s where it gets interesting—
she doubles down, letting her husband see she’s stealing, challenging him to rat on her with his lover.
We watch shame turn into a weapon.
That moment.
Right there.
The eye contact.
I dare you.
Sketch #2: “Rear View Mirror”
So, this woman picks up another woman’s child from school every day and brings him home. And every day, let’s have her start to take longer and longer to return the child, grow subtly crueler. I imagine the two looking at each other while it gets dark in the car. The child now answers in monosyllables. I’m not sure yet whether she’s ever u-turning.
Ok, so, yes, it’s sociopathic, but…
… if you stayed right on the early, fine edge of sociopathic behavior, when the character is testing sociopathology rather than committing, there’s a story: a character’s values clashing in the growing warmth of runaway rage.
Sketch #3: “Game Over”
So: Hijackers. Passengers communicating in hand gestures. Guns kicked under seats.
In this story, the bravery and violence are absurd, cartoonish. Opens right into the action, a terrorist charging down the aisle yelling out. For twenty seconds, my character is the God of Anti-Hijackers.
Then he’s killed.
Boop.
What the hell? The story rewinds.
It plays out identically to the first time, but the character gets to business class, before,
boop,
he’s ejected out an exploding exit door!
A third time, he’s right up to the cabin door shooting and blasting every which direction, galley carts sliding into toilets, but,
boop,
the character gets shot just as he — she? — is about to get into the pilot’s cabin to save the day.
Then that’s it.
Three lives.
X.X.X.
Game Over.
We never get into the cabin. She’s run out of lives.
What’s this all about?
The disappointment of being deprived the violence that is your birthright.