Hey folks. No flash fiction for you at the moment, just another piece of story from Last Days of Loneliness, the YA horror novel that I’ve been working on for a while. Here’s the most recent piece I posted. I think I’ve rewritten this scene about five times now, but this opening for it just came to me while I was lying in bed last night, so I had to give it a try. Enjoy!
Tag Archives: teenagers
Flash Fiction: Thin Line
This week’s flash fiction prompt required me to come up with a title by randomly selecting a song from my music collection. I got “Thin Line,” by Jurassic 5 (featuring Nelly Furtado). While we weren’t required to use the song itself as an inspiration, I, uh, listened to Thin Line on repeat while I was writing. The result feels very different from most other pieces that I’ve written, and follows the song’s theme of questioning how romantic / erotic relationships can coexist with friendships. I was, quite honestly, surprised by the end. And that’s all I’ll say about that. Enjoy!
Last Days of Loneliness: Crucial Exposition
I’ve solved some of my problems in Last Days of Loneliness, I think. If you read my earlier posts about how things were terrible and how I couldn’t figure out why Amanda knows to kill the eggs with fire, rest assured, I’ve stumbled across an excellent workaround.
I had very similar conversations with Ben and my brother Nate about how to solve my narrator’s knowledge problem, in which they basically said that I should make someone else in the town or cult tell her to use fire to kill the eggs. I, of course, resisted their advice at first. I’d had similar thoughts many times previously, and always dismissed them because I thought it made no sense for someone to break the cult’s taboos and try to warn Amanda. But after talking with both Nate and Ben, who both made it sound so plausible, and then reading some of George Buckenham’s rules for making games on Rock Paper Shotgun, I decided what the hell; I’d go ahead and do as Buckenham suggested. So I tried the stupid/simple solution. And I liked it.
Go figure.
What follows is the scene that I thought wouldn’t work, but did. It comes some time after a scene in which Amanda goes to the police station and overhears an interesting conversation, and long before her ultimate recognition of the information that she is given in this scene. Enjoy.
Flash Fiction? It Wasn’t Me
I totally would have worn this in high school
I spent more words introducing this than writing it. Bizarre, but useful since I have so much other work I really ought to be doing. Anyway. Chuck Wendig’s challenge this week is to write the opening sentence to something, nothing more. Here goes:
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from being a teenager, it’s that plausible deniability is everything.
Work In Progress: Last Days of Loneliness
I’ve shared my thoughts on this with you before (here too), but I have some more material. It turns out that I still haven’t solved some issues I was nattering about back in November:
So, I’m still seeing this big problem looming in front of me. I’ve got this wonderful ending all set up at the moment, with Amanda and Doug Felber working together to try to burn the eggs in order to destroy them. I really like the whole idea of the flamethrower, and think it’s pretty awesome. But WHY THE HELL WOULD THEY KNOW TO USE A FLAMETHROWER?
That’s one big issue: I don’t presently have a reasonable path for them to follow to even discover that fire would be necessary to kill the stupid eggs. Nor do I have a reason for why anyone would tell them this. Nor do I have a reason why they would think that the whole town might be destroyed, nor do I have a reason for why they might find out that destroying the eggs would result in destroying the town.
To sum it up:
- No reason to know to kill the eggs with fire
- No one with a reason to *tell* them to kill the eggs with fire
- No reason to know that killing the eggs destroys the town
- No one with a reason to tell them that killing the eggs destroys (or might destroy) the town.
In some ways, that last one is the easiest to solve. If one of them tells someone that knows the Mother about the plan to destroy the eggs, that person might wig out and tell them that it’s a stupid idea. Problem is, anyone who did tell them it’s a stupid idea would also then know that they were thinking about destroying the eggs.
All of that is potentially solved through sufficient idiot-balling, with Amanda fooling Rick/friend into thinking that she’s going to join the cult and getting a tour of the eggs and asking questions (“If they’re so important, why aren’t they better protected? What would happen if someone broke them?”). But that feels like it could be more than Amanda would be willing or able to pull off, and it would require the other person not to twig to the very suspicious questions. Don’t like that idea. See top for previous intro of this concept, which I’m now mostly dismissing.
Should I just kill my darlings and do away with killing the eggs with fire, and even do away with having the town be destroyed? What would that look like?
Ditching both schticks
Amanda goes to town on the eggs with a sledgehammer, breaks them open and kills them, the town’s covenant is broken and the cult’s connection to Mother is destroyed (or maybe the cultists were all just crazy to begin with and that was all just them being super fucked in the head). There’s a big anti-climax in the massive-wreckage department (have to rewrite the beginning again). Amanda then has to burn down her house or something in order to ensure that her parents don’t try to come home, and flees town. Another option would be going home and hoping that no one knows that she’s the one who broke the eggs, but that seems really boring because it doesn’t resolve the panic and tension of risking being discovered. Which has been building since the middle of the book.
