Finding the Story

Today was quite the day. The morning kicked off with some absolutely tropical humidity, and then the temperature started to rise. I was out there this morning melting away, getting chased by a stray dog, wondering how it could get so hot so fast, but then the clouds came in. Quickly. Then my phone chimed off with one of those shrieking alarms telling me (and everyone else) to head for shelter in light of the tornado warning. I went inside, the winds picked up, and a monstrous storm exploded onto the scene, replete with green skies, twisting winds, and debris everywhere. It was a drive-by storm, with the worst over before it could be appreciated, and before long the rain ended. In its wake, however, were flooded viaducts, scattered branches, downed trees, blinking traffic lights and power outages.

So, as a writer, I am thinking, "Where's the story here?"

When I say, "Where's the story," you might think, "It's right there in the first paragraph. You sketched out the key points in that one space!" That's where the difference lies - the first paragraph contains the information of this afternoon's events, and the setting for whatever story I may write. However, the storm itself is not very story-worthy. It was impressive, yes, but telling people all about the details of the storm is not storytelling, it's reporting. Finding the story is locating that one thread within the events and tracing that valuable path as it tells about a specific aspect of life. 

If I were to tell a story about this morning and the run-up to the storm, it would've involved the tensions surrounding my late-morning/noontime events. I was hot, tired, and saturated with sweat, trying to get my work outside completed. However, nature had other plans. I was repeatedly approached and harrassed by a stray dog acting erratically and drooling around the mouth. My legs grew exhausted as I tried to complete the last mile's-worth of work - all with this dog lurking nearby. I called the local police and got animal control to come out and round up the dog, knowing my clock was ticking and I had very little energy left but work had to be done. With the dog situation in someone else's hands, I went back to my last responsibilities, but saw the clouds on the horizon. Dark, scary clouds. Now I had to make a choice - race against time in my fatigued state and try to wrap things up before the storm hit, or play it safe, get inside, and dive for cover because my work could be finished afterward. 

The focus onthe challenge of time and fatigue versus completing the tasks at hand draws interest; it creates an urge in the reader to figure out how things will go. There's a need for resolution that only the story can satisfy. The storm itself is one of the forces working against the character, along with fatigue, heat, and the ever-present dog, but the story is about the challenge of completing things.

And to offer some closure, I did wrap up my duties, got inside, watched the storm from the relative safety of my own home, then went out to hand off my work.

I do not, however, know what happened to the dog.    

Writing and RAGBRAI

Regular readers of this piece know that I enjoy bicycling, particularly long-distance bicycling. In the spring and summer months (this year being an exception), I can often be found conquering the roads and trails throughout the region. I love covering the miles, taking in the fresh air, maintaining a heart rate higher than my cholesterol reading, and zooming along on my trusty Schwinn. And like any distance cyclist, I have had an interest in RAGBRAI.

My trusty Schwinn

For the uninitiated, RAGBRAI is a ride held by the Des Moines Register, going by the full name of  Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI). It is a nearly 500-mile, week-long journey across a state which, much to my surprise, is not entirely a flat, empty prairie full of corn. This grand ride is one of the longest continuous ones in the country, and you will get to go with approximately 60,000 of your compatriots-in-cyclingon this grand travel. RAGBRAI has always drawn my attention because of its epic length, its challenge to the human physique, and the skill required to endure such a long ride. And yes, there's a part of me that would love to take this grand trek throughout the Midwest.

Then I face the simple fact: I would die. The ride would kill me. Literally kill me.

Why do I go on praising RAGBRAI just to shoot myself down and walk away from the challenge? Simple: I know what my training has built me for. Now, I openly admit that if I was able to dedicate myself to such distance training, get a bike better suited for distance than my trusty Schwinn, and apply discipline to other parts of my life (health, diet, physique), RAGBRAI would be very doable, and indeed enjoyable. However, that's not what I've trained for. My cycling style is slower, more methodical, and used primarily as a physical meditation on the world at 15 miles per hour. The distance happens, yes. Howevber, seven consecutive days of rides averiging almost 70 miles a shot would take their toll. I would die, and that would be the end of it. Mission unaccomplished.

