The Confabulator Cafe

Author: ajunge

  • To Dream of Impossible Dreams (Flash Fiction)

    Miklos had been dreaming of bacon for a solid week before he decided, by God, to do something about it.

    Almost anything could be gotten at Capricorn Station. It was a transport and commerce hub for twelve star systems. Species, races, and cultures of all kinds passed through, for diplomatic or economic exchange, or on their way to somewhere else. Capricorn’s warehouses were stocked with goods from hundreds of planets and outposts, any of which a being could buy, within reason.

    Unfortunately those reasons did not extend to cured, smoked, animal-based lipids in a protein matrix imported, at great expense, from Earth.

    “I’ll have to make my own,” Miklos confided to the only customer in the bar, a shifty-eyed jack-of-all-trades who claimed his name was Anson.

    (more…)

  • Establishing Trust

    In technical writing, there is really only one useful point of view, that of Godlike Omniscience. The tech writer’s challenge is to present information that can be complicated, confusing, incomplete, and flat-out tedious to the reader in a way that supports decision making. Furthermore, the information has to be structured in a way that makes sense the first time it is read, but also allows the reader to go back and easily reference key points.

    You can’t achieve a level of trust with your reader unless you speak with a voice of authority. This is no time to play games for the sake of artistry. Simple, direct, I-know-what-I’m-talking-about language is what is needed.

  • What’s Wrong With Asking the Crowd?

    When I was in library school, about half an Internet generation ago [0], we were warned, very specifically and repeatedly, against relying on Google or Wikipedia or any other online resource authored by “non-authoritarian” sources. Instead, we were directed toward proprietary academic and professional databases— EDGAR, Dialog, Lexus/Nexus, Westlaw, and the like.

    I chalked up a great deal of this propagandizing to existential angst amongst an older generation of library professionals. The unwashed public having direct access to raw information without the kindly and professional intermediation provided by suitably indoctrinated gatekeepers? Quel horreur! [1]

    I had been an IT professional for about 10 years by then [2] and had nothing but the deepest respect for the free-form conversation that is the Internet [3]. Sure, plenty of the information you find may be wrong, but if so, somebody else will be along shortly shouting at the top of their CAPS LOCK key precisely how wrong it is, with illustrative asides and digressions into the quality of the original poster’s intelligence, reading comprehension, research methodology, and parentage, including hyperlinked footnotes to, for example, the website of the guy who invented whatever the heck you’re talking about. If you have a high tolerance for alpha-geek posturing, the Internet can give you one hell of an education.

    (more…)

  • It’s the Data, Stupid!

    The coolest thing about being a non-fiction writer is all the research I get to do. I love being a lifetime learner; it’s like I’m getting paid to grow a little smarter every day.

    When I’ve done my research, when I’m confident of my facts and my references, and the story has revealed itself to me, the words come easy. If they come grudgingly, or not at all, it’s a signal that I have to go back to the library, or the museum, or archives, and figure out the missing pieces. My notes are sprinkled with questions I need to find answers to: What if this were the case? What would account for the timing here? What did these people do, and how did they do it, and would they have done it under these particular circumstances, and most importantly, how can I figure out what those circumstances were? It’s like detective work, only without the dead bodies and wisecracking medical examiners.

    It’s storytelling about what is, not about what should be, and that’s a powerful thing.

  • Friends With Benefits (Flash Fiction)

    “I think I got everyone,” Chet said, frowning at RSVPs on Facebook. He was fretting over the guest list for our dinner party. Frankly, I couldn’t see why he was making such a fuss over it all— when we had first broached the idea of a housewarming I suggested we just have the gang over for pizza and beer and an endless game of Rock Band. But then Katherine, Chet’s mom, had decided to stick her oar in and suddenly our casual get-together had morphed into a formal dinner party. Tablecloth, matching napkins, wedding china, crystal candlesticks, three kinds of wine, four courses, and six couples.

    Our wedding reception was less elaborate.