Ok, this seems possible, but the only interesting version of this that I can see at the moment is having Amanda burn down her house to force her family to move afterwards, and there’s just not as much horror there (unless, maybe, she murdered some people in the course of breaking the eggs, in which case now she’s also wanted for murder).
Quick question: what’s freakiest? I think the most horrific option, and the one which best showcases her determination and how far she’s gone in terms of leaving conventional morality, is for Amanda to KNOW that she will (or might) kill everyone in town if she carries through with her plan. She could find this out at the last minute, which wouldn’t change how bad what she does is, but knowing further ahead of time leaves more of the blame on her. There’s no argument for the “heat of the moment” defense or whatever.
But “accidentally” destroying the town is pretty bad too, especially if she appears to feel little remorse. And that opens up some potentially interesting scenes.
So then…
Keeping the “TOWN IS DESTROYED” schtick
I could keep the whole ‘town is destroyed thing’ and instead have it come as a surprise to Amanda.
Maybe she still planned to leave town because she thought she’d be discovered and killed, along with her family, so she sent her parents to NYC for their date, and then planned to burn down the house. Turns out she didn’t have to burn down the house and tries driving away instead of sticking around for an earthquake that seems like seriously bad news. Not as horrifying because Amanda doesn’t intentionally kill the whole town, but still pretty good overall.
OR
She thought she could get away with it and didn’t have plans to leave the town, so she just set up a date to distract her parents while she runs around all night. If the date was in town, she finds them and hustles them into the car or desperately tries to convince them to leave (maybe at gunpoint). If the date wasn’t in town, she just books it from town?
The ‘parents at gunpoint’ scene sounds pretty good, but the rest of it doesn’t feel like it has as much tension. This would extend the physical threat of the climax, but (apart from holding her parents or others at gunpoint) wouldn’t do much to heighten the emotional climax.
One thing I definitely *don’t* want is for Doug to know that the town will be destroyed while Amanda does not. I also don’t want him to know that it could happen and then inform Amanda. That makes him as much (if not more) a villain as she is, and makes him just as complicit in the destruction of the town. Besides, if he knows all these things, why hasn’t he acted on them? If he would destroy the eggs himself, Amanda becomes at worst passive and at best an instigator rather than a decisive actor.
I do like the ‘holding parents at gunpoint thing, and I like the ‘town is destroyed’ thing, and I especially like her knowing ahead of time that the town will be destroyed (though I still would have to solve that stupid problem of it making no sense). What about killing it with fire?
Pros / Cons of KILLING IT WITH FIRE
First of all, the scene (which has changed a good deal) originally came to me as something that involved a homemade flamethrower. There was something almost too horrifying about having Amanda kill people with the flamethrower, something that really made the scene stand out in my mind. Plus, if you’re looking at Cthonian eggs according to the relevant source material (which is fictitious bullshit anyway, so who cares), it’s made pretty clear that fire is definitely the best way to kill them. Thinking about what you’d have to do in order to break a round, smooth-ish, and occasionally squirming rock… you’d be pretty likely to see your sledgehammer bounce or deflect in some possibly vicious ways. For all that it requires more work beforehand and is more complicated overall, killing it with fire is definitely a lot simpler in the actual execution.
Are there any real story or scene benefits to having Amanda use a flamethrower vs. Amanda using a sledgehammer or something?
I guess I had an easier time imagining her using a flamethrower just because it would require less active upper body strength, but I already know that she does martial arts and has for quite a while, and I’ve definitely had female friends who are quite capable of and enjoy using sledges. So using a sledgehammer certainly passes the plausibility test. It also fits with the whole “Amanda is a hardcore badass” thing I’ve got going. Fighting people with one is a little more difficult, but she’s still got the same things going for her.
I would be sad to see the flamethrower go, because it’s a fear-weapon as much as anything else. There’s something especially upsetting about having Amanda kill people with the flamethrower in the course of achieving her goals, and I like that. It isn’t as easy as using a gun, and feels more personal while still being scary.
Thinking a little further, I was going to mention that a sledgehammer allows for Amanda to use her martial arts in the middle of the fight while the flamethrower doesn’t, but that isn’t quite true. It would certainly make it easier for someone else to rush her and for her to then get in a physical fight with them, but that’s still possible with the flamethrower; her having a flamethrower just means that the people facing her have to be more desperate, or the situation has to allow them to get next to her without her burning them.
