Galen listened to the patrons murmuring their approval as they walked through the gallery. He heard the same conversations, the same trite observations. “Bold choice of color.” “Strong brush strokes.” “Interesting choice of subject.” He wanted to leave and repress the night’s memory with a bottle of whiskey.
“Becky” by Dave DeHetre. Used with permission of the artist.
A light touch on his elbow alerted him to Amanda’s presence. He breathed in the smell of her perfume, Vanilla Lace.
“You’re not going anywhere,” whispered Amanda into his ear.
“What makes you think I was leaving?”
“You have that look. Your left hand gets twitchy when you’re thinking of using your cane.”
Good headline, great design, clever copy and a bold logo make for an engaging advertisement.
Reading is not a passive form of entertainment like watching television or movies. To get people to read your story, you have to connect with them on a number of levels. In marketing, we talk about engaging the customer.
Engagement can come from a variety of sources: a catchy headline, a beautiful picture, clever copy, or a memorable logo. Chances are, when a consumer is engaged by an ad it’s the result of several things working together.
Writing a creative piece — whether it’s a short story or a novel — challenges the writer to engage readers using only words. And, as in marketing, it’s not just one thing that engages readers.
This is how I like to imagine my wife and I when we write.
Seven years ago, I married my best friend.
I could tell you the story of how we met. I’ve told it a million times. I could tell you of our mutual love of all things Disney. I could tell you of our honeymoon at Disneyland, during the 50th anniversary of the park opening.
But I’d like to talk about a different aspect of our life together, and how she saved me.
You see, when Rachel came back into my life about eight years ago, we hadn’t seen each other in years. Despite being great friends, our lives had taken different paths. She was married, had kids, and traveled. I stayed here, working and trying to be a writer. And we both went through some rough times. She got divorced. I lost my parents. We both struggled for a while. But we each came through it stronger.
After a short engagement, we were married. And a few months later, when I told her I wanted to leave the information technology support position I had held for five years, she understood. She encouraged me to pursue my dream, whatever that may be.
The following years were rough. I tried teaching for short time, but that wasn’t for me. So I put our savings and my trust in a plan to build a home business on the Internet. I failed fast, and started looking for work. This was around 2006, just as the U.S. economy was starting to turn south. Finally, as the last of our savings was spent and we were paying for groceries with credit cards, she noticed an ad for a copywriting position.
I applied and was offered the job, which started my second life in the corporate world. For the past several years, I’ve been happy working as a copywriter for a digital marketing agency.
Once we had some solid ground under our feet, I started writing again. As I mentioned last week, it wasn’t really until 2010 that I began writing short stories and novels again. After more than a decade, the stories started to come back to me. Little by little, I started to remember how to use those tools in my writer’s toolbox. She dragged me to a local write-in for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Though I didn’t finish that first year, I finished the next one. And I haven’t looked back since.
The Confabulator Cafe has given me a great base of operations, forcing me to write something every week. It’s a nice departure from the marketing work I do all week at my job. Most importantly, it allows me to work alongside some wonderful local writers who amaze and inspire me.
I don’t know if I could pick the moment in my life when I decided to be a writer. I was likely still very young, pecking away at my mom’s typewriter and dreaming of stories to be told.
But I can tell you when I became a copywriter. And when I entered NaNoWriMo for the first time. And I can tell you that neither would have been possible without my writing partner.
Back in the ’70s, there was a live-action television series based on the Marvel comic book The Incredible Hulk. For those who might be too young to remember, it featured Bill Bixby as Dr. David Banner. (Yeah, it was “David.” Not Bruce. Don’t get me started.)
Every week Dr. Banner would come to a new town where he tried to help out or find a cure for his problem. Then something — usually the bad guys causing the problem he was trying to resolve — would make him angry. Of course, Dr. Banner would Hulk-out and smash some things. After the bad guys were brought to justice or the family farm was saved, he would gather up his backpack and head off into the metaphorical sunset.
All this is preamble to explain why at certain times in my life I stopped writing. I never thought of it as quitting, really. I was just walking away — on my way to somewhere new. Trying to find the next chapter of my story.
I walked into the room expecting to see some sign of my host. Instead, a horde of dead eyes stared back at me. The firelight played off mounted heads: buffalo, deer, bear, and wolf. In the upper corner, an owl looked down with wings and talons outstretched. Above the mantle, an eight-foot long swordfish had been mounted, frozen in mid-leap. In the corner by the door stood a large cat, one of the mountain lions so prevalent in the Americas.
Teddy Roosevelt’s Trophy Room at Sagamore Hill, circa 1910. From the Library of Congress.
Outside, a cold November wind blew, howling around the mansion. The taxi ride from the station had been fraught with peril as we plunged along on icy roads packed with snow. Upon my arrival at Straeon Manor, the butler took my bags and showed me to my room. Dinner, he said, would be at eight o’clock, but my host wished to meet for drinks beforehand. I had taken time to clean up and rest from my travels. Then I dressed for dinner and arrived as instructed at the appointed hour.
