Dead

The wind was like ice, stinging his cheeks, made him pull his coat closer. He kept walking the block. Not a soul in the street. Then came to the corner store where he would buy his groceries. As usual, Alice at the cash register, and, as usual, his heart skipped a beat. He walked the aisle and bent down to get what he wanted, then nearly ran into another human, a woman, looking up at him, from thick goggled glasses, head wrapped in a head-band. She looked at him for a moment then scowled, and when he started to apologise, she simply walked off. He sighed and picked out the dinner ingredients and made his way to the counter and saw her, the same woman attending the register, every time he came in the place. Alice. Pretending that they hardly knew each other, that they had barely met, even though he had been shopping at this same store for years.

‘Hi, Alice.’

His usual line and she gave him her usual response, which was to role her eyes and to look back down at the food that she was putting through, and he wondered, not for the first time, what her life entailed, but as usual, she gave him nothing, and so, he paid and picked up the food items and wished her goodnight, to which, as always, she ignored him.

He made it back out into the night, and decided, for no apparent reason, to stop into the local bar. How many times had he passed it, and never bothered to step inside? Try as he might, he couldn’t remember the last time he had frequented a venue.

He stepped inside, carrying the groceries in two plastic bags, then saddled up to a bar stool, leaving the bags at his feet, then looked up at the bar tender, who promptly slid a bowl of nuts in front of him. He reached into the bowl and took a handful and put them in his mouth, savouring the salty taste, then ordered a beer. The bar tender selected a glass and placed it in front of him and he sipped it and it went down well.

A dimly lit room. A few others hunched over the bar. An old timer, looking like a giant potato in glasses, sipping a beer. A woman with smears of make-up running down her face; her hair, a mass of curls running down her body. He looked closer and saw that she was well older than what she initially looked, then wondered, what he was doing here, and, if he was the same. He sat and sipped the beer, then turned around on the stool and looked around. A darkened dance floor. Purple disco lights running up and down it; the DJ playing a tired eighties classic.

A woman appeared under the lights, wearing a gold dress, showing off a good body. She stood, moving to the music with her eyes closed, as though the music was touching some dark recess of her heart, somewhere. She swayed and raised a glass to her mouth and sipped, and he suddenly wondered, like he used to, whether or not, he could just walk up to her and talk to her, make friends, maybe even get the chance to kiss her, then realised how ridiculous he was being; after all, he was an unemployed middle-aged man, and, what the hell was he doing, even contemplating such a move.

He sipped on the beer and tried not to gawk, but it was impossible. Looking at her, swaying to the music, he suddenly reasoned that she deserved to have someone with her, at least taking an interest, and from that point of view, he was warranted; and so, he did the thing that he would never normally do: he stood up, and got off the bar-stool, and walked over to her, then leaned in close, said the first thing that came to his head:

‘This is Madonna, I love, Madonna.’

She opened her eyes for an instant and looked at him, then smiled, and to his surprise, opened her arms, and held him, pressed herself against him.

Her hair smelt of peach. He held her back and couldn’t believe the softness of her skin, then suddenly thought he would cry, for her beauty, and for how long it had been since he had held a woman in his arms. And then the music stopped and another old classic hit came on and she looked up at him, and he remembered his old moves, knew that the way to a woman’s heart was generally through conversation, then leant into her ear and asked her if she wanted a drink, and she smiled and nodded, and then he took her by the hand, shocked by his own boldness and lead her to the bar.

She sat on the stool, looking at him, and he asked her what she was drinking, and she simply said, ‘whiskey’. He looked at the bar tender and ordered two, and the bar-tender turned around and put two glasses on the bar, poured a bottle of whiskey, then added ice. He turned and looked at her.

‘So, what’s your name?’

‘Eve.’

‘Eve? It’s a nice name…’

The barman put the drinks down. She took hers and sipped on the straw and they sat and enjoyed the music together, and he wondered, now, all of a sudden, what he was to make of this, and where it was going, and, with no answer or idea, looked at her, and saw that she had finished her drink, then asked her if she wanted another one, to which she silently nodded.

