Dialog Versus Narration

Just as there is a difference between show and tell, there is an obvious difference between dialog and narration. A common writing error is to mistakenly use one for the other.

The protagonist, for example, sits across the table from his wife and angrily tells her how he has just been fired from his job. This is dialog when his rant and her replies serve to reveal something about their relationship, but narration if it is included mainly to describe the firing. Each has a legitimate purpose in telling the tale. The fired man narrates his termination interview, for example, because his description of it differs from the actual event (which you have already shown the reader.)

Deus ex machina is an extreme form of misused narration, introducing a character (or any other plot device) for the sole purpose of explaining away a problem point of your story. The term originated with ancient Greek plays in which main characters, who were usually the gods, came onstage by means of some mechanism: a rope from above, or a platform from below—literally, producing a god from a machine.

In telling about his experiences as a "child actor," Kenneth Cummings wrote of the concept in his memoir, Meant To Be Here:

When I was in grade school, I was pulled into my sister's interest in acting, as was my brother. Half a lifetime later, I now believe it was because Mother could drop all three of us off at the local Antrim Playhouse for a few hours of free baby-sitting. I recall being in Alice in Wonderland, in which my sister was Alice; Love for Three Oranges. a fantasy opera by Serge Prokofiev; and Thurber's 13 Clocks, which had been written only a few years before we performed it.

Usually I was “mobile scenery.” I remember little more about the whole experience than Prokofiev’s music, and bits of the stories. For example, in 13 Clocks, there was a villain (the Duke) who was punished by the Devil for not doing enough evil, and one (the Golux) with an “indescribable hat” that became describable whenever he was depressed.

One otherwise-forgotten play (Three Oranges, I think) I recall only because it was the only performance in which I had lines to speak. I came onstage as “a chief,” very deus-ex-machina, to narrate away a plot problem. I stomped on, made a complex long statement, and stomped off. It couldn’t have been any more obvious if I had been lowered from the ceiling in a toga to speak my lines.

Prokofiev used an old fairy tale for his libretto, and took the tone from commedia dell'arte performances which commonly used stock characters that the audience was presumed already to know something about (King, Prince, Witch, Cook, and so on.)  

Perhaps in this case, the narration was a deliberate choice, deus ex machina intentionally used as a satirical tool. 

Killer Instinct (Carrot Ranch Flash Fiction Challenge)

Sometimes the flash challenge from Charli Mills at Carrot Ranch happens to coincide with a topic I'm already writing about. Sometimes it hooks onto an idea I'm already pursuing. Rarely, it hits with a bolt of sizzling light that turns me around and sends me in a completely new direction.

Whenever I participate in the Carrot Ranch Flash Fiction Challenge, and however it strikes me, I get the chance to practice writing in a very specific way, reaching for something that is almost poetic in structure—only the needed words, only the best words to convey the thought. The 99-word restriction means that a story must be edited drastically.

And since my major task in January and February is editing the work that was written last year, this week's challenge linked into that process quite nicely:

February 3, 2016 prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story that explores the question, “What good is power?” Is it a story of empowerment, or a story of a dictator? Poke around power and go where the force takes you this week.

Like any creative activity, writing lets you invent endlessly, generating something that never existed before you wrote it. Editing, while destructive in a narrowest sense, allows you to polish what you've created, leaving you with a finer product than you had before it began. It is an essential part of that creative process.

And whether you are writing or editing, your power over the world you're creating is absolute.

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Killer Instinct 

Benny drew a careful line through three names in his notebook, muttering to himself, "You're history, Jeff. You're outta here, Mike. Adios, Linda." 

They were as good as dead. Benny had total power over their lives.

It was only fair; he had created them in the first place, word-generating additions to the world he was building for his novel. But something told him the story didn't need them. His gut said he should do away with them.

They wouldn't be the only victims of his edits, either. Benny sharpened his red pencil and went back in for the kill.

The CCR Committee (Carrot Ranch Flash Fiction Challenge)

For the last month, we've been taking care of an elderly family member who is winding down her life in home hospice care. 

She has a "team" of hired caregivers, but she also has family and friends who have stepped up to help keep her engaged with life and let her know she is loved.

Betty lives in a community with covenants and restrictions. The "CCRs" define what can be planted in front yards, how many cars can be parked on the street, when trash bins can be put out for collection, and when they must be put away again, and so on.

In Betty's case, her team and family are engaged in making sure she doesn't violate the CCRs for her neighborhood. Then I read the Carrot Ranch Flash Fiction Challenge for this week:

January 27, 2016 prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story about how a community reaches out. Who, or what cause, is touched by a community “spoke”? Do you think communities can impact change and move a “wheel”? Why or why not? Explore the idea of a community hub in a flash fiction.