    Luckily for me, I had managed to squeeze my best friends, Mike and Ike, onto the guest list. Chet had complained that it would mess up the seating arrangements— he was convinced it had to be boy-girl-boy-girl— but I particularly wanted Ike there, if for no other reason than he could be counted on to hole up with me in the kitchen and snark about the ridiculousness of it all.

    I really don’t blame Chet for this. Normally he’s pretty laid back— one among his more stellar qualities that led me to marry him— but if anyone can push his buttons it’s dear old Mom. Dinner parties are her idea of fun, particularly ones where she can show off husband-to-be-number-three (or is it four?). “I don’t bother marrying them,” she told me once. “Being engaged is so much more fun.” Of course this was approximately thirty seconds after I told her off for trying to micromanage my wedding plans for what had to be the eleventh time, but who’s counting?

    I texted Ike: “I thought I was marrying a tae-kwon-do instructor. Now he’s channeling his inner Martha Stewart.”

    Ike texted back immediately: “It’s a good thing!”

    Me: “There is not enough booze in the world to get me through this party.”

    Ike responded with a link to a coupon for an expensive brand of gin.

    The night of the party I was wearing a little black number with shoes that pinched my toes (I wasn’t planning to wear them long, anyway) and I agreed to door duty so that Chet could put the finishing touches on dinner. Mike and Ike were the first to arrive.

    “Here,” Ike said, shoving a paper bag at me. “A little Dutch courage to get you through this evening.” It contained a bottle of that gin.

    “Thanks, Ike, I think I’ll need this!” I shooed him to the bar so he could start mixing drinks. “Mike, can I say you are looking very pretty tonight?”

    Mike thanked me in his best feminine flutter. He works as a hostess at the city’s most infamous drag club, and knows how to put on a slinky glad rag and pass as a woman with the best of them. “I’m Michelle tonight, of course. I really like that dress on you, Karen. Where did you get it?”

    “That vintage store on Sixteenth.”

    “I love that place. I’m in there constantly.”

    Ike passed out drinks as the doorbell rang, and our living room began to fill with Chet’s carefully chosen couples. Mom-in-law and her latest, Dennis, arrived just as we were about to sit down.

    As soon as we all took our seats I could see that there would be trouble. Ike was next to me, and Mike next to him, then Dennis, Mom-in-law, Chet at the other end of the table, Barbara, John, Stephanie, and Mitch. Dennis pulled out the chair for Mike, or should I say, “Michelle,” and “she” gave him a ten-thousand watt smile. I raised my eyebrows at Ike, who returned a smirk and immediately engaged Stephanie and Mitch in conversation, leaving me free to watch as “Michelle” flirted with Dennis.

    The poor guy barely knew what hit him, but he knew that he liked it. I could see him drawn like a moth to the bug zapper as Mike pulled out all the stops, effortlessly burying Dennis in charm and flattery. Soon they were giggling and gossiping like long-separated sorority sisters.

    Chet’s Mom was less thrilled, watching her fiance fall under Mike’s spell. I don’t think she recognized “Michelle” as Mike, but she knew that her hold on Dennis was threatened, and counterattacked with claws unsheathed. Dennis out of an overblown sense of chivalry and an underdeveloped sense of self-preservation, tried to mediate, putting himself squarely in the middle of the cat fight. Mom-in-law soon directed her ire towards the light of her last-four-months, announcing that she was not going to be seen with such an utter bastard. Throwing down her napkin, she rose from her chair and stalked out of the room. We heard the front door slam once, then twice as Dennis hurried after her. A moment later we heard their raised voices screaming at one another from the parking lot.

    “Well,” Barbara broke the silence. “That was… interesting.”

    Chet gave me a meaningful glance down the end of the table. “You were right, Karen. A dinner party was a bad idea. No more dinner parties. At least not with my mom around.” He sighed and headed to the kitchen. “Anybody for dessert? And maybe a video game?”

    Ike leaned towards me and whispered in my ear, “We weren’t certain you would like your housewarming present.”

    “Getting rid of my mother in law for the rest of the evening? This is better than anything.”

