Short Story Dissection, Part 2

(cont’d from yesterday’s entry 11/22/2023, then dropped for a month, and returned to 12/26/2023. What a terrible month.)

The Unfolding Mech

The most important lesson I’m getting from Wiswell and Lyra is that the hook, or MECH is definitely the king (save/minus “quiet novels” where nothing happens). From the premise, everything else “UNFOLDS”.

From Lyra, the MECH can be a world-changing thing (a rule change in the world/universe… what if all x started doing y? What if all x became y? etc.), a common-denominator thing (small group of people who are different), or simply relationship dynamics. And in SFF, it’s definitely moreso the world and common-denominator hooks/mech/premise that’s more prevalent.

BUT how does the MECH create this UNFOLDING that sounds so lovely? Like a seed where all the other story elements sprout from? From Wiswell, with the triangulation, it’s three parts: The PREMISE, the ENDING, and the POV.

The ending is important, especially in a short story, because then you know where you’re going and what to shoot for. That way, every scene you add before the ending is RELEVANT. Whereas I was thinking the element is more of a EGP (emotional gut punch)… Wiswell is saying EVERYTHING needs to wrap up nicely into this ending. The ending is the PAYOFF (EGP). The character, the conflict, the themes, they all WRAP UP here. But all of that comes from the PREMISE first.

So… ultimately, it sounds like you should START with the PREMISE first? Or a combination of both PREMISE and ENDING? Wiswell also talks about picking the most interesting POV but nothing about PROG. Is it because you can use the ENDING and work backwards without worrying too much about PROG? Like all the “progresses” in the eleven stories I looked at… progress of examples, clues, cost, interactions, nudges, series of violence, series of arguments of the theme… do those just NATURALLY occur as it unfolds from the PREMISE and ENDING?

Maybe the MECH and ENDING/EGP is the most important elements to start with and I am, again, overanalyzing and over-educating myself here.

Simultaneous, Not Sequential

But it doesn’t change the fact that we need all these elements to fall into place right? The MECH, EGP, POV, PROG, and CDA too I suppose. Because what are you really saying with your story if you don’t have a CDA? And maybe I need to think of story/fiction not as a linear thing so much as five different pieces that need to be adjusted, tweaked, and even at times, replaced until all five pieces fit together.

Yes, I think that’s a strong revelation. I think my previous attempts were faulty where I kept asking how to put everything linearly or sequentially from the start. That’s just impossible and silly. Especially if you’re an amateur and haven’t written enough stories with beginnings, middles, and ends. And maybe that’s why structure like Hero’s Journey, Save the Cat, and Harmon’s Circle are all so devastatingly damaging. It forces you to think linearly when you don’t have all the elements in place yet. Maybe that’s how pantsers write. They venture into the uncertain mist and these five elements slowly develop. My god, I genuinely wonder what it’s like to be in a brain like that. Is it tenatively prodding and blindly waving their arms in a darkened room hoping to latch on to something, or forging ahead with reckless abandon and double-backing to clean up the mess, or some form of unfounded godlike confidence to find David in the marble?

I know that’s not me. I’ve never put pen to paper, nor fingers to keyboard, without some landmarks.

Moving on.

Hidden in the MECH is the CDA and guidance for picking the POV with the most to lose, and the PROG that makes the most sense right? Or maybe you start with the MECH (which includes the CDA) and the EGP for what you want to drive home emotionally… and then you pick the best POV and PROG?

Play, Like a Puzzle

Or I’m overcomplicating this. Again. Start with MECH and just PLAY until you have all five interlocked. It doesn’t have to be figured out in some sequential order! Remember, this was your downfall the last two times. You kept thinking too linearly. You keep looking for some magic sequence. Some step-by-step blueprint or formula or instruction. Remember what Robert told you in 2013 at Good Burger on Lexington and 54th. You can’t wait for things to settle before you take the next step. Sequential is death. Simultaneous is chaos. A forcing function to keep multiple plates going. And it’s also what creates work/life balance. You don’t wait for everything to be in place before you take the next step. You seize opportunities as they come and add it to the mix and bank on your innate ability to create alchemy while in chaos and uncertainty.

I started to mix up the meta of life juggling work/family/art… and the craft itself there. But the lesson remains. Any attempt to create sequentially is doomed.

Start with PLAY. Gather the five elements and move things around. Maybe this is a paper and pen process. Drawing mindmaps and lines and squiggles.

