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Flash: Waves Against the Pier

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The following post was written June 5, 2013.

ConCarolinas 2013 – On Sunday I attended a writer’s workshop. The panelists were:

Moderator – Joe Naff ) – Writes fantasy and supernatural thriller with strong female lead characters. (Eternal Forest; The Chronicles of Shyra (Series); The Gospel of the Font)

Panelist – Catherine McLean (http://www.catherineemclean.com/) – Write space opera. (Karma and Mayhem; Jewels of the Sky)

Panelist – Winfield Strock III (http://adventures-above-the-aether.blogspot.com/) – Writes steampunk. (Adventures Above the Aether, Aether Legion)

With this eclectic group of speculative fiction authors overseeing the workshop, we were instructed to write “A scene where the scene expresses the emotion of what is happening.” for fifteen minutes. Okay, I can do that. Below is what was written word for word; no time for editing.

***

Waves crashed around the pier, throwing a fog of salt water around Clyde. Angry tears trickled down his face, leaving tracks in the sea-mist sweat. Life wasn’t fair, he thought.

A scream escaped his wounded heart and was torn away by the unforgiving wind. Soon he would need to leave. The blood-red sunset promised a storm, no matter what the weatherman had said. He looked forward to spending the night in the creaky beachcomber shack he rented, fighting leaks and rattling panes.

She shouldn’t have left him. He had done everything right. From the first spell of summon to the last spell of binding, his high school sweetheart should have stayed with him until death parted them.

What had gone wrong?

An incoming wave driven by tide and storm pushed him back a step. His sopping jeans cling to his skinning legs like lichen. His bare feet slipped a bit on the slimy mold.

He couldn’t even summon her back. The last binding spell made her immune to hearing siren energy. She should have held steady.

(Words 176)

 

We did a round robin with the participants reading their pieces and giving feedback. Then we got the kicker for the second hour of the workshop. Write the same scene but with an opposite or strongly different emotion. Characters may be changed, but the location/scene needed to remain the same. Oh, boy. … I think I can do that. …. Ummm, okay …

***

Waves dashed in ahead of the storm, hurtling towards safety in the sand. Clyde remained on the mossy pier, digging his bare feet through the slimy green coating for firmer footing. He waited impatiently through the ruby sunset for full dark. The storm promised big ones to curl, dare and ride. Wind ripped at his pony-tail, lashing at his back and check.

Should he do this without backup? His partner had left him, refusing to even set foot in the rickety shack they rented each year, after they fought all the way from the city. Hell, Clyde didn’t even know how he was going to get back after the weekend. His high school buddy had left in a spray of sand and gravel.

An incoming wave rushed the aging pier, diving him back a step with its force. His wetsuit prevented him from felling the icy touch, but salt clung to his lips, wetting his appetite for adventure.

Soon, soon. The midnight ride through white crests and driving water would be his world. Centering him as nothing else did. Only in the blue, with water under and over him, when Neptune tried to bury him and he could laugh at the gods did he feel alive.

Unable to wait longer, he checked the tie on his ankle. He picked up the board and ran screaming off the end of the pier and started paddling into the failing light.

(words 238)

 

I really like the parallel I was able to pull. The screaming by the main character and the loss of a special friend. The timing of the second wave pushing him back. The mold/slime on the ancient pier and the existence of the shack to live in. The exercise was fun, and also showed I really need to work on adding more description to my writing. Flash needs most of it stripped, and my long-form writing has suffered because of my concentration on flash writing. I am really glad I attended the workshop.

(post initially published 6/5/2013; republished in new blog format on 7/2/2017)

Blog: Ah-Ha – A Study in Agency

Erin Penn

Ah-Ha – Take On Me video: A study in agency

Ah-Ha, Take On Me, is one of my favorite videos from my teen years. I think because the story is about a woman reading a comic book. In a time when I was stared at every time I entered the comic store as a solitary female, seeing another female with my passion for heroes in sequential art struck a cord.

