One

ONE 

I was sitting in Coffee Project NY. The coffee shop wasn’t very large, quite small in fact. At 10:30am. Drinking an americano and reading Elle magazine. I was tired and half-awake from only just waking up, I'd walked down the street for roughly a few minutes and decided to get a cup of americano coffee at one of New York’s finest coffee shop. 

As I flicked the pages of Elle magazine, creating mental plans for the way to be a lot of skinny, my eyes untired on the mug. It wasn't stunning or elegant, it wasn't high-ticket, it had no sentimental worth. For a flash I reached resolute bit the proper machine created kind - coated within the same color as the lipstick of the model on the page. I had meant to drink it however instead snapped my hand back to the shiny pages and returned to flicking them back and forth too quickly to browse a lot of the objects and holiday deals. I was becoming quite bored from flicking back and forth between these objects and holiday deals; I had no idea why I was still waiting here; I'd finished my americano.  

I had just decided to move to another booth, which luckily had some ones abandoned newspaper about the presidential race happening at this moment for the country's new leader. There was also another abandoned item, which someone had luckily left for me; it was a cellphone. For a moment, I didn’t trust the cellphone from past experiences, but this time I was bored and just wanted something exciting to do so, I opened the cellphone. 

Moments passed by; nothing had happened with the cellphone, but the waitress had directed three people in police officer uniform towards his new booth. One of the police officers asked, “Are you Daniel White?” I replied to him confused, “Yes, I’m Daniel White but how come you’re asking?” The police officer alerted his other officers, they began to walk away going towards both exits, he became quite cautious. I was even more confused now; I hadn’t done anything wrong.  

The police officer cautiously asked, “Daniel, do you have any weapons on you that we should know about?” I checked my pockets, saw my small revolver and then answered, “No, but why are you acting very weird, I've not done anything wrong, have I?” The police officer took the cellphone from my hands and opened a list of text messages from this cellphone to a burner phone, the police officer showed me the texts. I took the phone from his hand and begun to read through them.  

“Have you gotten the package yet?” this cellphone texted. They replied, “Yes, but I won’t disclose the location over these text messages, we don’t know who is reading them.” This cellphone replied, “Daniel, meets us at Central Park, tonight at 09:00pm.” That was the last text message from the other cellphone, the message was sent today a few hours ago. The police were onto the location of this mysterious ‘package’. I looked back upwards at the police officers and was just about to explain that this wasn’t my phone when the officer interrupted, “Daniel White, you’re under arrest for the kidnapping of Alice May. You have the right to remain silence and refuse to answer questions. Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to the police and to have an attorney present during questioning now or in the future.” I placed my hands in front of my chest, the police officer placed his handcuffs tightly onto my wrists.  

I had been arrested by the New York Police Department for an unknown reason. I was angry. Very. I didn’t think that I'd done anything wrong or even bad to upset someone; there must be a reason why I'm to blame for the kidnapping of Alice May, maybe an angry family member or ex-boyfriend or girlfriend that wants to take revenge on me. I have no idea what I may have done to upset someone related to her or even friends with her. I was very confused and angry, maybe getting close for me to just let it go and release my inner anger, which wouldn’t be good.  

As the police officer begun to lead me outside towards their patrol cars, I began to think of a plan for my great escape to freedom. I needed something big to happen for a distraction, I needed someone to hurt themselves that the police officers would rush over to help them. It was evil but would ensure my great escape to freedom. This was going to probably be my only time to escape. I had to do something at least, even if I doesn’t work it has to be something or I'll regret this decision. This was my time. I had an idea for what I could do but it must’ve been the stupidest and dangerous idea I'd had yet; it involved me using my army knowledge and the small silver revolver I had in my jacket pocket. This could be the end of me, or it could somehow work. For my plan to work, I needed to get this police officer to uncuff me whilst I pretended to tie my shoelaces, then reach into my jacket pocket to pull out the small silver revolver on him. I'm pretty sure because of my prior army training and having been in situations like this, I'm sure that I’ll have better reaction times to him meaning he won’t have enough time to pull out his gun. This is just based off the few minutes, I just saw the officer for in the coffee shop, so there is a quite high chance that this may not work and result in me being shot or even killed; I'm unsure on the law for pulling a gun on an officer. I could end up being killed, but let’s not ignore the consequences but focus more on what could go right; my freedom. If I had to give my chances in this situation of living in a percentage it would probably be between twenty percent and twenty-six percent chance of survival that’s if the police officer is unarmed, if they’re armed then it’s about ten percent or lower for my chance of survival. I'm screwed right now you could say so. 