Can a community focused on controlling behavior change to be supportive of its less-able members? I think so.

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The CCR Committee

"First agenda item: Winnie Collin's place." Peter's tone was grim. “We have covenants and restrictions in this community. Winnie agreed to them, but lately her trash bins are left out, her garden’s full of weeds... And far too many cars are parked outside.”

Jennifer raised a timid hand; new members were not expected to speak. “You know Winnie is in terminal home care, right? Those cars belong to caregivers and nurses and visiting family.”

“Right!” Peter harrumphed. “So... Who here is going to weed her garden? And who can commit to take care of Winnie’s trash bins every week?” 

Defending the 'Hood

Review: Domino by Kia Heavey

In a rare instance of my father reading to us when I was a child, we heard the story of George Orwell's Animal Farm. Unlike my mother's choices of standard children's books like Ferdinand and Madeleine, the rich characterizations of the animals at Manor Farm made an engrossing tale for us youngsters—even though we missed the deeper meanings of the novel's conflict.

I suspect many will read the delightful story of Domino, a black-and-white working-class tomcat defending his territory from invasion by an alien culture, as the simple tale it presents. The cats and other animals in the novel are anthropomorphized just enough for their battles to make sense to us, but not so much that their animal qualities vanish.

That's a fine line to tread, and Heavey has done it well. On first reading, I happily enjoyed this upper layer of the tale of Domino and his queen Celine, a wild black lady roaming free in the woods adjacent to the tom's territory. My spouse and I have shared our lives with both cats and dogs, though more often just cats, for almost as long as we've been married, so the animal interactions rang true. And the story is a winner: normal cat nature versus a scheme (promoted by canny city rats using a Siamese "front cat" named Socrates) to convince the rural cat population to stop killing other animals.

The territory Domino himself patrols includes his human's property—barn, hen-house, and shed, as well as the surrounding woods and streets—but his buddies have their own patrols in the wider suburb where he lives. All these cats are threatened when the Siamese city cat arrives with a large-dog sidekick, Max, and a radical philosophy: cats can transcend their enmity with other animals and stop killing them for sport, because they are feed by their humans.

Domino longed with every individual hair in his pelt to fight this suffocating threat even as his brain understood there was no way to scratch and bite a poisonous idea.

The idea takes hold, and the cats who accept it begin to suffer the consequences. Not only are they missing some key nutrients (particularly the pregnant queens, who would have supplemented their kibble with mice and birds—and rats), but the influx of rats begins to out-breed the cats. Socrates' relationship with Max, at first a convincing point of "transcendence at work" for the awestruck rural cats, now becomes a problem as Socrates uses Max as a storm-trooper to impose his idea on the few felines who did not join up voluntarily.

On second reading and further thought, a deeper theme began to emerge from the pages of Domino. The imported culture the tomcat fights is inherently antithetical to the nature and life-style of a free cat. When the majority of his neighbors try to adopt this foreign way of living, it echoes for me the cultural conflicts as the Western world tries to accommodate to Eastern and Middle-Eastern refugees. 

Domino and his mate, and one or two of the other cats, see clearly that they are being overrun by the burgeoning rat population, but are helpless to combat it—particularly when the rats begin hunting in packs, killing and eating other animals, even much larger ones. Transcendence, it seems, is only a moral imperative for cats. The rats are free to live as they choose, but to punish the cats for failing to embrace the rat-inspired philosophy.

Read at this level, the novel is no longer innocently delightful, but it's still a winner!

Glimmerings of a Good Story

Review: The Shimmering by H.D. Anyone

Let's start with the author's name. Perhaps his patronym is "Anyone." I'm willing to give the writer the benefit of the doubt, but it's a suspicious start when selecting a book to read. I nominated this book in Kindle Scout despite that name and the slightly hokey cover illustration, because its short description sounded likely:

Lance Edgerton resents being moved to a ghost town and sets out to disprove the supernatural lore with the intent of ruining the local tourism, but his investigations prove to the contrary when he uncovers a crystal cavern revealing The Shimmering, which enables him to confront the evil altering the old mining town of Jerome.

I thought the story premise was promising, and the first pages of the novel gave me no clues that it would not fulfill that promise. I was especially encouraged by the high-school science teacher's lecture on crystals:

“Some of the locals would have you believe there are healing properties in crystals.  I don’t know anything about that.  The only mystical property they possess, and of which I am aware, is the power of protection.  If you locate an exceptionally large geode, you can strike someone on the head with it for protection.”  His yardstick hit the board.  “That was a demonstrative whack.”