Watching it now thirty years later, the story presented still resonates with me. A woman being pulled into a story then escaping back to the real world with her hero. Romance, action-adventure, fantasy, heroes, great 80’s music, and pretty awesome 80’s hair. (full video can be seen above)

The song “Take On Me” develops new meaning when viewed with the video. (words to the song can be found here: https://genius.com/A-ha-take-on-me-lyrics) The song is about a woman shying away from a relationship, but the guy asking if it okay to pursue her anyway. He needs to go somewhere in a day or two, so it’s understandable she doesn’t want to commit. Still the guy points out “it’s no better to be safe than sorry.” With a choice of losing love or never having it, which is better? A constant question in romances.

During the third verse the woman responses are questioned. Is she just being nice or is it real? The song continues either begging or daring the woman to “Take on me”. With just the song, it seems like asking to the point of begging (viewed through today’s millennium eyes, stalking is a consideration). But in the video, the whole song is clearly a dare. Are you willing to push the limits and discover just how good it can be?

In the song lyrics alone, no one really has agency, the ability to change the world and make a decision. The male singing the song has given the agency to the woman but nothing happens.

In the video both the male and female make choices which change their world. Initially the video sets the stage, the woman leads a solitary, boring life, reading a comic book in a diner late at night alone. The waitress drops of the check. We all identify and understand this world. Then it changes.

The comic male looks out at her from the panel art and winks, breaking the fourth wall. Surprised she looks around and verifies that no, her normal world is still normal, she isn’t dreaming. Then agency happens – the man extends an invitation to enter his world. Her agency response is to accept by grabbing his hand. This choice makes the rest of the story happen; their agency changed both their worlds.

But the agency has consequences. The panel police show up, hunting them down. They run away, but eventually reach a dead end. Up until this point the male has been a rogue, flirting, handsome, daring. Now he makes a choice changing him into a hero; agency not only changes his world but changes him. He rips open the page and sends her through, back to her world, then turns and faces the Big Bad to protect the exit until she is safe.

For her part, her agency comes again. Thrown out of the comic world back into her world, she discovers herself surrounded by the curious, angry, and surprised diner staff and patrons. She reacts by running. Reacting is not agency, but she was in the running mode and, rightly, still terrified from her recent experiences. What shows her agency, her being a heroine for her hero, is she did not forget to rescue him but pauses despite her desperate fear to trash dive before running. Grasping his world in her hands she retreats to the safety of her apartment. And there the first thing she does is discover his fate.

Three times she made a choice, always for the male hero. First responding to the rogue’s invitation to break the laws of their worlds, second to rescue him when every moment could mean danger from police for not paying her bill or men in white suits if she described where she’s been, and last to immediate try to find him again. But these were her choices. A sane person would have ignored the hand, left the comic in the trash, or at least throw it out once home and never look at it again. But her love powers her choice and agency.

The other major characters in the story have no agency. The waitress follows her role, anger at not being paid and surprised when the woman returns. The police do their job in the comic world. Only the hero and heroine have the power of choice.

The final agency of the story falls on the hero. Beaten near to death by the panel police, he gains energy from her love and a chance to escape to her world. Already damaged he starts throwing himself against the panels, the framework, the frame of a doorway between worlds. He is fighting; his final choice to risk everything to return to the woman.

A powerful story set to a pop-song.

WRITING EXERCISE: For you present WIP figure out points where your main character has agency and where s/he is just reacting to the situation and making choices. Is there a way to change some of the reactions to actions?

READING EXERCISE: For your most recent read, which characters of the book had agency and which did not? Where did the characters lack agency when they should have had some?

Writing Exercise: Mealtime

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of marin at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Lots of my stories revolve around food and mealtimes for a reason. Aside from sleeping, the majority of humanity’s time is spent dealing with caloric intake – preparing food, eating food, cleaning up from food. You may say, what about working? So on the job, the worker starts with his morning coffee, then has a mid-morning snack, followed by the lunch conversation (eat out, order in?) and then lunch, maybe an afternoon snack, and finally thinking about preparing dinner (what is in the house, is a grocery store run needed, or will take out do). And the reason why people work: (1) roof over the head and (2) food on the table. Instead of spending all day out in the field growing food, industrialized people now spend all days in a building making or selling stuff to get money to buy food. Food = survival. I think I can say humanity (as a whole) spends about half to three-quarters of its waking hours devoted to it.