 Why am I going on about this? Because I think about the same trek I have taken with writing. Without question, I wanted to write a book for many years, but the thought of it was freaking impossible. Four-hundred pages of continuous storytelling, complete with a satisfying character hourney, complete story arcs and subplots, and constant reader interest? Never gonna happen. However, I realized back then that, just like RAGBRAI, that writing journey was not possible because I hadn't trained for it. My writing was research-based, and my creative muscles were rather stunted. So, instead of disposing of the dream of writing a book, I trained for it. I worked hard, learned my lessons, wrote constantly, practiced my voice, and developed the tools necessary to write a complete novel. Then I went off and did the unthinkable: I wrote that book (and another, thank you). I just needed the training.

RAGBRAI ends tomorrow in case you want to zip over to Iowa to congratulate the finishers (it's non-competitive - the only goal is to finish). You can look at the cyclists crossing the line and taking in a little amazement at their feat. Feel free to appreciate what it took for them to do this. And then, after the last rider crosses the line, fingure out what your own RAGBRAI is, and start training for it.    

Writer At Play

Let's face it - being a writer is hard work. Maybe not in the same way as other, more labor-intensive jobs, but it's tough. There is a lot of training, all kinds of repetitive tasks building up your skills, a lot of setbacks, and the inevitable pain of failure. And we do all of this and go through all of these things in order to become a better writer, and to eventually reach some point where writing flows naturally - but there's no promise we'll hit that pinnacle. As I said, writing is hard work, which is why we need to have our fun and games now and then. 

Now fortunately, writers do differ from more labor-intensive jobs in the sense that if a writer decides to fool around, there's minimal risk of an industrial accident and a lawsuit from OSHA. Rather, when writers have some fun, they don't even need to actually be writing. It can be all mental fun and games, or letting meaningless ideas coming to mind that the writer just indulges. Most of the time, the best way for a writer to help themselves while at play is to simply challenge themselves to let go of rules, structure, and all the formalities, and look for the unexpected - then play with it.

I was trying this out with a simple idea - a writer's prompt, if you will. Someone sits down to have their fortune read, and the medium brings out the tarot deck and places down the first card  - and it's the...

What is it? Is it the Death card? The Ten of Swords (literally the worst card you can get)? Well, if you don't know the cards in a tarot deck, that actually helps. "Playing" with this story means giving ourselves the opportunity to step outside the reader's (and the writer's) expectations and draw on something new and unexpected. What if the first card is... the Mother-In-Law. Now, a normal tarot deck does not contain this card, but maybe that's the point you play upon. Maybe the medium has never seen this but feels obliged to explain the card. Maybe the medium has a truly magical tarot deck and expects weird things to appear. The next cards could be the Sloth, the Cheeseburger, the Loft Apartment... whatever you want. Play with it. Have fun.

When I went with this prompt, I had the medium draw the Death card, then explain to the frightened customer that it didn't necessarily suggest death was imminent but rather some form of change. The medium then drew the next card and it was... also the Death card (utterly impossible to do). And yes, the third card of this poor soul's fortune was - you guessed it - yet another Death card. I didn't go wild with the play aspect, but I definitely mixed it up. My thought was, "what would it be like to be constantly pursued by the Death card?" So I played with ideas, and there it was.

If you are in the mood to flex your writing muscles but not in the place where you can create, just take in an idea and try to process it through your creativity. Leave the proper and practical structure behind, and stretch your mind as far as possible outside the boundaries. It's the kind of play that will show up in your writing... you just might not realize it until you see how your horizons seem broader.  

A Few Choice Words

I am sure you have heard about the last heat wave that hit the Midwest a week ago, and astute weather-watchers will know that another heat wave is beginning as of today - the "heat dome" effect that is becoming so popular to talk about. However, it takes a real fan of weather trivia to know that this is also the 31st anniversary of the great heat wave that hit Chicago, taking over 700 lives with it before things cooled down from their 105-degree peaks. It was a genuinely miserable three days in the city, and for people without air condition (as was the case in my apartment), the heat was something I will never forget.

The part of the heat wave that applies to today's post, however, has nothing to do with fatalities or the weather pulling the sweat right out of us. Rather, I recall how people were so amazed and overwhelmed by the heat that the temperature apparently melted away their vocabulary, reducing people to as few words as possible. A discussion in the morning with my then-girlfriend would go something like this:

Me: "How bad is it outside?"
GF: "It's hot."
Me: "Hot?"
GF: "Really hot."
Me: "Like how hot?"
GF: "Like really really hot."

