Momments in Time
by Chris Wilson ( Bublick )
Moments in time
Terms of reference
The article focuses on what might happen within a brief period of time and how such transitory moments might be developed by a short story writer.
Introduction
If we as writers start to research the short story market, and the skills and techniques that are needed to produce a short story then what do we find? We like to imagine that everybody will sing from the same hymn sheet, but aren’t most of us confronted by a bewildering array of websites and literature that all claim to hold the one and only key that all of us desire? Often they all talk about structure, plot generation, and character generation, and they generally go on about how any writer must identify key characters and place them within an identifiable setting and a measurable period of time. Very often this is good advice, but how many of these sites talk about capturing and exploring a single moment in time, or at very least a very short period of time, and then using such a moment to generate a powerful multifaceted story?
Often unobserved and even more often utterly trivial , these moments are all around us yet in our quest for the killer story or the killer line yet how often do we see them? Even If we do see them how often do we think of turning them into a complex story that will keep the reader absorbed up until the very end? This might sound like an impossible challenge, but how might we develop the following four scenarios?
Scenario’s 1-4
Scenario 1
It is a couple’s wedding day and the bride and groom are at their wedding reception. You are the function manager and it is your job to observe everything around you and to regulate the event until its completion. At one point the bride and groom are at opposite ends of the room yet they need to transfer a message and a reply between the two. They catch each other’s eye and an attempted transfer begins.
This actually happens at nearly any wedding reception, but think of the mindsets that could be explored. To begin with the bride and groom, after all it is their day. Then of course there is yourself as the function manager, what are your thoughts as you see the look between the two of them? If this were not enough then think of the other characters in the room that might be in the room. Grieving widows, anticipatory brides or bridegrooms to be, entertainment or service personnel; or maybe just a solitary child happily wandering amongst them all. What is everybody thinking, does anyone speak, and if they do express their thoughts or words then where, when, and how?
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Scenario 2
A man walks into a room. He has a specified role as a ghost writer for a forthcoming biography or work of fiction, and he is left alone for a let us say five minutes while his host and forthcoming subject is diverted to go elsewhere. He looks around the room and observes, in silence, all that lies before him. He does so carefully, forms an opinion of the subject’s true character and resolves to either see the job through or to quietly walk away.
How, with such a simple setup might a story emerge? I have actually addressed this scenario in a story called The Family Man, but think of the endless possibilities that rapidly emerge. What is the man’s history, does he have a family, and are they all alive and living by his side? Do the objects within the room tell a story, and what is happening within the writer’s mind as his eyes sweep around the room? Do we met his family, if we do what interactions occur, and with whom? As in Scenario 1 does anyone actually speak, or does silence reign supreme. Finally do you, as the writer wish to leave the ghost writer with both an entry and exit mechanism and, if so, how is this to be done?
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Scenario 3
It is the rush hour in a busy city, and a large crowd of commuters stand waiting for a train. On a bench there is a homeless old woman. She sits all alone like sack of old soft potatoes that have gone soft and mildew in the rain, and she simply calls out the word help. Everybody ignores her, she calls out help again, but louder now; what might happen then; and possibly what has gone on before? One word, one woman, and a platform full of commuters; how might we develop a story from here?
To begin with who is the woman and what is her history, as well as her future, if she has one, to come? Do we wish to draw out characters and responses from the commuter crowd, or what of any station staff that might be found amongst the crowd? Is anyone going to help her, or help others at a later time; or, if she is genuine, is she to be left to suffer alone? If she is a fraud then what then? Just think of the games and short story tricks that the resourceful writer might deploy. I have been such a commuter, and, to my shame, I like everyone on that platform turned away. Later on I helped out at a homeless shelter, but that was only one story that might have been told.
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Scenario 4
An old man sits in a chair by an open fire. He picks up a book, he reads the book briefly, and then closing the book gently he puts it down on a table. He smiles, gets up, and leaves the room. That’s all, no more. No words, no other characters, just the book, the man, the open fireplace and a table; why there is not even a cat or a dog to be seen!
It all seems pretty barren, but again who is the man, and what is his history? What is the book, and why does he treat it so tenderly? What has he read, and what has caused him to smile? Finally where is he going as he leaves the room, and will anyone else enter the room and pick up the book once he has gone?
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In all four scenarios the potential story lines that might be developed are as long a piece of string, even if such story lines are limited to the sensory world that most of us claim to recognise and know. To the dedicated writer though why stop there? Might all such scenarios be dream sequences, and if so what will our characters do should they waken; are our characters to speak, or will they only speak within their mind? If we slip into the world of the paranormal then who is alive and who is dead, is there an interaction, and if so which of our characters are involved? What if one, or more characters in our story has a perceived mental or physical “disability”? How do we present such scenarios to the reader, do we treat it as a disability or as a positive asset or opportunity, and depending on our position, how is such an eventuality to be treated or resolved?
Finally are we to be bound by conventional notions of time itself? Science now talks of wormholes, multidimensional plate or bubble universe structures, all of which might have interconnecting transitory or permanent time connections, and time systems of their own. Might their year last one of our earth seconds, and remember, anything is possible in a dream!
Conclusion
This article is a full of questions as is the painting of the Mona Lisa’s and some might say that, in accordance with common practice, that an answer must be found for them all; but do we really have to be bound by such rules? In reality we still know very little about the world and the universe that we live in, so if we are allowed to both wonder and talk about what might lie as yet unseen, then, in our writing, why should we not do the same?
Whether we as writers write for sheer fun or in a spirit of brutal commerciality I have tried to demonstrate that here are an infinite number of story lines just lying around us and once picked up they can all develop numerous twists of their own. If this is so why not just stop, look, think, listen, and absorb all that is around us, and then use these wonderful little moments to relate a set of stories that are just waiting to be told? Additionally why not use the short story format to question the very social fabric that most of us cling to? Why not query the notion of “they say”, “it is a well known fact” , as well as a host of other common beauties, and even look at such sacred cows as principles and morality, or he seemingly simple concept of right or wrong? These are the challenges that I would lay before any short story writer, as once such a challenges are accepted, a wonderful if at times unnerving and thought provoking world is soon to be found.
The Challenge
1/ Go into a supermarket and watch the interaction of a customer, their child, and a checkout operator at a till. Give them all a ,but get them to look at a single moment in time.
2/ Look around a local pub, look at something as mundane as two poeople greeting each other, with maybe a third person deep in thought beside them. Again take one momment, and one location, but develop the story from there
3/ Really blow your mind and have two or three characters, but get one of the characters either dreaming or slipping into a different or parralell time. Here you might have two moments depending on time mode selected, but in commen time use the same system as in 1/ and 2/.
It can be a bit unerving, and it dos need a bit of control, but the result can be very interesting
Copyright © 2010 Chris Wilson
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