I moved among the trophies and soft leather furniture toward the fireplace. The warmth was welcome and made me feel more at ease. A wireless set stood on a table beside one of the chairs. From the RCA Radiola came the happy strains of a ragtime melody I had not heard in years. The music warmed my heart as the fire warmed my bones.
Comet Hale-Bopp as it appeared over Boulder, Colorado in 1997. Image borrowed from here.
When I was about six or seven years old, I was obsessed with space. I wanted to be an astronaut and travel out of the Earth’s atmosphere to go to the Moon, to Mars, to Jupiter, or beyond. I wanted to go “out there,” where no one else had been. Because it would mean seeing wonders untold.
But for a boy born with brittle bones, the reality of traveling on a rocket would mean being crushed by G-forces my body couldn’t bear. Becoming an astronaut would never be in the cards for me.
I could never go to space. I would never see a Martian sunset or watch as Jupiter filled the sky from Titan. I would never travel to the stars.
Twenty some years ago, I thought I wanted to be a writer. I went to college to get an English degree. I spent my free time penning bad poetry and worse short stories. And after college I started a few book-length manuscripts that ultimately went nowhere. Somewhere along the line, I decided I might be missing some essential bit of writer knowledge, so I sought out a writing workshop at my local community college.
The results were disastrous.
First, let me tell you straight up that what I was hoping to get from the workshop was praise. I didn’t want advice. I wanted people there to read my work and tell me I was the best thing since Ernest Hemingway. Alas, it was not to be.
If Bob Cratchit’s story is merely a subplot, why would two of the greatest actors of all time agree to play him?
They say we’re all the lead characters in our own stories. But what about other people’s stories? I have this horrible feeling — now and then — that I’m not a main character at all. I’m just a minor character (comic relief, perhaps), and my life is a subplot in the story of someone I know.
I bring this up because I want to point out how important subplots are. They shouldn’t be relegated to the role of “rounding out a character” or “adding some drama to a narrative.” The subplots — and the characters who make them — are heroes in their own stories.
Think about Charles Dickens’ classic tale A Christmas Carol. The story is about the redemption of Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly and cold character who must learn the true spirit of Christmas. But Dickens also weaves in a marvelous subplot about Scrooge’s employee, Bob Cratchit. The story of Bob and his poor family is every bit as important as Scrooge’s story. In fact, it’s so important to Scrooge that it becomes a part of his salvation. A Christmas Carol wouldn’t be the same without Bob and little Tiny Tim.
For me, a good subplot is almost a strong narrative on its own. It must support the main plot, certainly. But a subplot must also be self-sustaining. Otherwise my characters come off feeling like cardboard.
Years ago there was a very popular movie titled The Gods Must Be Crazy. The film follows three distinct stories that all seem unconnected except for their location in Africa. Eventually, the three stories dovetail in an unexpected way, bringing all the unrelated characters together for the conclusion.
I like my stories to take this equitable approach to storytelling. I don’t think of my story in terms of plot and subplots. I think about what’s driving the character forward and what needs to happen next. I have never once thought that I needed to insert a minor character or subplot. When a character appears in my story, I consider it a major character until events prove otherwise.
When I feel that something isn’t working in my stories, I often discover that it’s because I’ve written too much about a character or storyline. That’s okay, though. It’s a lot easier to cut an overabundance of a big story than try to pad a thin one.
Each character and plot is important. Some may be de-emphasized, but none should exist only to serve another.
Simply put, there are no subplots — only great stories waiting to be told.
Every writer can tell you a story about having writer’s block at one time or another. It happens. It’s part of human nature. Just like not doing the dishes or forgetting to get the oil changed on the car.
We’re procrastinators, and we like to put things off. That includes writing.
Now, some writers might say that they never intend to get writer’s block. I’m sure that’s true. I also never intend to whack my elbow into the countertop when I’m in the kitchen. But I also know the kitchen didn’t rearrange itself to cause my accident. It was my fault. If I had planned better, it wouldn’t have happened.
The secret of writer’s block is that there’s no such thing as writer’s block.
During the summer, I was allowed to stay up late, which usually meant bedtime was an hour or so after dark. But I stayed up with my mom, waiting for dad to return.
She was reading one of her tabloids from the grocery store, and I had my nose in a comic book. But I don’t think either of us was getting much reading done. Every time we heard a car in the distance, we thought it might be him coming home with news.
Around 11:00, a car finally pulled up to the house. The sound of tires crunching gravel on the driveway drew me to the window. Mom went to the door, but it opened before she could touch the knob. Dad came in with Mr. Johnson, both men covered in sweat and dirt. Dad looked shaken. Mr. Johnson helped my dad into the door and left without a word.
