CHAPTER 7
Bittersweet Chocolate Love I skimmed 16 Magazine for Valentine’s Day gift suggestions while the dentist Novocained my jaw for the drill. My choices, it seemed, were an armload of flowers or a box of candy. I cruised into the Rexall on Main Street. The druggist walked as if he were under water. “Young man?” “Ka’dy.” My jaw…
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Escape from Bizarro World After I finished my afternoon paper routes, I’d always treated myself to a Saturday show at the Ritz Theater. Thunderball was the matinee. Just as SPECTRE captured James Bond, Pickle Andersen walked up beside me. Pickle fake-punched at my nose with his right fist and loudly thumped his chest with his…
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That Doublemint Smile I didn’t see him for a month, and then, holy feces, there he was in third-period English. “Why did Pickle come back to school?” “Truant officer,” Sammie Davis Jr. said. “How do you know?” Sammie watched my face. “My moms was the school secretary when they closed Fredrick Douglass. Two weeks ago,…
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Epic Fight Pickle stood outside Mrs. Lane’s classroom. “Parking lot, Cutie. After school.” I didn’t see his lips move. I’d been watching his eyes. Sammie Davis Jr. looked solemn. “You gonna fight Pickle?” I shook my head. “Why should I?” “Because you can’t back down.” “That’s in the student handbook?” Sammie’s hand clasped my shoulder.…
Read MoreThe Covid-19 Holiday Diet
I want to be the first to recommend the coronavirus as a holiday weight-loss plan. Since high school (I should have graduated in 1970, but I interrupted my educational career with a stint in the military) I have followed the Elvis Presley Holiday Diet Plan. That means I’ve gained only two pounds a year. Still,…
Read MorePersonality Traits = Memorable Characters
Kira-Anne Pelican, PhD., who researched and wrote the book The Science of Writing Characters, explained at Script.com why the best fictional characters stick in our minds. Writers are constantly reminded: create complex heroes and villains. But how, exactly? How do we ensure our characters are satisfyingly complex? Should we just layer weird personality trait upon powerful personality…
Read MoreDon’t Tell the Reader
Why should you withhold information from the reader? So your readers will wonder. So your readers will guess. So your readers will engage in the story. In an April 2019 Writer’s Digest blog, Bryan Young highlighted the importance of withholding information until just the right time. The author of 20 books used examples from the…
Read MoreHow Do You Know It’s Cliché?
It sounds like it’s been done to death Let’s start with three admissions: everything is derivative; nothing is original; it’s all been done before. But that doesn’t mean clichés are acceptable. How do I avoid clichés? I don’t. Not in the first draft. I pour everything onto the page, fast as I can, even clichés.…
Read MoreStory Begins With Voice
Listen: “I sent one boy to the gas chamber at Huntsville.” No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy. “They shoot the white girl first. With the rest they take their time.” Paradise, Toni Morrison. Do you hear the storyteller’s voice? Do you hear two different voices? McCarthy’s protagonist is a Texas sheriff. The old man in the…
Read MorePlanning Your Way Out Of That Big Empty Middle In The Plot
Vogler’s Step 7: Approach to the Inmost Cave In the original Star Wars movie, Han Solo, Chewbacca and Luke Skywalker free Princess Leia. Storm troopers chase them through the Death Star, so they blast a hold in the bulkhead and jump. They fall into the garbage dump, and it starts compacting trash. That’s Step 7 of the…
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