They kept drinking and she was smiling and he ran his mouth, mostly to fill in the gaps, telling her about himself, about his life, and his work-life, and anything that came into his head, shocked that was listening and nodding at the right intervals. The music was loud enough that he wasn’t sure whether or not she was hearing what he was saying, but somehow, all of a sudden, it didn’t seem to hardly matter. And then, suddenly, she leaned in close, close enough so that he could smell her perfume, then looked him in the eye and held a finger to her mouth.

‘Ssh, I’ll tell you a secret.’

She leant in closer, staring intently into his eyes.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘You’re dead.’

‘What?’

‘You’re dead.’

‘Dead?’

‘That’s right. And, so am I.’

He looked at her and laughed, but he saw, all of a sudden, that there was something serious in her smile, something that said, she wasn’t making it up, and suddenly he felt a little afraid.

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ he asked.

‘I know it’s a lot of information to process…but, hey, you’ll get there…after all, you no longer have a choice about it. But, anyway, you’ll figure it out.’

He looked around the bar. Took a closer look at the old-timer, sitting there, slumped over his beer, then saw, for the first time that he had a knife, running through his neck, half sticking out. The old-timer suddenly turned and looked at him. ‘Boating accident’, said the old man, in a croaky voice. He looked up at the bar-man and saw that his skin was pretty grey and ashen, more like the colour of someone who had passed away. The barman caught him staring, looked at him. ‘Emphysema’, said the bar-man. He looked back over at the woman that he had been dancing with. She was sipping at her drink, looking at the bar-man, then casually looked back at him, caught him perving at her legs. ‘Drug-overdose,’ said the woman, then looked back at the bar-tender and sipped on her drink.

He looked around and couldn’t restrain a hollow laugh. Heaven. It would have to be a bar. Or, maybe, he was in hell, who could tell? The place didn’t seem to be smoldering, nor was there any excess heat, of that much, he was sure. He looked around and wondered if this was where he was going to spend eternity, turned and took a sip on the whiskey, looked up at the bar-tender, then back at the girl. All in all, if it were the case, it actually didn’t seem all that bad...

 

  

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[JayG]

• All comments very much appreciated.

In that case, you have no one but yourself to blame for this. 🤣

Certainly, you have the right attitude, and I wholly support the idea of writing fiction. I do, though, have some bad news—though it’s not related to talent, or how well you write. In fact, you have good wordsmith chops. But, there’s something critical that you, and pretty much all hopeful writers miss:

Professional skills are, universally, acquired IN ADDITION to the skills we’re given in our primary education years, and even college, unless we’re working toward a degree in THAT field. We forget that they offer degree programs in Commercial Fiction-Writing. And surely, at least some of what’s taught there is necessary. Right? We alsoforget that the entire purpose of public education is to provide us with the skills our future employers find useful. So though we don't realize it, we leave our school-years exactly as ready to write fiction as to command a battleship.

And what writing skills do most employers prize? Reports, papers, and letters—ALL three, nonfiction applications. Match that against the vast number of reports and essays you were assigned over the years, and you’ll see the problem, which is that we know how to write fiction...only, while believing that writing-is-writing, and that we already have that taken part care of.

But...the goal of nonfiction is to clearly and concisely inform the reader. As such, the methodology is fact-based and author-centric. A narrator, alone on stage, and reporting as a dispassionate outside observer, reports and explains—as you do here.

But fiction’s goal is to entertain the reader by providing an emotional experience. As E. L. Doctorow put 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.”

So, nonfiction tells us that the protagonist cried at the funeral. Fiction gives us reason to weep, as we live the event in real-time, and from within the moment the protagonist calls, “now.” And how much time did your teachers spend on how to do that? None, right?

So it’s not a matter of your writing skill, it’s not knowing that the specialized tricks the pros take for granted are necessary that’s getting in the way. And that’s fixable.

So why didn’t you see it? Because for you, the story works as it should. But you cheat. You begin reading already knowing the story, the backstory, the characters, and, the situation. So what you leave out, you automatically insert as you read—something the reader can’t do.

