Lots of thoughts about these over the last 24 hours. One of which is how hard it is to whittle down to five hundred words with more than one clear idea and a self-imposed writing time cap of two hours. Here are a few miscellaneous thoughts on them.
#1: Beta
Better novel than short story. It works because it is about the slow ratcheting of pressure across this triangle. Getting caught stealing is an end of Act II plot development. After this, the relationships are on a countdown, but it's the characters under pressure that make it interesting (to me). Class, same-gender fighting for dominance, the deadly weapons of the less powerful, the tension between surface and internal relationships which are pretty interesting in female relationships at least from the outside looking in, failing publicly. The husband runs a massive risk of becoming a type-plot-tool in something like this. And if he isn't real and I'd fail there, then the whole thing might be conventionally interesting, but not gripping. The three sides of the triangle need to hold up. Sting, by the way, once said that many of his songs are about love triangles because they generate so much drama so easily. Worth noting, Self.
#2: Rear View Mirror
This interests me not because there might be active jeopardy of a child. It's horror is in the front seat. It's the character feeling they might be going out of control, sliding from dislike of a rival's child, to disdain for him/her, to something on the cusp of sadism. It's something psychologically darker. It's feeling YOURSELF sliding into horror, feeling your own values crumbling. You can return a child a minute late to its mother and seen the black pits of your soul. So, yes, horror, but maybe not the thriller kind. It only works if the reader can see themselves in the driver's seat. And, dramaturgy note, Eleanor you'll get this I think: the most horrible thing is not communication into the backseat between adult and child. It's the communication between the adult and another adult outside the car, casual conversations with the nightmare in progress. Less is deeply more once the reader feels the vise tighten. It's what you don't show that unsettles. One thing this is not, to make my big picture point: it is not the first-person narration from the back seat. I'm profoundly interested in revealing the vulnerable, not in exploiting them. Although, and this comes with the moral territory: to understand the vulnerable is to know exactly how to exploit them. Such is life.
#3: Game Over
Omg. This is the over-the-top fun one, not serious for a second. This is the one for Likes if ever there was one. Heroic male fantasies about what we (I) might do in moments of extreme danger are fucking hilarious. This one's a comic playground. Talk about a license to chew scenery, and the ability to kill the protagonist at his moment of peak heroism is priceless. It can't go on too long and it would be easy to turn into a one-note joke, but if you could get around that and really get inside male heroic vanity, you'd have something.
It is doubtful I'd every write #3 except as a throwaway. #2 is most likely a story to work through and most likely to fail. #1 is what I'd actually do best.
Hahahahah: this comment was 565 words, sixty-five over my hard limit for posts. Maybe my future is writing comments to my posts longer than the posts themselves.
Ooh, that is a tough one. Which one wakes you up at night, struggling to step out of your dreamscapes, trying to jump on to the page. I know, not what you wanted to hear. #2, if I had to choose.
It's why I let ideas sit in a big long notes file. It's their job to stand up and shout at me. Actually, that's not entirely accurate. I'm finding that sometimes I want to sit down and have a beer with a story and not fall in love with it and that's okay, too, the slow, memorable conversation.
Very interesting, Isabel. Very, very interesting. You're one of my #2s. We're all going to hell. You'll find me in the firepit at the left as you come in. Talk soon.
As I've started working in my new 500 words or less format, I've thought a lot about how to find some consistent approaches. One of them is something I've been thinking of as Cobble Hill Stories. Cobble Hill is the neighborhood I live in in Brooklyn. And the idea has been to take a picture of an empty spot A car. A storefront. In through someone's brownstone window. And then imagine a character or a scene taking place there. Not a "beginning, middle and end" though. I wouldn't want the burden of that and the ridiculous amount of time this would launch me into for each one. Instead, I'd just want a fleeting glimpse of a scene, or a location, or, and mostly, a character. And I'd populate my little neighborhood with these stories. Lives in windows and storefronts and rental bike stands.
There are scores of "lifestyle boutiques" where I live. Small, empty shops that can't possibly pay their bills with the $300 t-shirts they never seem to be selling. And #1 came out of this idea of two women, both of whom had lifestyle boutiques and the competition that grew out of them, both losing money, both pretending not to, one of them going out of business. Less interested in "shallow people" than how "unshallow" the human experience of being one of these shop owners and fighting for self worth with someone else who is also drowning.
This stretched into #1 here, but I think there are a lot permutations on these two women. If I found a voice for one of them, and that's never guaranteed, something pretty intense might happen. The scene of the husband witnessing the theft is probably a "button" to the story not a driver, but I like it, feel it, good get close to it, I think. But you never know.