  • Because I have no good excuse to not write

    Because of life.
    Because of time.
    Because of too little time.
    Because of too much time.
    Because I’m at a renaissance festival.
    Because I’m preparing for a renaissance festival.
    Because I’m recovering from a renaissance festival.
    Because I have to do dishes.
    Because I have to do laundry.
    Because I have to cook dinner.
    Because I have to do more dishes.
    Why are there still dirty dishes?
    Because I’ve been reading too much.
    Because I haven’t been reading enough.
    Because I’ve been reading the wrong things.
    (more…)

  • Remixing in Writing

    For this week’s exploration [0] let us delve into my little used fiction writing side and talk about my flash fiction piece published on this very site just a few weeks ago.

    The thing with the mountain lion? Totally happened to some friends of mine. Every part of that story was stolen from somewhere else [1]. Mountain lion? Stolen. Location? Stolen. Early 1900s Girl Scout troop? The story was written on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Girl Scouts; you couldn’t trip over a verb that week without landing face first in some retrospective or other [2]. Plucky girl heroines? My library has a complete collection of Lucy Maude Montgomery. Even the assignment was based on theft; steal a photo from Flickr and write a story about it.

    That photo was f-ing awesome, by the way. Period dress? Sabre? Pirate hat? To someone who has worked renaissance festivals for 20+ years, that was practically a homecoming.

    From the photo I got the character of Jane, from Ms. Montgomery and Ms. Low [3] I got her plucky self reliance and adventurous spirit, and I developed a backstory based loosely on something I had once heard about William Allen White’s daughter [4].

    However, I had no story.

    Zip. Zilch. Nada. Character and situation, yes. Actual plot, no. In desperation and with a deadline looming [5] I pilfered the story of the mountain lion from a friend. Bam! Beginning, middle, end, and it clocked in right around 997 words.

    For some reason, as a kid I developed the idea that creativity meant making things up from nothing, developing something complete and unique [6]. The term “remixing” had yet to be invented. If I made something by following a pattern and was praised for it, I felt like an impostor. The creativity belonged to the pattern designer, not to me. As a grownup I’ve learned about how to adapt what went before into what is coming into being, but it still feels like craftsmanship, not creativity.

    But as a grownup I’ve also learned that life is about getting over myself.

    [0] Sounds better than “random babbling,” doesn’t it?
    [1] Index I copy from old Vladivostok telephone directory.
    [2] Supposedly cookie sales are better business training than you can get in some well-reputed B-schools.
    [3] Founder of the Girl Scouts. Try to keep up.
    [4] At an age when most girls of her era were putting their hair up and becoming young ladies, she insisted on wearing plaits, because the younger she looked the more she could get away with.
    [5] Deadlines are my muse.
    [6] Which is almost impossible, of course, and almost nobody does it that way, and when they try it is largely inaccessible to the audience. But as a kid, everything in the world looks unique.

  • Your Editor: The Frenemy You Will Love to Hate

    When I first started working at my current job, the HR department emailed everybody what they considered a fun game— find all 10 spelling and grammar errors in a page of text, and you could win a gift card.

    I found fourteen.

    OK, so at least two “errors” were more in the realm of stylistic choices— Oxford commas and so forth— but I won the gift card. And then I became my bureau’s copy editor.

    My style of editing is fairly instinctual. I’m looking for one thing above all else— does it make sense? Would a reasonably intelligent and half awake member of the target audience be able to understand it? I do look for ambiguous language, typos, grammar errors, and logical consistency, but I’m also looking at language rhythm and flow.

    Sure, you can study this. You can sit down with a grammar [0] and styleguide and memorize the rules. But the best way to learn what good writing looks like is to read lots and lots of good writing. Read it obsessively. Read it until the rules of language have seeped deep into your bones.

    Also, read bad language [1]. Try to figure out why it is bad. How would you improve it? Is it confusing? Does it ramble? Does the logic flow? Are there spelling errors? Is it utterly lacking in capitalization, punctuation, paragraph breaks, and other bourgeois affectations [2]? Your goal is to become on of those douchebags. You know the kind I mean. As your edit-fu grows strong, and for extra credit, try turning your attention to any newspaper’s Op-Ed pages.