Looking bad, I can appreciate how this did, in fact communicate the temperature in a very human way. Really hot was a few degrees higher than hot, and really, really hot was a few degrees higher still. In the midst of a heat wave, not much more needs to be communicated. However, as writers we have an opportunity to write about hot environments from the luxury of a more temperature-controlled place (if we choose), and use the full breadth of our vocabulary to express to our readers just how hot it is. Or we can surrender to the ease and comfort of "really, really hot."

This is one of the areas where we can make our writing really shine without too much work, and it's by keeping a lookout for words like "really" (or its cousin "very") as a way of amplifying our adjectives. Instead of emphasizing how hot it is by the number of times we use the word, "really," we can switch words altogether. Temperatures can rise from "hot" to "exhausting," to "scorching," and up to "hell-on-Earth." Save your very, really, incredibly, etc. for a special occasion, or for a fallback when you are just too tired to flex with a stronger word. 

For a little elaboration on this, I recommend my post, "Dirty Modifiers," to get more of the point across. Otherwise, my only advice is to be careful outside the next few days, because it's going to be hot. You know... really hot.   

A Good Reason to Write

I hope everyone had a festive Fourth of July. I tried to - really, I did - but sometimes those aren't how the cards get played. With the storms rolling through I had periodic power outages and it basically ruined my Friday night. I had a little recovery setback in the form of a mild fever. With my car sitting idle, one of the wheels decided to deflate (and I had to rely on other people to repair it because I cannot exert myself in that way). And as the topper, I found out today that someone I know was killed Saturday in a freak accident during those horrible storms. It just wasn't a great holiday weekend.

Of course, such a bad stretch of days can lead anyone back to the idea that it's been too rough a time to sit back and write anything. Even the most devoted writers would not be scolded if they had a bad weekend and said, "That's it, today I am not writing a thing." No shame there, but I would make the argument that times like these are actually the kind of situations which should move us toward the keyboard, not away. 

Personally, I find that one of the greatest power a writer possesses is the ability to create a new form of reality. Obviously, no writer can change what has already happened, but they can draw up a different world and explore it for some of the truths not currently available to them. Writing about the perfect Fourth of July weekend will not remedy the shortcomings of this one, but for one glorious flurry of words, we can talk about our hopes, dreams, aspirations, and everything we felt inside that did not get a chance to be expressed. No storms, no fever, no flat tire, no freak accident. For that time on the page, life can be good again.

Some might say, "That kind of escapism isn't very healthy." Well, if it was escapism, maybe it wouldn't be. However, as we develop our skills as writers, we learn not just how to write about other events, but also to pick out the universal truths in those stories and better understand them. Instead of wailing woe and lament for all the things that didn't happen, we can discover just why those things were so important at this point in time and why we are so shaken from their loss. As I wrote about this past weekend, I came to the realization that I just wanted the world to return back to normal again. My recovery has not been too bad, but being cooped up in my house for about two weeks has really made me yearn for the simple things in life to come back, and be frustrated by those things that have changed forever.

It might not be a big revelation, and there's a chance I would've figured things out without having to write a bunch of stuff. However, the tool of writing expedites matters, and grants me a shortcut to some valuable lessons. Now I can move forward with my recovery, hopefully get back to a new kind of normal, and begin to pick up where I left off before everything changed. And for those things that are irreversible, I hope to find peace with them.

RIP, Dana.   

Getting Weird

There was this unintentional exercise in creativity I participated in totally by chance many years ago. It was a simple prompt: Create your own alien life form, and describe it. The important part was not to just pick some alien like ET or the infamous xenomorph in the Alien franchise, but make up one of your own. The hook here is that, by definition, your alien could be anything in the universe. A number of us participated in this, and it was actually very telling in just what it meant to be creative.

Of the people who participated, they stretched their imaginations. Aliens with eyes on their feet, with tentacles and feelers to investigate the world around them. Some changed colors, some were invisible. Large, small, winged, everything - they covered the spectrum, each one a derivation on the creator's idea of a cool alien. My alien was a little creature that, for all intents an d purposes, resembled a pair of sunglasses. It was a parasite that would control the minds of potential hosts, and make then wear the alien sunglasses, which would then latch on to the host around the eyes, slowly feeding off of it. Outsiders would just see someone with a cool pair of shades, but it was the alien pair of sunglasses in control.