Scanning around the area I looked for things like CCTV cameras, other officers, civilians, ATM machines, these are just things that could identify me if I did manage to get away from this police officer by threatening him with my unloaded small silver revolver. I didn’t want anyone to know who I was in the public, but the police still had my record but no way of tracing me through a house address or debit card; I didn’t trust them.  

As I begun to slow my walking pace down, I cautiously asked the police officer, “Please may you undo my handcuffs so I may tie my shoelaces, I don’t want to trip up and hurt myself.” The police officer undid my handcuffs. “Thank you.” As I begun to kneel to the ground, pretending that I was tying my shoelaces, I reached into my jacket pocket for my Marui 2.5 Inch Python Silver Revolver aiming it straight at the police officers head. I didn’t need to worry about him wearing a bulletproof vest; I can tell when someone is wearing one and he isn’t right now which is unlucky for him. Tough luck, I guess.  

I looked down at my watch. 11:00am. Half an hour has passed by. The other officers hadn’t called in yet or came over to check whether he’d arrested me or not. I was surprised. Pure luck maybe for me then, I’m not bothered that much. Looking back at the police officer, I had previously handcuffed I asked him, “If I removed the tape and uncuff you, will you do two favors for me and I may spare you and your family’s life. Deal?” The officer nodded his head up and down rapidly, I removed the tape slowly trying to not cause much pain to him, that wasn’t necessary.  

 

Reviews

[Spamalot]

• I was sitting in Coffee Project NY. The coffee shop wasn’t very large, quite small in fact. At 10:30am. Drinking an americano and reading Elle magazine. I was tired and half-awake from only just waking up, I'd walked down the street for roughly a few minutes and decided to get a cup of americano coffee at one of New York’s finest coffee shop.
Were you to turn in this opening as a school assignment you’d probably get a good grade, because you’re writing exactly as you’ve been taught. The form is author-centric and fact-based. And in it you, the narrator lecture the reader on the situation, not as if you’re living it, but as a recollection—a chronicle of events, interspersed with authorial explanations as needed.

In line with that, let’s look at the paragraph with an eye to speeding the read, which will make things happen faster, and therefore, have more impact:

1. Do we have to explain that the character is sitting? Won’t the reader know that based on what happens?
2. Why tell the reader that the shop isn’t large, and then say it’s small. Doesn’t “small,” in and of itself, tell the reader it’s not large? And who cares how big it is? Terms like “large” and “small” are relative after all, large shop in a small town may be smaller than a small shop in a huge town.
3. Why tell the reader what the character is doing at the moment, and then, stop the action, go back, and explain what happened before this unknown person arrived at the shop? If it matters to the story, why not begin where the story begins? If it doesn’t matter, why mention it? You’re writing a story, not a history.
4. Why does a reader care what magazine this person is reading if brand don’t matter to the story? What if the reader doesn’t know that magazine? Best to tell the type, if it’s relevant to the story. And why does the kind of coffee matter? Would the story change in the smallest way if if the drink was hot chocolate, or espresso? If not, mentioning it serves only to clutter the narrative.
5. Doesn’t “half-awake” say it all? If someone has gotten up, dressed, and left the house, and is still half-awake, doesn’t that say they’re tired?
6. I’m confused. How can someone wake, get dressed, and presumable do the usual morning things in the bathroom, leave the house and walk for “several minutes,” and still have “just gotten up?”
7. You placed the reader in a place called Coffee Project NY, and they’re drinking coffee. Do you really have to explain that the place is in NYC, or that it’s a coffee shop? And why does the reader need to know the name? Unless they’ve been there, the name will call up no meaningful image.
8. Do we care what the exact time is? Does it matter of the person walked for a “few minutes,” or an hour? The scene takes place in the shop. All that went before is irrelevant to that.