Everyone has a different relationship with food. A different favorite food, a different favorite meal, meals cooked by certain people, food eaten for certain holidays, comfort food, power food, … the list goes on.

Food can even drive a narrative or provide information through show instead of tell.

In the flash “No More Cheeseburgers“, the mom, Heather, uses cheeseburgers as a metaphor for planetary loss providing Gilbert a means to grasp the inconceivable and act.

In the final chapter of Honestly, the following paragraph on food shows the comprises people make becoming a couple.

A big pot of Vietnamese beef pho simmered on the stove. Unlimited pizza for lunch and a home-cooked dinner was the payment offered for help moving. She stirred the noodle dish. She <Kassandra> was tempted to add a little more cilantro and fresh basil, but Troy was cooking. They had reached a truce for meal preparation, he didn’t mess with her chili and barbeque and she didn’t mess with his pho and xoi. Salads and hamburgers were fair game.

In neither case did I consciously plan food to provide an underpinning to the plot, but food is a part of life.

WRITING EXERCISE: What is your present main character’s (MC) favorite food? What is his/her favorite meal? What is the go-to comfort food? Why?

Create a short scene where the MC is either preparing or eating food. What do you learn about the MC from the scene?

READING EXERCISE: In your present read-in-progress find three examples of food being planned, consumed, or cleaned up. How does the food scenes advance the plot, provide character development, or reveal a back story?

Flash: I am Not the Crazy One

Erin Penn

Image acquired from the Internet Hive Mind

Many people complain about morning people – us “perky” people who get up during daylight hours and function like it’s something humans have been made to do through hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. Truly the weird people are the night ones.

True life story:

*ring, ring*

“hhhello?” I ask, my throat scratchy.

“Let’s go to the Beach,” the perky person on the other end states.

“Beach?” not really understanding the word. I peer at the glowing red numbers on my nightstand, squinting. “It’s 11:45 … at night.”

“Yes, we can get there in an hour. No traffic. It will be great – the boardwalk is open, lots to do.”

…. Real conversation … what I remember of it.

And I did go to the beach that night. When the dawn came in, I woke up enough to drive us home. *stupid night owl friends* – love you guys, but sometimes it is really, really hard.

(words 157, first published 6/25/2017)

Other Cool Blogs: Pop Culture Detective May 29, 2017

Erin Penn

After watching Doctor Strange, I felt strangely let down. At first the character development and plot were strong, but about half-way through they were thrust aside for wiz-bang magic battles. So I rattled the change in my pocket and bought a ticket to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them which had all the wiz-bang magic battles and special effect, plus never letting up on characters and plot. I found the hero more engaging and sexy than the aloof, arrogant Dr. Strange.

A vlogger breaks down why Fantastic Beast is amazing; why heroes do not have to be bullies. Even as adults, the American culture still worships the high school popular jocks and pushes aside heroes who care for others, who stand up and say “no” quietly. Who Will Not Be Moved. Who offer a gentle caress instead of a fist. The police officer who helps a boy find his way home is as much as a hero as a police officer who shoots at a hostage holding bank robber.

We forget this truth too often.

WRITING EXERCISE: Review your various short stories and characters. Do you have any quiet heroes or heroines? Do you like them more or less than your superpower, warrior heroes? Are the only strong, quiet types old people offering sage wisdom? Are they all female or are some of them male? Once your review is complete, take a character from your present WIP and put them in a situation where they are a quiet hero. Write a flash of 500-1,500 words. How difficult was the flash to write?

READING EXERCISE: Find a children’s book where the hero (this one should be masculine) does not use direct opposing force to “win the day”. If you have children of a particular age you read for or recommend books for, the children’s, middle grade, or YA book should be age appropriate for the minor. How many books did you have to go through?