The book was not selected for publication by Kindle Press, but I bought a copy anyway. Unfortunately, after the first encouraging pages, the story rapidly descends into exactly the kind of woo-woo crystal-power nonsense the chemistry teacher inveighs against at the beginning.

Although this was disappointing from one perspective (science), the story is nevertheless solid and engrossing. Lance and his friends Manuel and Whisper explore, make discoveries about their environment and the town's history, and become more interesting people. In that sense, it is a worthwhile YA novel, and I found it enjoyable to read. 

I hope that H.D. Anyone finds the courage to come out from under the pseudonym to write again. With growth and practice, the story-telling skills can only improve. He already has a solid base to begin from.

Liner Notes:

This is another in a long string of first-time books from authors who publish in e-book format only, who have chosen to hard-code the double-line text-spacing into the book's format. It is very annoying to have the tools to change font faces, text size, and line spacing on the Kindle Paperwhite, and yet be prevented from it by poor formatting choices in the book. I was tempted, but did not take a half-star from the rating, principally because Anyone is a new author. Anyone can learn.

Bedtime (Carrot Ranch Flash Fiction Challenge)

After a long day that ended with a late exercise class at the gym (because I couldn't drag myself out of bed this morning to make the 6 AM class), I reflected on the days of childhood. That was when bedtime was not a welcome relief, but something to resist with subterfuges like requests for another drink of water or a bedtime story.

Now my bed is something I must resist falling into until the day's work is done.

Even then I relish a bedtime story, although now I must read it to myself. A few pages (chapters, books) read after I climb under the covers, and I'm ready to give myself up to slumber.

So the Carrot Ranch Flash Fiction Challenge this week prompted me with thoughts of bedtime stories and that long-ago desire to stay up late:

January 13, 2016 prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) begin a story with, “Once upon a time…” Where you take the fairy tale is entirely up to you. Your character can break the traditional mold, or your ending can be less than happy. Elements of fairy tales include magic, predicaments, villains, heroes, fairy-folk and kingdoms. How can you turn these elements upside down or use them in a realistic setting? Write your own fairy tale.

Grampa Ray is a wise man, but not quite swift enough to head off his grand-daughter Mary's stay-up-late argument.

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Bedtime

"Once upon a time," Grampa Ray began.

"Wait, Grampa! Why it is always 'once upon a time'?" Mary wriggled under the covers with the urgency of her question.  "Why do bedtime stories begin that way?"

"I don't know..." Her grandpa scratched his head, then his chin. "Maybe it's like, 'And now, the news.' Just a way people have of telling us that whatever follows is either real or make-believe."

"Oh." Mary thought for a moment, then said, "Once upon a time I wanted to watch TV until 10 o'clock and my mom said I could stay up late tonight."

More-Than-Gorey Reflection on the Alphabet

Review: Alphabeticus Atrocitus by Michael C. Romeo

Edward Gorey captured the alphabet in a gruesome, yet whimsical, way, with The Gashlycrumb Tinies and its illustrations of 26 alphabetically-named children dying in unusual ways. 

A is for Amy who fell down the stairs, B is for Basil assaulted by bears, C is for Clara who wasted away. D is for Desmond thrown out of a sleigh... —Gorey's alphabet

I must have had some expectation of finding the same whimsy in art and text from Romeo's Alphabeticus Atrocitus, because my initial reaction was horror. There is no whimsy here. Don't expect chuckles.

But don't flip through and discard this little book, either. There is some real meat in these images. Consider the page: T is for Tree. In the foreground, a sketch of a tree-trunk, grass at its roots, provides the obvious image. Yet on a hill in the background, a trio of rather different trees raises Golgotha limbs over the landscape.

Or F is for Fire: My first impression was of a burning factory with a stream of workers escaping the flames. But then... Who are the men with guns on either side of them? Perspective flips, and I see that these people are being herded into the fire.

No, these images have neither the brilliance of Gorey's art nor the Gothic humor of his verse. What they do have is depth and weight. 

Spend a little time to learn how atrocious our English alphabet can be. Neither your time nor the pittance of a price will be wasted.

Liner Notes:

Three things cost the book a star in my rating:

• This eBook-only publication is restricted to Portrait-only. This is unfortunate, as the illustrations would be better viewed in Landscape.
• The illustrations are in a format that does not permit Zoom. (This may be because they are restricted to Portrait, and the image is already at maximum zoom level.)
• Text is part of the image, thus the font cannot be adjusted.