In the Dark

Story #1 from 2020 writing competition. Prompt: In the blink of an eye, everything changes. Describe what happens.

Piper gazed at herself in the mirror practicing her confident smile.  Her school uniform was crisp and clean and her dark brown hair was neatly woven into a braid, falling over her shoulder.  Behind her, her twin sister, Iris, was brushing out her dyed red hair.  Her uniform was just as neat, and her face was a blank mask. Her hands shook a little as she worked out tangles and knots.  

"Ten minutes!" called Jessica, one of the leaders in stage crew.  Iris took a shaky breath and began muttering their audition lines.  Piper watched as her sister began to pace around the school bathroom.  All the other girls had cleared out and were probably waiting backstage. 

Piper stepped into Iris's path and gently grabbed her hand.  "Iris, you're going to do fine," she said, smiling warmly, "why don't you do that breathing exercise Mom taught us for anxiety."  Iris nodded and began to control her breathing.  "How are you so calm?" she asked, her voice a bit steadier.  Honestly, Piper wasn't.  Her stomach churned with worry and she felt as if she'd be sick.  She forced another smile and said, "I love acting more than I fear being on stage.  Your nerves won't be as bad once you get out there, trust me, and you're not the only one going out there for the first time."  

Iris gave a nervous laugh and backed away, forcing Piper to let go of her hands.  "Easy for you to say," she said quietly, but sharply, "You got the lead role last year."  "That doesn't mean you can't get it this year, even if I'm your competition," she said, flipping her hair and jokingly sticking her nose in the air.  They both laughed, then stood in silence.

  

"Come on," Iris said, grabbing Piper's hand, "let's get out of this smelly bathroom.  I want to show you something."  She led her into the hall and away from the auditorium.  Iris stopped her in the middle of an empty hall.  "Close your eyes," she said, giggling.  Piper complied and Iris slowly led her a bit further.  The ground dipped a bit, and it felt a little colder.  Piper gave a nervous laugh, "Iris what-"  Then Iris's hand slipped away and the door slammed.  

Piper's eye snapped open to reveal pitch black.  Herr eyes adjusted a bit and she realised she was in the janitor's closet.  She ran to the door, trying to open it.  It was locked.  

"Iris!" She yelled, banging her fist on the door, "let me out."  "Umm, how about I don't," her voice appeared, muffled through the door.  "You've always been the older one, the prettier one, the more talented one.  Now it's my turn," she hissed, "enjoy the next hour or so, you'll finally get some quiet time out of the spotlight."  Iris's voice drifted off, followed by footsteps that melted away into the distance.  

Piper's breathing sped up, and she began to bang on the door, yelling, "let me out of here!"  But there was no answer.  

Suddenly the closet felt a bit smaller, and a little colder.  Piper sank down to the floor, hugging herself, and began to cry.  From far away, she could almost hear the sounds of the first audition.  For the first time she could remember, she was alone and in the dark.  

Author's Note

This story was ranked 5 out of 6, and earned 84 quality points. The judge grading this piece believed that I didn't follow the prompt properly, seeing as it was asking for what happened after everything changed. A second judge, who went through and wrote commentary, stated that they thought the descriptions of people and changes in setting, making the story feel more real. They also commented that the plot twist was well written, and they couldn't see it coming. What do you think?

Reviews

[JayG]

Well, you asked for comment, and you’re obviously working hard on your stories. But one thing jumped out at me early, and it’s shared by all your writing, so I thought you would want to know. It’s a single thing, but has ramifications that effect it all, so I thought it’s better say, first, that nothing I’m about to say is a reflection on your talent, your potential as a writer, the story, or good or bad writing. In fact, the problem you face is neither your fault nor of your making, but it is critical.

Lke pretty much everyone who who turns to writing you suffer from a huge misunderstanding: Because we learn a skill called writing; because our teachers gave us the impression that writing is writing, and we have that taken care of, we assume that because the profession is called Fiction-Writing and the skill we learned is called writing, we reasonably expect two to be related. But they’re not.

Yes, we learned a skill called writing. But think about it. Did your teachers spend one second on how, and where, to end a chapter, and a scene—or even what a scene on the page is? How about dialog? How much time was spent on the nuance of presenting dialog, tag usage, and what parts of conversation to include and what to leave out? Did even one teacher explain what a reader needs to know, quickly on entering a scene, and how and why you need to provide and manage a short-term scene-goal? Did your lessons include why a scene ends in disaster, and must?

My point? If you weren’t given such knowledge and skills, and no one told you what a scene is and the elements that make it up, how can you write one?

But that's the misunderstanding. Here's the the problem: What we universally miss is that professional skills in any field are acquired IN ADDITION to the general skill-set we call, "The Three R’s." And, of course, Fiction-Writing is a profession.

So, what kind of writing techniques were we given? Think back and compare the numbers of reports and essays to the number of assigned stories and you’ll see that we were being prepared for the kind of writing that employers require: essays, reports, and letters. In other words, nonfiction.

