Hello, writers. I hope dKos doesn’t vanish on me tonight; I’ve been having a little difficulty with the site (or it with me).
Last night my brother was telling me a family story; something that happened to a relative— no, something that a relative was involved in-- many years ago. He said he’d told it to me before. I said I didn’t remember. While he was telling it I kept interrupting to say “This is a story. Someone should write this!”
“Well, you’re the one who does that sort of thing,” he said.
Today my agent happened to email me about something else, so I mentioned the family story to her. She said it sounded like a story, and did I mind if she mentioned it to an editor. I did not mind. She mentioned it to an editor. The editor said it sounded like a story.
All three of us agreed it was a story.
(Sorry to be coy about the details, but I may end up writing this story.)
So what made it a story? I asked myself. What was it that made a succession of people, one after another, recognize it as a story?
I compared it to one of my favorite family stories, which is really an anecdote. If you’ve been part of Write On! for any length of time, you’ve heard this one before. It’s such a great example of so many writerly things:
Circa 1961, my grandfather is in the men’s room at Grand Central Station, washing his hands (or that’s how he told it) when he notices a stranger taking $20 bills out of his wallet, crumpling them, and throwing them one by one into the trash. My grandfather watches in astonishment. Then, after the stranger leaves, my grandfather goes over and takes the bills (each the equivalent of $170 today) out of the wastebasket.
Now why isn’t that a story?
Because it’s got nothing to it but surprise. Wow! Why did that guy do that? And wasn’t my grandfather lucky to be standing there?
There’s no hero. There’s no struggle. There’s nothing for us to sympathize with. Nothing to feel. My grandfather wasn’t in danger. He didn’t do anything.
Then I think of a friend who told me about escaping across the Iron Curtain. How he put a few supplies in a brief case, so that he would look like he was merely headed to work. Left everything else behind. He walked by day and he slept by night. There were many dangers on the way. He overcame them. He was nearly captured at the last minute, when he thought he’d made it. But he got away. And he did make it.
Now that was a story.
Why? How is it different from the money in the wastebasket at Grand Central?
Well, it has a protagonist. The protagonist has a worthwhile goal, which the audience can sympathize with. There are dangers along the way; there’s no certainty the protagonist will accomplish his goal.
And most importantly, the protagonist doesn’t sit passively by while events happen (money gets tossed in the wastebasket). Instead, he is the catalyst of action (he packs a few supplies into a briefcase and starts walking west).
The combination of these four elements is what keeps us on the edge of our seats. It’s what makes us say “Now that’s a story.”
Or, as it is more traditionally stated:
Joe gets his arse caught in a beartrap and tries like hell to get out.
Tonight’s challenge:
Think of a protagonist. Think of a worthwhile goal. Think of something that’s preventing him/her from reaching that goal.
Write the first 100 words.
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