    Editing your own work is phenomenally difficult. It is impossible to edit and compose at the same time, so don’t even try. They use physically different parts of your brain, so you’ll have to do each in a separate pass. You may find it useful to use a different technique for each pass— for example, I compose on paper, but edit on the screen, then proofread again where possible on paper.

    Also, you will have to create a physical and mental distance between yourself and your work. After you have finished writing it, stick it in a drawer for a while. For a blog post, a couple of hours. Term paper or feature length article, a whole day. Your novel? At least a month.

    Your best editing tool will always be another person. Not a close friend, not a family member, not someone who wishes to spare you hurt feelings. An honorable enemy is best [3]. Someone who is willing to be brutally honest, explain in exacting detail where and how you’ve screwed up, and assassinate your children in front of you. Someone who is willing to tear your ego into little tiny shreds and stomp them into the mud. Choose for your editor the nastiest, most vicious drill sergeant you can find, with all the gentle sweetness of a hungover wolverine. Learn their favorite drink, because you’ll be buying a lot for them.

    Read their comments very, very carefully. Then stick the whole manuscript back into the drawer. Get mad. Rant, rave, wail, moan, gnash your teeth, tear your hair, and clutch your pearls. Tearfully explain to your very best friend that your sunovabich editor Just Doesn’t Get It. Get drunk and have the same conversation with the smelly guy sitting at the far end of the bar.

    A week later, when you’ve finally gotten over yourself and the hangover has abated, pull your magnum opus back onto your desktop and reread your editor’s comments. Figure out where they’re right, and why they’re right, and how to fix it.

    Congratulations. You’ve now achieved the rewrite.

    [0]  Allow me to recommend The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: A Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager and the Doomed by Karen Elizabeth Gordon.
    [1] The Internet being a particularly rich trove.
    [2] Dear Random Netizen: Typing in all lower case was individualistic and stylish when e. e. cummings did it. On you, it just looks like you don’t know what the shift key is for.
    [3] Think the Poker Game of Mystery Writers on the TV show Castle. They’re always eager to tell Castle he’s full of shit.

  • Girls Should Be Fearless (Flash Fiction)

    September 18, 1919

    My dearest friend,

    Girls should be fearless.

    That’s what my Aunt Julia always says to me when ever I begin to doubt myself, and when she and Miss Haversham announced they were starting a troop of Girl Scouts, I was the first to put down my name.

    Girl Scouts! Just the name gives me shivers of excitement. The idea that girls could do the same things the boys do in their Scouting adventures thrilled me to no end. My own brothers— I have five, all of them older— have all been heartlessly smug and manly as they return from their camp! I had been pining to go with them, but they persisted in teasing me that there are certain things that girls are not able to do, sleeping on the ground being one of them.

    Didn’t Grandmother sleep on the ground when she settled out west from Bradford, Pennsylvania, to take up homesteading in Kansas? Didn’t she ride her horse own all the way? Wasn’t she a crack markswoman, as well? She used to tell me about buffalo hunting trips, and brag that she brought down just as many beasts as the men.

    Well, our Girl Scout troop has had the most remarkable adventures already! And better, we have had adventures such as none of my brothers ever had! Indeed, they were so jealous when I told them that they went about denying to the worlds that such a thing had ever happened. But I stand by my word, for a Girl Scout is always truthful and forthright.

    It all began last summer, during the school holidays. Aunt Julia had arranged for us to go almost all the way to Springfield, Missouri, to have a camping holiday. While were were there, we were to sleep inside tents, and cook our food over a campfire, and tell tales and sing songs in the evenings. Aunt Julia even arranged for a minister to come to our camp to deliver Sunday Services— dreadful, I know, but I am informed that appearances must be maintained. (Frankly, I’d just as soon be a pagan— wear skins and run around in the woods like a wild Indian— it seems so much more interesting and romantic than the same old wearisome lessons about Ruth and Esther that we get all the time. A shame on me, but I know you, dear friend, would never breathe a word to anyone!)