The goal of nonfiction is to inform the reader clearly and concisely. Because it is, it’s fact-based and author-centric. The narrator reports and explains in an outside-in way. And because we cannot hear the narrator’s voice, or know how the author wants a given line read (such things as what expression to wear and what emotion to place into the performance), the narrator is inherently dispassionate. So if those techniques are used for fiction the result is, and must be, very like a history book. And who calls history books page-turners?

But making matters worse, because you begin reading with full knowledge of the scene, the characters, backstory, and, the situation, you do know how to read the work to best include a strong emotional component. And the things you don’t mention because they are so obvious to you go unnoticed as you read the work because your mind automatically fills them in without you noticing.

Bear in mind that pretty much every hopeful writer falls into the same trap because, given our training, we’re in the position Mark Twain commented on with: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

Knowing that, look at the opening lines of the story:

• Piper gazed at herself in the mirror practicing her confident smile.

Eleven words, and not a bad opening line, but…this is a report and obviously comes from you, someone not on the scene or in the story. And for the reader, Piper has no known reason to do it. So the reader gets information, but as a report. Suppose, though, that you’d opened with something like:

Piper smoothed her uniform blouse, trying to ignore the pre-audition butterflies as she practiced her confident smile in the mirror.

At twenty words, it’s longer, but look at the differences from a reader’s viewpoint.

1. We know why she’s practicing her smile.
2. We know she’s nervous about the audition.
3. The uniform blouse suggests high school, or perhaps college, but not military. So the reader has a feel for where we are, in general.
4. This is Piper living then scene in real-time in the moment she calls now, not a narrator explaining. This matters because the report format is to present overview, a record of events, with no uncertainty. But in Piper’s viewpoint, in her moment of “now” as she views it, the future is uncertain, and therefore interesting. And because the viewpoint is hers, and now ours, too, we are as interested as she is in what’s going to happen next

• Her school uniform was crisp and clean and her dark brown hair was neatly woven into a braid, falling over her shoulder.

Again, a report. But why does the state of her uniform, one I cannot see, matter? It has nothing to do with her getting a yes at the audition. And simply knowing what simple fact isn’t a fraction of what we would need to visualize her as you see her.

But here’s the thing. If we can’t see her, and you make the reader feel they’re living the scene in real time with her as their avatar, she looks like the reader, to the reader. And is that bad?

Do we need to know her hair color? Have some one admire it and say they wished that had such pretty brown hair. The reader learns the same thing but you don’t have to trot onstage, kill al momentum the scene may have, and annoy the actors. After all, if someone suddenly appeared where you are and began talking about you to invisible people would you stand quietly till they finish or would you ask them who they are? Will Farrell made a film, in 2006, called, Stranger Than Fiction, that literally has that happen. It's a film that writers can really relate to.

Viewpoint matters hugely to fiction, because how the character views the scene matters far more than what’s there. And having the reader know the character's viewpoint is critical to a reader’s emotional involvement. In fact, viewpoint is the primary difference between fiction and nonfiction. Why? Before you go on, look at this article:
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/2011/09/22/the-grumpy-writing-coach-8/

So…I’m dead certain that this was NOT what you either expected or hoped for when you said, “What do you think?” But it is what you need to know, so....

You write well, so your wordsmith skills aren’t in question. But you’re missing critical information, because in the words of E. L. Doctorow, “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader, not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”

No way in hell can the nonfiction skills we spent more than a decade perfecting do that. For that you need the emotion-based and character-centric skills of the fiction-writer. After all, while nonfiction strives to provide an informational experience, fiction’s goal is an emotional experience. We strive to make the reader feel, and care.

Were you to use the skills you presently own to write a horror story, you would make the reader know when the protagonist feels terror. But when you read such a story is that what you seek? Or do you want the writing to terrify YOU, and make you afraid to turn out the lights when you go to bed? And if the last one, can your report writing skills do that? Naaa.

See the problem? But the good news is that the solution is dead simple: Add those missing skills to your current set. They have the power to give your words wings. Used well, if someone throws a rock at your protaonist the reader ducks.

Obviously, while the answer is simple, that word isn’t interchangeable with either easy or fast. So there’s a fair amount of study and practice. But that’s true of any profession, and I’m pretty certain that you’ll find the learning fun, like going backstage at the theater for the first time. A lot of it will make you shake your head and wonder why you didn’t see it for yourself because once pointed out, it’s obvious.

So, where is this cache of knowledge? Your local library’s fiction writing section is filled with the views of pros in writing, publishing, and teaching. But my personal suggestion is to pick up Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling Writer. It’s the best book I’ve found to date on the nuts-and-bolts basics of creating scenes that grab the reader and don’t let go. It’s also the book that, after I’d written six unsold novels, resulted in a series of publishing contracts.

For an overview of how many issues are different between fiction and nonfiction you might dig around in the articles in my writing blog. I’ve also included a few short stories where you can see the things I talk about in action.

So there you have it. Not what you wanted, but hopefully, something you can use. But whatever you do, hang in there and keep on writing. After all, if every day you write just a bit better, and live long enough… 😀


Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/