Trim the unneeded and irrelevant fluff, and replace the dead-voice of external narrator with the protagonist’s viewpoint and we have something like:
- - - -
I was still yawning myself awake as I sipped at my coffee, while exploring a fashion magazine and enjoying the morning bustle in my favorite New York Coffee Shop.
- - - -
The original was 62 words. This sets the scene in 28, and does so in the viewpoint of the one living it. So while the original was someone talking about the setting, which meant nothing happened during those words, in this, the protagonist is on stage and active from the first line.

Here’s the deal: The reader is NOT interested in a description of what can be seen on the screen of the film version. That takes far too long to read, and the protagonist is ignoring everything but what s/he’s actively paying attention to, in any case.

The reader is NOT interested in the progression of events. That’s plot, not story. Story happens in real time. And in the words of Jack Bickham, “To describe something in detail, you have to stop the action. But without the action, the description has no meaning.” And in this case, the original opening opened with description, not action.

But there’s another thing to keep in mind. As the great Ernest Hemingway put it, “Never confuse movement with action.” Telling the reader the progression of events is movement, not action. As the amazing Alfred Hitchcock put it: “Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.”

So…are you screwing up? Absolutely not. As I said at the top, you’re doing exactly what you’ve been taught to do. And THAT’s the problem. Think of how many reports and essays you’ve been assigned over the years, compared to the number of stories. Think of how much time your teachers have spent on how to handle dialog and handle dialog tags. Did any teacher discuss the role of the short-term scene-goal? Did even one teacher talk about the elements of a scene on the page, and how they differ from a scene on the stage or screen? Did anyone, in any class, explain why a scene almost always ends in disaster for the protagonist?

I ask, because the logical question that follows is: How in the hell can anyone write a scene if they don’t know what one is, or even the elements that make it work?

Bottom line: We learn a skill called writing. There is a profession called Writing. It’s reasonable to assume that the skill and the profession are related, but they’re not because the only writing techniques you’ve been learning are nonfiction. Reports, like the presentation of this story are fact-based and author-centric. The goal is to inform the reader clearly and concisely. But that is NOT the goal of fiction.

If you’re reading a horror story, do you want the author to inform you that the protagonist is feeling terror? Or do you want the author to terrorize YOU, and make YOU afraid to turn out the lights? No way in hell can the skills we’re given in school do that. And they’re not designed to. Fiction, though, is designed to evoke emotion in the reader, and make them CARE. So it makes use of techniques that are emotion-based and character-centric. Did you teachers spend even a second on that approach to writing? Of course not, and for good reason: Professions are learned IN ADDITION to what we’re given in our school days. There, we’re being trained in skills that employers prize. But writing fiction is a profession, one with it’s own set of specialized knowledge and skills that must be mastered. And like any other profession it takes significant study and practice till the skills of writing prose feel as intuitive as those you’ve practiced daily in school.

But…don’t we learn how to write by reading? No more than do we learn to cook by eating. Reading helps, of course, but consuming any product tells you nothing about the decision-making during its creation.

But don’t be discouraged, because there is good news. And it’s not a matter of talent or potential, only craft—something every hopeful writer faces, and every successful writer overcomes. So it’s more a rite-of-passage than a disaster.

More good news: I think you’ll find the learning fun—like going backstage at the theater. And there will be lots of times when you say, “But…but that’s so obvious. Why didn’t I see it for myself?”

For an overview of a few of the issues involved, dig around in the writing articles in my blog. They’re meant for the hopeful writer. And pick up a good book on the nuts-and-bolts issues of fiction, like James Scott Bell's, Elements of Fiction Writing. Then read it slowly, with lots of time to practice each new point, to make it yours, so you won’t forget you read it three days later.

But whatever you do…hang in there, and keep-on-writing.

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