Chen, a fellow #2 traveller. There's not like a million data points to pick from here, but #2 is the easy winner. I would have guessed yours though. You're not a #3. (I don't think, I'm guessing, not intense enough a way that would get your interest.) Tell me I'm wrong!
I've just ..let's call it a deep interest in what they call abnormal psychology. I'm also big lover of exploring dynamics. But I appreciate everything, truly (except for a few genres but you don't write in those), and love being challenged...under normal circumstances. Now I'm slightly dim, I admit. I hope it'll pass.
#1 would be a fastball down the middle for you. #2 would be VERY challenging to read and write. #3 is the kind of thing that often doesn’t reach the light of day for me. If it doesn’t find a voice and I’m two weeks into wasted output it’s dustbin. But it’s the most likely to go someplace fun, too and break up all the heavy stuff.
Hmmm. Number One, only the Beta actually LIKES that her husband is sleeping with the Alpha, now she can be rid of him and take the house and all the money and then she has wild sex with a stranger who turns out to be her soulmate. Or maybe in Number Two, the kid turns out to be a man masquerading as a kid and the woman drives to a hotel and they have excellent sex. Or in Number Three, maybe we learn in the end it's a movie set(!!) and there's also sex in the end. But it's fake movie sex, until later, when it's real sex. So, any of the three, with sex in the end.
Oh, mary g. I texted out a whole response to this on my iPhone yesterday and then chucked it because it wasn't worthy. I can say that it started with "Yes, and...," the eternal law of Crowd Work and improvisational comedy which I thought you might appreciate.
But I added way too much "And" and should have stopped at "Yes."
Or just written "fjord" or something. Also, and maybe you noticed this yourself, "yes and" runs into some speed bumps with children in the backseat. I bet they don't teach you that at the Improv Academy. (the "that" was italicized)
But yes... "sex and sex and sex, and look at me: I'm in tatters."
Lots of thoughts about these over the last 24 hours. One of which is how hard it is to whittle down to five hundred words with more than one clear idea and a self-imposed writing time cap of two hours. Here are a few miscellaneous thoughts on them.
#1: Beta
Better novel than short story. It works because it is about the slow ratcheting of pressure across this triangle. Getting caught stealing is an end of Act II plot development. After this, the relationships are on a countdown, but it's the characters under pressure that make it interesting (to me). Class, same-gender fighting for dominance, the deadly weapons of the less powerful, the tension between surface and internal relationships which are pretty interesting in female relationships at least from the outside looking in, failing publicly. The husband runs a massive risk of becoming a type-plot-tool in something like this. And if he isn't real and I'd fail there, then the whole thing might be conventionally interesting, but not gripping. The three sides of the triangle need to hold up. Sting, by the way, once said that many of his songs are about love triangles because they generate so much drama so easily. Worth noting, Self.
#2: Rear View Mirror
This interests me not because there might be active jeopardy of a child. It's horror is in the front seat. It's the character feeling they might be going out of control, sliding from dislike of a rival's child, to disdain for him/her, to something on the cusp of sadism. It's something psychologically darker. It's feeling YOURSELF sliding into horror, feeling your own values crumbling. You can return a child a minute late to its mother and seen the black pits of your soul. So, yes, horror, but maybe not the thriller kind. It only works if the reader can see themselves in the driver's seat. And, dramaturgy note, Eleanor you'll get this I think: the most horrible thing is not communication into the backseat between adult and child. It's the communication between the adult and another adult outside the car, casual conversations with the nightmare in progress. Less is deeply more once the reader feels the vise tighten. It's what you don't show that unsettles. One thing this is not, to make my big picture point: it is not the first-person narration from the back seat. I'm profoundly interested in revealing the vulnerable, not in exploiting them. Although, and this comes with the moral territory: to understand the vulnerable is to know exactly how to exploit them. Such is life.
#3: Game Over
Omg. This is the over-the-top fun one, not serious for a second. This is the one for Likes if ever there was one. Heroic male fantasies about what we (I) might do in moments of extreme danger are fucking hilarious. This one's a comic playground. Talk about a license to chew scenery, and the ability to kill the protagonist at his moment of peak heroism is priceless. It can't go on too long and it would be easy to turn into a one-note joke, but if you could get around that and really get inside male heroic vanity, you'd have something.
It is doubtful I'd every write #3 except as a throwaway. #2 is most likely a story to work through and most likely to fail. #1 is what I'd actually do best.
Hahahahah: this comment was 565 words, sixty-five over my hard limit for posts. Maybe my future is writing comments to my posts longer than the posts themselves.
Ooh, that is a tough one. Which one wakes you up at night, struggling to step out of your dreamscapes, trying to jump on to the page. I know, not what you wanted to hear. #2, if I had to choose.
Interesting! You're in the #2 camp! Lor, I hardly knew ye.
Whichever says "Write me!" with conviction you can't ignore.
