Immediate Fiction

by Jerry Cleaver

  Now a common, but curious, thing happens. They're into this other guy's story, relating and connecting, but that's not enough. They want more, to go farther, to go the limit. That's what stories are about—getting the maximum, that concentrated, intensified dose of reality. So he says, "What would you do if I did that?" And how does she respond? She might say, "Wait a minute. That's not our experi

  ence. We can't go into that," which might make sense in some way. But no, this is story. This is how we live. She doesn't miss a beat. "Castration followed by divorce," she says.

  STORIES ARE US (The story connection)

  We live by stories—our own and those of others, real and imagined. It's how we relate and stay connected on the most personal and intimate level. We need stories, the story process, to maintain our balance and our identity. We don't think of it this way because we don't have to. We just do it. Story, the story process, is the active ingredient in all meaningful social interaction. Believe it or not, it's one of our deepest social needs.

  HOW DEEP?

  OK, it's a need, but exactly how deep a need is it? How far will we go to satisfy it? How much of an influence does it have on us, and can we find a way to measure it? Yes, we can.

  I take you to the world of crime for the answer—heist crimes (banks, Brinks, famous jewels). Let's say three guys pull off the perfect Brinks robbery, except for killing a resistant guard in the process. Nobody knows a thing—no clues, no evidence. There's no chance they can get caught if they play it safe. They each take four million dollars and split for different parts of the country.

  We'll go along with Eddie to California, where he hooks up with a woman and moves in with her. Everything is fine. No money problems. Life is great.

  Except, after a while, something starts eating at Eddie. He's pulled

  this great robbery. It's part of his identity. But he's getting no recognition. He can't pull his money out of hiding, or it'll raise suspicion. So, he's got to walk around, feeling like all the other suckers who don't have the brains or guts to pull off a brilliant heist.

  Sooner or later, he can't stand it. "C'mere, babe," he says, patting his knee. "What?" his girlfriend says, settling into his lap. "I got something to tell you." "OK," she says, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Something big," he says. "What?" "Real big," he says. "All right. Come on." "First, you have to promise, swear on your life, you won't tell another living soul as long as you live." "I won't. Never." "Well," he says, smiling. "Know that Brinks job in Arkansas?" "The twelve million?" she says. "The twelve million," he says, pointing to his chest. "What?" "I'm the guy." "What guy?" she says. "I did it—masterminded the whole damn job." "No!" she squeals. "Yep," he says, pushing out his chest. "Wow!" "Tell anyone, angel," he says, stroking her neck, "and I'll have to wring this pretty neck." "Hey, what do you take me for?"

  He tells his story. He has to, even though he could get the chair if they caught him. It's who he is. But he's safe as long as his girlfriend keeps her mouth shut. And she does—for a while. Until it starts eating at her. "Listen," she says to her best friend. "I'm going to tell you something, but you've got to promise on the soul of your kid, you won't tell a single person as long as you live." "I swear." "If this gets out, I'm dead meat." "I swear." "Between you and me—take it to the grave." "Sure." "Guess what my boyfriend, the one who can't live without me, the one I have to do everything for, guess what the won-derful son of a bitch did." "What?" "Pulled that big Brinks job in Arkansas." "No!" "Yep." "Wow!" "You can't tell." "Never."

  And he's still safe—until the secret starts eating at the girlfriend's friend, and she has to tell someone—someone who'll keep his or her mouth shut just the way she did. And so it goes until word gets out and someone turns him in.

  One thing that stands out in these heist crimes is: These guys always get caught. Why? Because they can't keep their mouths shut. None of us can. We have to tell our stories. We need to tell them. Stories are who we are. They're how we live. Without stories, we have no identity. We don't exist.