What if Amanda and Doug plan to use the sledge, but bring the flamethrower as a fallback plan? This is good, and gives an opportunity for Amanda to try breaking the eggs in the mine and fail… but it doesn’t serve tension in any meaningful way (if there’s a flamethrower, the writer will *use* the flamethrower, thank you very much).
This reminds me of a side problem, namely that I’m not sure why Amanda isn’t trying to break the eggs while still in the mine. My original thought on that involved her taking them elsewhere to kill them in a special way or with a time delay that would let her escape town, but *that* was predicated on knowing that killing them would result in the destruction of the town, which is still a problem that I haven’t solved.
Flash Fiction: Bart Luther, Freelance Exorcist (3/4)
Ok, I know that’s Keanu Reeves as Constantine, but it felt appropriate.
This Monday I’ve got more flash fiction for you, my response to Chuck Wendig’s Part 3 of 4 challenge that he posted last Friday. I’ve collected the two previous pieces in one place here, with my addition to the story at the end, so you can read the whole thing in order. The first two parts are great and you should totally go check out the sites of the original authors, which can be found here (for Josh, the original creator of the piece), and here (for Pavowski, the author of part two). There are asterisks marking the breaks between each section.
Ready for a good story? Continue reading
The Fault In Our Stars Made Me Cry
Have you ever tried crying surreptitiously on an airplane? It’s a very strange experience, perhaps doubly so as a man when so much of our society puts a premium on men “being strong” (crying in public is a definite no-no). I was always a bit weepy as a child, particularly where movies were concerned, and as a boy I was teased mercilessly for it. I worked hard on suppressing that behavior, until I got to the point where almost nothing could make me cry; eventually, someone who was well and truly pissed with me called me “Ice man” for my lack of affect or reaction (not in a kind way, nor as a reference to young Val Kilmer… which might have been kind?). I’ve definitely reached a happier emotionally demonstrative balance, but this balance has given me the questionable pleasure of feeling awkward, wiping away my tears while the woman sitting next to me (watching the same movie) was completely dry-eyed. Oh well. All of which was a round-about way of saying that The Fault In Our Stars (the movie, not the book which I haven’t yet read) made me cry.
The movie (and presumably the book) is about a teenaged woman who has survived a bout with cancer and come out with less than half the lung capacity she should have, the specter of cancer returning in the near future, and a tendency for her lungs to occasionally fill with fluid without warning. She’s understandably less than enthused with life around her. The story, however, focuses on her budding relationship with a boy who is also a cancer survivor, one who has escaped mostly unscathed. Mostly.
Ok, look, I don’t want to spoil anything more for those of you who hate spoilers. I’ll leave that for after the break. Suffice to say, if you have loved ones who’ve gone through cancer (or died to cancer, or saw their loved ones go through cancer), you might find this movie a bit emotional. There are other reasons for it to be both good and sad, like watching teenagers trying to deal with imminent mortality, but I invite you to find out on your own. And as I mentioned above, maybe it will do nothing for you. The lady sitting next to me certainly didn’t seem very effected.
Further Troubleshooting: Last Days of Loneliness
Turkey Day approaches. I’ll be spending a bunch of time with family around then, and for the week after. This means that I’m unlikely to post much in the next two weeks, though I’ll see if I can scare up a few more interesting posts for you. This Wednesday will be largely occupied with travel.
Today’s post is going to be a lot like last Wednesday’s, so spoilers abound. This time I’ll be working through how exactly Amanda ends up deciding to break the town’s covenant with its deity-figure. Oglaf illustrates the concept quite admirably here (surprisingly SFW, though the rest of the site isn’t). Enjoy!
Last Days of Loneliness: Writing the Middle is Terrible
My apologies for the much delayed post, I’ve had a moderately busy day: my visit to the optometrist took a bit longer than I’d anticipated, and I’ve started writing this far later than I’d originally planned. Today’s topic is all about how frustrating I find writing the middle of Last Days of Loneliness.
If you followed that link (or remember the other earlier posts), you should have a pretty good idea of the shape of the story that I’m writing. Like those posts, this one is going to be full of spoilers… so if you really want to shield yourself you should probably just stop reading. If you want to read my thoughts as I try to solve the trouble that I’ve run into while trying to make the middle of the book live up to the promise of the premise, you know what to do.
Last Days of Loneliness, a YA horror story pt. 3
This is yet another post about the YA horror novel I’ve been working on, which I roughly outlined here. Last time I gave you the very beginning of the story (which I’ve already altered again); this time I’m going to give you the very end of the story. This ending will undergo further changes: I already know that I need to decide whether it makes sense to have italicized thoughts-of-the-moment within the narrative, and if I like them, decide how to alter other story sections to incorporate them holistically rather than as a last minute deal.
Here’s the action climax:
Fistful of Wits 