It's why I let ideas sit in a big long notes file. It's their job to stand up and shout at me. Actually, that's not entirely accurate. I'm finding that sometimes I want to sit down and have a beer with a story and not fall in love with it and that's okay, too, the slow, memorable conversation.
#2!
Very interesting, Isabel. Very, very interesting. You're one of my #2s. We're all going to hell. You'll find me in the firepit at the left as you come in. Talk soon.
#2 Dark as all hell
#1 please
As I've started working in my new 500 words or less format, I've thought a lot about how to find some consistent approaches. One of them is something I've been thinking of as Cobble Hill Stories. Cobble Hill is the neighborhood I live in in Brooklyn. And the idea has been to take a picture of an empty spot A car. A storefront. In through someone's brownstone window. And then imagine a character or a scene taking place there. Not a "beginning, middle and end" though. I wouldn't want the burden of that and the ridiculous amount of time this would launch me into for each one. Instead, I'd just want a fleeting glimpse of a scene, or a location, or, and mostly, a character. And I'd populate my little neighborhood with these stories. Lives in windows and storefronts and rental bike stands.
There are scores of "lifestyle boutiques" where I live. Small, empty shops that can't possibly pay their bills with the $300 t-shirts they never seem to be selling. And #1 came out of this idea of two women, both of whom had lifestyle boutiques and the competition that grew out of them, both losing money, both pretending not to, one of them going out of business. Less interested in "shallow people" than how "unshallow" the human experience of being one of these shop owners and fighting for self worth with someone else who is also drowning.
This stretched into #1 here, but I think there are a lot permutations on these two women. If I found a voice for one of them, and that's never guaranteed, something pretty intense might happen. The scene of the husband witnessing the theft is probably a "button" to the story not a driver, but I like it, feel it, good get close to it, I think. But you never know.
Fascinated already
Whatever you like the most, as others ave said . But i must say 2 is my current favorite.
Chen, a fellow #2 traveller. There's not like a million data points to pick from here, but #2 is the easy winner. I would have guessed yours though. You're not a #3. (I don't think, I'm guessing, not intense enough a way that would get your interest.) Tell me I'm wrong!
I've just ..let's call it a deep interest in what they call abnormal psychology. I'm also big lover of exploring dynamics. But I appreciate everything, truly (except for a few genres but you don't write in those), and love being challenged...under normal circumstances. Now I'm slightly dim, I admit. I hope it'll pass.
#1. #3 is derivative of Edge of Tomorrow but without a resolution. Doesn't seem to have a real ending yet. #2 is just a hint of a middle.
I don't know Edge of Tomorrow. I will check it out! Notes on all of them below.
I can see the full shape of #1.
#2 I can see you pulling off but it will be super-uncomfortable to read.
#3? Well that's one's just some crazy shit I can't fully get my head around, but I'm sure once you're done with it, it will be a masterpiece.
#1 would be a fastball down the middle for you. #2 would be VERY challenging to read and write. #3 is the kind of thing that often doesn’t reach the light of day for me. If it doesn’t find a voice and I’m two weeks into wasted output it’s dustbin. But it’s the most likely to go someplace fun, too and break up all the heavy stuff.
(And yes on our side convo, I know! 😬)
Hmmm. Number One, only the Beta actually LIKES that her husband is sleeping with the Alpha, now she can be rid of him and take the house and all the money and then she has wild sex with a stranger who turns out to be her soulmate. Or maybe in Number Two, the kid turns out to be a man masquerading as a kid and the woman drives to a hotel and they have excellent sex. Or in Number Three, maybe we learn in the end it's a movie set(!!) and there's also sex in the end. But it's fake movie sex, until later, when it's real sex. So, any of the three, with sex in the end.
Oh, mary g. I texted out a whole response to this on my iPhone yesterday and then chucked it because it wasn't worthy. I can say that it started with "Yes, and...," the eternal law of Crowd Work and improvisational comedy which I thought you might appreciate.
But I added way too much "And" and should have stopped at "Yes."
Or just written "fjord" or something. Also, and maybe you noticed this yourself, "yes and" runs into some speed bumps with children in the backseat. I bet they don't teach you that at the Improv Academy. (the "that" was italicized)
But yes... "sex and sex and sex, and look at me: I'm in tatters."
Yes, and fjord. (With sex, obviously.)
I vote for #1.
I would have bet my bottom dollar. You, by the way, would write a great #1.
Definitely 1
Writing on the edge of sociopathology sounds like a wild ride and read. I vote #2!
‘And every day, let’s have her start to take longer and longer to return the child’
“Where are the eyes that looked so mild? Hurroo, hurroo. Where are the eyes that looked so mild? Hurroo, hurroo”. Sorry, couldn’t help myself.