  A perfect real-life example of this is a recent (1998) high-profile case. A fugitive, subject of a nationwide manhunt for over ten years, sent his story to the newspapers to be printed nationally. Even after it was printed, no one knew who he was—until his brother recognized the writing and turned him in. Ted Kazinski, the Unabomber. He had to tell his story—give his manifesto—to the newspapers. Why? One theory was that the Oklahoma City bombing was taking away his publicity and he was jealous and wanted to recapture the spotlight. Someone else's story was overshadowing his story, and this recluse needed to tell his story so badly that he risked life in prison to do so.

  Most crimes aren't solved by detective work, but by someone tipping off the cops—passing on the story they need to tell. So, at the risk of his life, the Brinks robber tells his story: "Hey, look at me. I'm the guy who ..."

  So, why do we have stories? Because we need them to maintain our identity, to express who we are. That's the why of it. The how of it, how stories fulfill our need, is what the craft is all about.

  CRAFT

  Craft is neutral. In chapter 1 I said that craft and technique can be used to write any kind of story—science fiction, fantasy, adventure, romance, mystery. It's worth saying twice. It's also important to realize that all genres can be literary. Here are examples of great books in different genres: Science fiction: Brave New World. Fantasy: Ani-

  mal Farm and Watership Down. Adventure: Moby Dick. Romance: Madame Bovary. Mystery: The Brothers Karamazov.

  Whatever the genre, the story must be complete, or it won't get to us, won't give us what we want and need. Craft is what we use to create a complete story. The complete story is the most satisfying, not only for the reader, but for the author. It's the natural form, the most compelling, because it has the shape of our most meaningful experiences. We recognize and relate to it instantly. It reaches us before we have time to think. We connect whether we want to or not. It's impossible to sit and watch a good movie and not be drawn into it.

  The complete story gives us what we seek in trivial experience and what we need to manage painful experience. It's easiest to see in extreme cases. (Fiction is about the extreme case—extreme love story: Romeo and Juliet; extreme fish story: Moby-Dick.) What we seek and need from experience is what the survivors and relatives of TWA Flight 800, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Columbine massacre wanted and needed. What they had to have to manage the experience. Know what it was? You hear the word on the news all the time: closure.

  And what is closure? Ever heard it defined? No. No newscaster has to tell us what it means. We all know in our hearts. That's fine—for life, but for fiction we have to pin it and everything else down as much as possible. After all, that's what fiction is about—pinning it down, going as deeply into it as possible.

  What is this closure that we all need? It's a coming to terms, a final outcome, a putting to rest (as best we can). It's a way of dealing with a divorce, a death, a rape, a broken heart—a way of making sense of it, of finding a meaningful outcome—a way of living with it or dying because of it. It's not necessarily a happy ending. Some only find closure in the grave. And it's the same in comedy as in tragedy. Both must complete, finish, fulfill the promise of the story. Whether our tears are from laughter or sadness, the complete story must give us a

  sense of completion in ourselves—for the moment. Then we go in search of another connection—the story connection.

  THE COMPLETE STORY

  So, what is this complete story, and how does it work? A good way to get a feel for it is to take a look at what happens when a story works— what does it do to us and for us? What happens, for example, when you see a terrific movie? What takes place between you and that story and you and those characters that makes you feel it's a terrific movie?

  THE BIG "I"

  Typical answers to that question are: It's escapism. It takes me away from my troubles. It tells me something about life. I relate to the characters.<
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  Well, only one of those answers is true in all cases. Stories can be escapism, but what about Schindler's List} It helps you escape into the Holocaust. Would you like those troubles in place of your own? Stories can tell you something about life, but so does a sociology book. Which excites you more? You relate to the characters. That's the answer, and it's what makes a story real. Relating to the characters, OK, but how does that work? In what way do we relate to the characters? What form does this relating take?

  Stories are like falling in love. Love is an emotion. That's what it's about—relating, connecting, emotionally. That's an answer. We're getting there, but it's not the final answer. Now we need to ask, Whose emotions are we experiencing? The emotions are in us, so they're our own in that sense, but they're coming from somewhere else. We're not

  the only one having them. The emotions we're feeling are the emotions of the characters. What they feel, we feel. The better the story, the more we lose ourselves in the characters, the more we become them. If they're excited, we're excited. If they're sad, we're sad. We jump or cry out in fright when they're threatened.

