I’m taking the holiday off. Pen to Paper will be back next week. The weekly haiku, quotation, and short story will still be posted, though.
You could reread this from last year’s Memorial Day, if you cared to.
Have a safe and pleasant holiday.
Fiction: Reindeer Games
She was the sexiest reindeer at the Memorial Day festival.
Cori wore a brown crop top, brown short shorts, and high-topped suede boots. This would have been sufficient to draw plenty of attention. But she also wore a green sash with sleigh-type bells sewn onto it every few inches that jingled when she walked. The end of her nose was painted black, and she wore a headband with felt antlers attached.
Many people stared at and after her, but not many spoke to her. When they did, it was to ask the obvious question: “Why are you dressed like a reindeer on Memorial Day?”
She would smile and say, “I’m looking for someone.”
Cori wasn’t sure the person she wanted to find would be at the festival, but it was her best chance. So she walked through the crowds of families and friends scouting for a face she hadn’t seen since February.
Then she got the break she needed.
OT: Double Secret Probation
Do you fans of National Lampoon’s Animal House recall this exchange?
Quotable 53
“Being a writer” is itself a weird idea, really, as though there exists a permanent state of glorious writerliness, when in fact writing is not a state of being, but an art, a craft, a set of technical skills.
– Kate Pullinger
haiku 164
thunderstorm –
hailstones garnish
dog’s food
Pen to Paper: He Said, She Averred
“Hello,” he lied.
– Don Carpenter, quoting a Hollywood agent
Danielle’s comment on my most recent story prompts this foray into the world of dialog(ue) tags.
When I was a young copy editor, I learned to chop “ue” endings off of words. I also learned that in newspapers, everything is “said” or “asked”; one doesn’t wax poetic in news stories.
Fiction: Information Technology
“I’d like to preview the product,” Ashlan said, “before buying it.”
“Naturally,” Connor said. He placed a flash drive in a port on his laptop and called up the media viewer.
Ashlan leaned forward as images of documents appeared on the screen. The scene was misty at the edges, but the words on the pages were clear enough. Ashlan took special note of the dates on the pages, which were two years in the future.
Quotable 52
It’s perfectly okay to write garbage – as long as you edit brilliantly.
– C.J. Cherryh
haiku 163
May days –
after welcome warmth
another cold snap
Pen to Paper: Hide the Soapbox
Jurgen Wolff reminds screenwriters they shouldn’t hit the audience over the head with the moral of the story, or with some Important Life Message.
This, naturally, is good advice for those of us who are writing for a smaller screen, or for the page.
There are a few stories I want to write that are about Big Issues and through which I want to offer Important Life Messages. They remain unwritten because I haven’t yet figured out how to shape them so that they entertain rather than merely preach or scold. Good fiction often preaches or scolds, but it must first and foremost entertain. I haven’t found the right approach to make what I write fiction rather than a letter to the editor.
Wolff’s screenwriters have forgotten the adage “show, don’t tell” and they’re about as subtle as a Baptist evangelist at a tent revival. The characters have to play out the story and fail where they fail and learn where they learn (or fail to learn and learn to fail). The Important Life Messages about the Big Issue have to be planted organically in the flow of the story; they have to be presented almost Socratically. The reader can then find the ILM rather than having it spoonfed – or forcefed – to him.