Needless to say, I got some looks when I read this idea for my alien. People found it amusing and out-of-the-box, and it was mentioned that it had the potential to be a B-movie classic. However, the real stunner was that after everyone was done showcasing their aliens, the moderator brought out the clincher. They pointed out that while everyone did create an alien, they were surprisingly contained in their ideas. Regardless of how creative they were, all these aliens across the universe apparently were roughly humanoid, with arms and legs in the standard pattern, they walked upright, and were still just modifications of homo sapiens himself. Except for the sunglasses, of course.

Now, fundamentally is it creative to have a pair of sunglasses as the alien of choice? After all, sunglasses are already kind of a thing, right? The moderator didn't chide me for borrowing a household item, but instead pointed out the whole takeaway of this exercise: being creative is often about going beyond what we identify with. Creativity shows not just in making one's own version of an upright humanoid alien, but finding something fresh and new that reinvigorates the idea itself. I play this game with other people, and point this out after they introduce their mostly-humanoid creation. It gives them a revelatory moment, and the concept sticks with them for a bit. (One friend made an alien that was a cloud - she is just freakishly creative, so she wins).

Sometimes, the best route toward developing the "new alien" idea involves escaping the concept itself. Too often, we hear a challenge like that and we start thinking about what would make an alien more interesting than what we currently think of. Unfortunately, this anchors us to a predefined idea of what an alien might be. Engaging creativity often involves starting from a completely unattached point - the "fresh cloth" approach - and finding out what concept you want to express then building it out around that point. It means getting rid of preconditions and locking onto one point of the concept that triggers your creativity. From there you cut the new pattern and make something completely your own. Even if it ends up being just a pair of sunglasses.   

Let Me Tell You A Story...

As a writer, I enjoy engaging people with stories about my various adventures. They can be simple, mundane events, but there are plenty who have told me they know when I am at a party. They will arrive, circulate, then realize "someone is holding court in the other room." That court is held by me telling some anecdote or story from days past. It's what I like to do. It relaxes me. But, despite what people might think from watching me go about my business, it is not easy at all. It's very hard, it takes practice, and it's not always appropriate,

What creative types already know is any event can constitute a story - it's just a matter of getting the right perspective and reading the room well enough to know when the story fits the mood. I have had the unfortunate experience of being with friends when someone's name comes up and a person in the room proceeds to tell a story about that named person. The story is inappropriate to the point of awkward, total cringe content, and probably something that the named person didn't want to spread around. And yet, here we are and there it is. Other times, people will be together and someone will start telling a story. About thirty seconds in, everyone but the teller realizes this story has nothing do do with the general tone of the gathering, and that the teller basically wanted to tell this story for their own person reasons. It might be a great story, but if it doesn't fit the mood of the room, it is lost before it starts.

Now, as I mentioned in my last post, this week I donated a kidney. The surgery went fine and the kidney is now working for someone else. This event is naturally excellent fodder for a great story. However, as I recovered from the procedure (on massive painkillers), I considered what the best story actually was. There is the story about what brought me to make such a decision to be a donor. There is, of course, the retelling of the pre-op process and the highlights of my hospital stay (note: after kidney donation, the next 30 hours in the hospital invovles a lot of people examining your bladder and bladder-adjacent areas. I no longer have secrets at Loyola Medical Center). These are valid stories , but could there be more than just a travelogue of the donor adventure?

After a few more painkillers, I thought the real story might be from the kidney's perspective. After all, it was now called to duty at a new location - a rare thing for organs. Would it be excited? Nervous? Anxious to get out and see the world? What would it be like to meet a new body? This seems like fertile ground for story-telling, since anything is possible.

Now here's the closer: They're all great stories. They all should be written, or thought about, or put together during some kind of writing exercise. What makes them interesting? Well, they really become interesting if they are told at the right time to the right crowd. Maybe the whole "having my kidney pulled out through a navel incision" story isn't something people at the barbeque would like to hear, but that crowd would appreciate the quiet embarrassment as I disucss the Loyola medical staff lining up to examine my junk. In either case, there are plenty of stories to be told. Just make sure you match the story to the crowd and the mood. The story will do the rest.