  This becoming the character is called identification. That's our technical term. It can be called empathy, sympathy, vicariousness, but our term, our technical/craft term, for becoming the character is identification. And identification is what this whole game is about. Identification is why the reader reads and why the writer writes.

  THE PAYOFF

  That's an answer, but still not a final answer. We can push it to a deeper level—to its limit, to its emotional extreme—to where we need to go always. We become the characters. We feel what they feel. OK, but if we're going to understand this story stuff, this story process, fully, we need to know why we are drawn to that. What does it do for us? What are we getting out of it?

  We go to stories for this emotional connection, but why? Don't we have enough emotions of our own? Is there something missing in us? Are we deficient or incomplete? Why can't we just sit at home and experience our own emotions without going through all the effort it takes to see a movie? Wouldn't staying home with your emotions be easier than getting in the car, driving to the theater, paying to park, waiting in line for a ticket, waiting to be seated—just so that you can go in and sit in a room with a bunch of other people and feel the emotions of characters who never existed and never will, acting out a story that never happened? Make-believe! Is that anything for responsible

  adults to be doing? Indulging in fantasy—what good is that going to do us? What does that have to do with reality?

  Yes, what does it have to do with reality? What relevance does it have to the real world? What do we get out of it that we couldn't get if we stayed home alone with our feelings? First, we need to answer a question I raised earlier: are we incomplete, lacking, deficient? I'll answer that with another question: Do you have yourself all figured out? Do you know yourself so well that you'll never do anything stupid or make a fool of yourself again? Is your self-knowledge so complete? When it comes to knowing ourselves, we are incomplete, lacking, deficient. Each of us is our own ongoing problem until the day we die.

  When we go to a movie and experience the emotions of the characters (identify), we're experiencing ourselves in a way we couldn't if we stayed at home. Experiencing their emotions puts us in touch with ourselves, expands us, in a way we can't achieve on our own. When we feel what the characters feel, we feel more of ourselves. In becoming them, we become more of who we are. So the complete story fulfills us, gives us a sense of closure—completes us, for the moment.

  CAUSE AND EFFECT

  So, where are we? What have I given you so far? I've given you an understanding of what stories do. But have I given you anything you can actually use to put together a story? I have not. I've given you theory, and I've talked about the effect of the story, but I haven't given you one thing that you can actually use to put together a story—haven't given you the first step to actually make it happen. Identification is what the story does—the effect, what it makes happen, but not how it makes it happen. How—that's the cause. And that's what writers work with—

  causes. It's important to understand the difference and to keep the two separate.

  How do we put together a story that creates identification? Well, that's what this craft is all about, and that's the subject of the next chapter. There will be exercises within and at the end of that chapter and each chapter that follows. It's a good idea to be ready with what you need to write (notebook, laptop, tape recorder, etc.) so you can get right into it without hunting around for tools.

  [3] Story

  How do we do it—put together a story that gets to the reader, one that causes him or her to live and feel the experiences of the characters, to identify? Well, it can be done in a couple of ways. I can give you a definition, a concept, or a model. But stories aren't ideas. They're not concepts or definitions. They're experience. So, rather than tell you how a story works, I'm going to show you—show you by giving you a little story to see how much of an experience I can cause you to have, how much I can get you to identify, to live through the characters. Here's the story:

  My wife and I have a friend named Larry who is going through a nasty divorce. His wife wants it. He doesn't. My wife ran into him at the mall. He looked terrible—sad and despondent. He sounded worse than he looked, so she invited him over for dinner to try to cheer him up.

  Larry's an old friend, so we know what he likes. I bought a botde of his favorite Scotch and some fancy cigars he likes after dinner. We had a few drinks and were feeling pretty good. We let

  Larry know we would be there for him whenever he needed us.