Look at the opening, not as the all-knowing author, but as a reader, who arrives as a blank sheet, with no context and no access to your intent.

• The wind was like ice, stinging his cheeks, made him pull his coat closer.

First, replace the word, “made” with “Making him.” Edit, edit, edit.

And give him a name. If he’s important enough to be our avatar, the reader needs something more generic than “he.”

But, that aside, this places the reader outside and in the cold, and lets us know that our protagonist isn’t there for fun. And that’s good.

• He kept walking the block.

How can he "keep" doing something we didn't know he was doing? And, given that we don’t know where and when he lives, this seems irrelevant. And, it seems to imply that something might have stopped him, but that he continued. Ans his continuing to "walk the block" implies that exercising is his goal. But that doesn’t track with him going shopping in the next line. And in the end, who cares what the weather is? He doesn’t stay outside, and nothing happened there that matters.

• Not a soul in the street.

Would the story change in the smallest way if there were others out? No. So who cares? In fact, we don’t know what time it is, or what town this is. So this is a visual detail that he’s not reacting to, and which is irrelevant to the story for that reason. It is, after all, his story. So anything that he doesn't focus on and react to is an interjection from someone not in the story, or, on the scene. And how real can that seem? So all this line does all that does is slow the reading and dilute any impact on the reader.

• Then came to the corner store where he would buy his groceries.

“Then came to?” Naa. Remember, the reader can’t know where you would place a hesitation or emotion in your words that will substitute for a printed word. They have only the printed words. A really good editing trick is to have the computer read the story to you, so you hear what the reader does.

And: he “would” by his groceries? You just told the reader what’s about to happen, and since nothing the reader sees as significant happens there, why detail things irrelevant to the scene? Does the reader care in the smallest way how he and a clerk interact? That’s detail, not story. In general, if a given line doesn’t either: move the plot, meaningfully set the scene, or, develop character, dump it because it only slows the read.

• He made it back out into the night, and decided, for no apparent reason,

This is the killer. In his viewpoint, he can’t do anything “for no apparent reason.” In life there I ALWAYS something that motivates action. In this case, and for plot reasons, you wanted him to visit the bar, so he obligingly did as you asked. How real can that seem to a reader?

Basically, you’re following him around with a paper and pen and creating a chronicle of events. But that’s a report, and every bit as exciting as any history book. And who reads them as an entertainment?

So here’s the deal: You could go for a degree in Commercial Fiction-Writing. But another answer is a LOT cheaper, and more focused: Do it yourself. The library’s fiction-writing section can be a HUGE resource, with the views of pros in the writing, publishing, and teaching fields available. Personally? I’d suggest starting with Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling Writer, which recently came out of copyright protection. It's the best I've found, to date, at imparting and clarifying the "nuts-and-bolts" issues of creating a scene that will sing to the reader. The address of an archive site where you can read or download it free is just below. Copy/paste the address into the URL window of any Internet page and hit Return to get there.

https://archive.org/details/TechniquesOfTheSellingWriterCUsersvenkatmGoogleDrive4FilmMakingBsc_ChennaiFilmSchoolPractice_Others

So try a chapter or three. Like the proverbial chicken soup for a cold, it might not help, but it sure can’t hurt.

And if an overview of the major differences between fiction and nonfiction writing technique would help, the articles in my WordPress writing blog are based on what you’ll find in such a book.

So…this certainly wasn’t what you hoped to see. But since we’ll not address the problem we don’t see as being one, I thought you’d want to know.

Hang in there, and keep on writing,

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

[roarke]

Well… I liked the way you opened the piece, I feel it set a tone for what came later. I agree with Jay, he should have a name. In the bar scene, maybe foreshadow in description how unusual it is, without giving the kicker away.
Now, the scene with the dancer, leading up to the dance, the dance, then sitting back down with her, GREAT STUFF. That sets up her bombshell secret.
One suggestion, break up the paragraphs, its easier to read that way.
Again, I really dug this story.