    We had been encamped for several days, getting gloriously filthy in the process and having grand old times. We even explored a magnificent cave in the hills north of the city! The weather had been fine, and there was constant bickering in the evenings as to whether we should leave the tent flaps open to catch the night time breezes or to keep them tied shut in order to exclude the mosquitos, which could be dreadful at times. That night the mosquitos won.

    I came awake when Hattie poked me firmly in the ribs. “Jane!” she hissed. “There’s something in the camp!”

    Hattie is prone to flights of imagination, as well as speaking in italics, but Alice, who is neither, said, “I hear it too!”

    I held my breath and listened hard, and could just barely hear something moving about outside. Then there was a ghastly shriek, a wild, wailing growl like nothing I had ever heard before.
    My heart nearly turned to ice in my chest, but I reminded myself that cowardice is for other, weaker souls, and carefully lifted up the bottom of the tent side, just an inch or so, to peek out.

    There was something in the camp. I could see a long, sinuous shape prowling between myself and the still glowing embers of our campfire. It was an enormous cat, one hundred pounds at least, and had a tail as long as its own body, with a little white tuft on the tip.

    “Try not to panic, girls,” I whispered to the others. “It’s a catamount.”

    Hattie squeaked at the news. “I’m going to faint!” she wailed. “Suppose it came her to eat one of us?”

    “It’ll eat the one that faints first!” I furiously racked my brains, remembering one of Grandmother’s favorite stories. “We have to frighten it away. We have to bang on something, shout, make a loud noise. Have we got any saucepans?”

    “No,” Alice whispered. “I’ve got my whistle, though.”

    “That’ll help. Here’s my canteen— it’s empty. We can bang on that. Has anybody else got anything?” We lit a lantern and rummaged around, finding several objects that we thought would suit the purpose.

    I carefully untied the tent flaps and peeked out. The catamount was still prowling around, I thought. I whispered, “All together, now! One, two…”

    We burst out of the tent whooping and shouting, waving our lantern and making as much noise as possible. I caught just a glimpse of angry green eyes and teeth bared in a snarl just before the animal bounded away.

    This, of course, woke everybody else in the camp, and they came boiling out of their tents in their night dresses. We explained about the catamount, but they didn’t believe us. Not at first. Miss Haversham suspected us of playing a joke, but then Aunt Julia pointed out that some of our bundles of food had been torn into.

    It wasn’t until the next morning that Mr. Davis, the man who owns the campground, showed us the large paw prints down at the muddy streambank. “It’s a good thing that creature didn’t visit you girls in the night,” he warned. “He’d have et you up!”

    So that was my Scouting adventure, the first of many, I hope. We have such fine times planned for the future! But I must close this letter, now— the other girls and I are putting on a play about Anne Bonney, and they’ve given me the lead. I must dash to make it to rehearsal on time.

                                    Yours most affectionately,
    J. Hungerford.

  • Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

    One of the annoying aspects of writing for a government is that usually there are plots, but no characters, main or otherwise. In fact, there are often no subjects in the sentences. Things happen, events unfold spontaneously. Objects are acted upon by mysterious forces, perhaps deployed by black helicopters. The passive voice is used excessively. Government has agencies, but no apparent agents.

    Passive voice is constructed by literally removing the subject from the sentence. Compare and contrast:

    “I swung my vorpal blade in a powerful snicker-snack, and left the Jabberwock for dead.

    “The vorpal blade was swung in a powerful snicker-snack, and the Jabberwock was left for dead.”

    Who killed the Jabberwock, again? What was his name? What color is his hair? Could you pick him out of a crowd? Can we give him a medal, or cite him for cruelty to Jabberwocks? Who is to take credit? Who is to take blame?

    Passive voice removes the humanity from writing, which is why it should never ever be used, and why it will never be eradicated. It’s the “I didn’t do it,” of literary convention, which is why it probably crept into the government styleguide, there to spread as inexorably as kudzu, and as difficult to eradicate.

    Do yourself a favor. Don’t ever use passive voice. It’s a bad habit, like picking your toes in a good restaurant.