  He could call anytime night or day. We renewed our friendship.

  Larry felt better. We felt better. He went home happy. We went

  to bed happy. It was a great night, all around, for everybody.

  That's the end. How was it? Moving? Compelling? Dramatic? Did you identify? Were you gripped? Did you have the kind of experience you want from a story?

  The answer, of course, is NO. You did not have an experience. You did not connect. You did not identify. You could not. The reason you could not was: I purposely beat the life out of it.

  So, the effect was boredom and maybe irritation. The cause was a dead story. I presented you with an experience that left you cold, with a mistake. Why? Because mistakes are what we start with. We make mistakes constantly. First drafts are loaded with them. Remember Hemingway: "The first draft is shit." Expecting too much is the surest way to become blocked. The other reason I started with a mistake is: We learn more from our mistakes than from our successes—not from the mistakes themselves, but from correcting them.

  So, if I'm right, if I know what I'm doing, I should be able to show * you how to turn this mistake into an involving story. But before I do, consider what's needed to make it happen.

  MAKING IT WORK

  What's needed to turn this dead story into something with some energy, some drama? Detail, dialogue, emotion, conflict? Well, I could give you reams of detail and keep the story as dull as it is. Dialogue? I could have the characters talking all night and far into the next day, and you would be even more bored than you were. Emotion? Well,

  the story has emotion. The characters are happy, satisfied, fulfilled. How much more could you stand of happy, happy, happy? That leaves conflict. Conflict? Now, why would we mess up a perfectly enjoyable dinner by stirring up trouble?

  TEN-MINUTE EXERCISE

  Before I give you my answer, why don't you work on one of your own. See what you can do to give this dead story some energy. Take ten minutes to rewrite it (more if you get rolling). You can do it two ways. You can write it all out the way it needs to be. Or you can write some general, summary statements about how it should go—plan it out without doing it word for word.

  You've done yours. Now I'll do mine. Here's another version of the same story. See if I can get you more involved.

  In this version, I'v
e got a touch of bronchitis or flu the day Larry is coming for dinner. I'm not feeling great, but I'm still up for dinner with Larry. Now, the flu is a minor detail, but I want you to decide whether you want it in or out. You don't have to have a reason—just a feeling. Most people, nine out of ten, prefer the flu in. Remember, this is not flu we're talking about. This is story, and in story, everything counts. Nothing is along for the ride.

  So, the flu is in. Larry comes over. We have a few drinks. He and my wife are both smokers. Before we get to dinner, they run out of cigarettes. "I'll go get them," I say. "I want to get out of this haze and clear my lungs." I head out for the corner store to get their smokes.

  It's a nice walk. I get their cigarettes and head back, but instead of walking up the front walk, I decide to take the shortcut down the alley. OK, point two: alley in or out? Like the flu, most people go for the alley. Flu and alley. Why? The answer to that is at the very heart of successful storytelling. It's not flu. It's not alley. It's story.

  So, I'm walking down the alley, relaxing, breathing fresh air, look

  ing at the yards. Now, our kitchen sticks out from the back of the house and is all windows along the side. I can see Larry and my wife in the kitchen. As I come through the yard, I see they're having a rather intense conversation. My wife is especially lively. I haven't seen her that spirited in months.

  OK, what's on your mind right now? What are you thinking? Let me guess. You're thinking, hanky-panky, fooling around, touching, embracing, kissing, etc. Not only are you thinking it, but you're wanting it. Oh, yes. Not only do you give me the flu and make me walk down the alley, but you throw my marriage into crisis by making my wife unfaithful. Maybe not in reality, but in story, we prefer cheating to loyalty—always. We want chemistry, passion, fireworks! You don't go to the amusement park to ride the merry-go-round. You go to ride the roller-coaster.

  THE ACTIVE INGREDIENT

  I knew what you were thinking, not because I read your mind, but be-