Curious About What's Really Small

A daughter calls her after calling off her wedding.

Becca called her mom two days after she’d left her fiancé at the altar. "How did Daddy propose to you?"

"Apparently, he had just come from a handball game. He came in in like a tee shirt and he was kind of sweaty and I kind of liked that. He said, ‘You’re not beautiful, by far, but we’re gonna do this and we’re gonna make it work and that’s that.’"

"And you believed him?"

"I loved him as much as… I could possibly love someone at that time. He had the poise, the charm, the grace, the concentration, the nine yards plus the field goal, until he started hanging around biker bars and lesbian clubs."

"Daddy??"

"He was a very radical feminist."

"He always used to tell me, ‘Life is a river. You can either drown, swim or find a boat.’"

"Yes," her mother said. "and he’s in such a different mode these days. He's in more of a spiritual, sit back and chill, do some yoga and call it a night mode."

Boy, Becca thought, we have such layers of reality laying on top of nothing and legitimately there is no rhyme nor reason why things happen. "Well, thanks for the pep talk, mom, I gotta go."

"Ride long and hard, baby. We’re red-liners, that’s what we do."

"Will do."

Becca hung up, got into her old Suzuki Jeep. No insurance. Bad breaks. Drove to Venice beach, where she really began to dig her heels in and isolate herself.

She thought that sisterhood was powerful, until she realized that the ocean was incredibly loud and she couldn’t hear a thing.

.

She stopped, looked around and knew that she understood the world and she understood life.

Her nerves left her and she was never like that ever again.

Reviews

[JayG]

In conversation, people hesitate, analyze, and rephrase. Assume that someone comes into the room where you are and says, "I heard you just won one million dollars from the lottery."

Would you immediately reply with, "Who told you that? Or would there be a period where you wondered if you heard wrong, or if it was a joke? Wouldn't you shake your head, and perhaps wave your hand in negation, frowning, as you said, "Wait...what?

My point is that your characters are reading your script, and tossing dialog back and forth, without hesitation, changes in expression, or analysis. There's no body language, no gestures, and instead of your protagonist thinking, you, the narrator, jump on stage and inform the reader that the character had a thought, and what it is.

So the viewpoint is that of the narrator, not the protagonist. Look at the opening, not as the storyteller, but as an editor might:

• Becca called her mom two days after she’d left her fiancé at the altar. "How did Daddy propose to you?"

So...Becca, someone we know nothing about, so far as age, background, situation, and location in time and space called her mother two days after Mom left her fiancé at the altar? Not what you meant, but based on antecedent, it is what you told the reader, who has not the smallest amount of context.

That aside, we learn the question that was asked, yes, but have no idea of WHY this unknown person would want to know that. We don't know why they backed out at the last moment, what happened when they did, or anything that would make the reader care enough to want to know more.

So, while we know what was said, and to whom, why should the reader WANT to know the answer? That matters a great deal, because readers expect to be made to care and feel. History books tell us what happened, and who reads them for fun? As E. L. Doctorow puts it, “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” But...how to do that is a learned skill that's not even mentioned as existing in our school-days.

The thing we pretty much all forget is that Commercial Fiction Writing is a profession. And like all professions, the skills and specialized knowledge of it is acquired in addition to the general skills we're given in school.

We pretty much all leave our school days believing that writing-is-writing, and that we have the mechanics of that taken care of. We know we're not ready to write a screenplay, or work as a journalist without more training, but the pros make writing fiction seems so natural and easy that we never apply that knowledge to fiction. And the fact that we don't is why the rejection rate in an agent's office is greater than 99%. So, you have a lot of company. And, it's not a matter of talent, only missing knowledge.

Because writers are so often told that we should read a lot of fiction, we make the mistake of believing that we can learn to write it by reading. But the authors giving that advice assume that the one taking it knows what to look for.

Sure, you can learn by analyzing how someone we admire handles the short-term scene-goal...if, you know what it is, what it does, and why it's necessary.

Not the kind of news you hoped to hear, I know. But because you have backstory, context, and intent for how the words are to be taken BEFORE you begin reading, the story works perfectly...for you. And for you, every line evokes memories, images, plot-points and more, all in your mind and waiting to be called up. The reader? For them, every line evokes memories, images, plot-points and more, all in *YOUR* mind. But without you there to ask, when it's read...

Try a few chapters of Dwight Swain's, Techniques of the Selling Writer for fit. It's a book so old that it talks about your typewriter ribbon. But still, it's the best I've found in explaining the whys and hows of giving your words wings. And it's free on the archive site I've linked to below. It's highlighted here and there by whoever uploaded it, but that's not a bad thing. And it is free to read or download.
https://archive.org/details/TechniquesOfTheSellingWriterCUsersvenkatmGoogleDrive4FilmMakingBsc_ChennaiFilmSchoolPractice_Others

Sorry my news wasn't better, but since we'll not address the problem we don't see as being one, I thought you might want to know.

Jay Greenstein
Articles: https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/
Videos: https://www.youtube.com/@jaygreenstein3334

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“In sum, if you want to improve your chances of publication, keep your story visible on stage and yourself mum.”
~ Sol Stein