Eleven Stories Dissection Redux

OK – so with that in mind… let’s maybe look at these five pieces in the eleven short stories. Once again, the stories are:

• Kritzer, Naomi. “Cat Pictures Please.” Clarkesworld, Jan. 2015, https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritzer_01_15/
• Clark, P. Djèlí. “The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington.” Fireside, Feb. 2018, https://firesidefiction.com/the-secret-lives-of-the-nine-negro-teeth-of-george-washington
• Kritzer, Naomi. “Little Free Library.” Tor.com, 08 Apr. 2020, https://www.tor.com/2020/04/08/little-free-library-naomi-kritzer/
• Kassel, Mel. “Ten Deals with the Indigo Snake.” Lightspeed, Oct. 2018, http://lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/ten-deals-with-the-indigo-snake/
• Törzs, Emma. “Like a River Loves the Sky.” Uncanny, Apr. 2018, http://uncannymagazine.com/article/like-river-loves-sky/
• Wiswell, John. “Open House on Haunted Hill.” Diabolical Plots, 15 Jun. 2020, https://www.diabolicalplots.com/dp-fiction-64a-open-house-on-haunted-hill-by-john-wiswell/
• Pinsker, Sarah. “The Court Magician.” Lightspeed, Jan. 2018, https://lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-court-magician/
• Harrow, Alix. “A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies.” Apex Magazine, 6 Feb. 2018, https://apex-magazine.com/short-fiction/a-witchs-guide-to-escape-a-practical-compendium-of-portal-fantasies/
• Roanhorse, Rebecca. “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience.” Apex Magazine, 8 Aug. 2017, https://apex-magazine.com/short-fiction/welcome-to-your-authentic-indian-experience/
• Wong, Alyssa. “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers.” Nightmare, Oct. 2015, https://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/hungry-daughters-of-starving-mothers/
• Kowal, Mary Robinette. “Midnight Hour.” Uncanny, Jul. 2015, https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/midnight-hour/

And again, to help with the analysis, here are the acronym IDs I assigned to each one.

• Cat Pictures Please - CPP
• Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington - 9NT
• Little Free Library - LFL
• Ten Deals with the Indigo Snake - TDIS
• Like a River Loves the Sky - LRLS
• Open House on Haunted Hill - OHHH
• The Court Magician - TCM
• A Witch’s Guide to Escape - WGE
• Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience - WAIE
• Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers - HDSM
• Midnight Hour - MH

And to keep things organized, let’s use Wiswell’s triangulation as a North Star here. What I want to do, my intent here, is to disassemble the story to extract the engine, and in this case, the engine with three parts: PREMISE, ENDING, and POV. My theory is that if I can reverse engineer these three parts… this will give me a strong sense of how different ENGINES are constructed. I’m going to try and imagine what it was like for each of these authors to construct this engine.

CPP: 3420 words / 5 scenes

• MECH: A sentient AGI on the Internet nudges humans to improve their lives. It can alter the algorithm to show ads, social posts, and search results. It can alter your driving route to pass by locations.
• POV: The AGI comments on how humans live and exist and what they do via three examples (PROG). BWO: Stacy is a success. MID: Meet Bob the gay pastor. LOW: give up after Bethany CMX: Notice Bob is doing better.
  • P-PROG: Three examples of the AGI attempting to alter human lives.
  • A-PROG: From hopeful, to frustration, and giving up on humanity and letting them make their mistakes.
• END: A closeted gay pastor comes out, moves away, and lives a better life in a LGBTQ affirming church.
• CDA: Humans are horrible at making positive life decisions even when all the signs point them to a better life.

9NT: 3601 words / 9 scenes

• MECH: George Washington owns nine negroe teeth that he wears and each one triggers a fantastical/emotional effect based on the backstory of each tooth.
• POV: An omniscient voice that catalogues the nine backstories of each tooth (PROG)
  • P-PROG: A series of nine microstories and their effects on George Washington when he wears the tooth.
  • A-PROG: Ramping up the magical and wondrous in each micro-story and ending with one that’s human and simple. A surprise or punchline. (Joke structure “rule of three”).
• END: After eight stories of wonder, the final one is not magical, but someone with a dream.
• CDA: It is not in the fantastical, magical, or wondrous that we find the power to make social change, it is in our raw human hope and dreams.

LFL: 2508 words / 7 scenes 

• MECH: Via her little free library, Meigan has a penpal relationship with a fantastical creature from a fantastical realm. They exchange books, letters, and gifts.
• POV: Meigan thinks it’s a prank at first, but the gifts are strange, the gold coins are real, and the series of interactions become more intense (PROG). The MID is realizing the gold is worth way too much for a book and that this might be real. LOW: Not knowing what happens to the penpal. CMX: All is lost. Gets one final gift. An Egg.
  • P-PROG: Series of interactions. A mystery.
  • A-PROG: From anger, to confusion, to doubt, to acceptance that she’s dealing with an otherworldly situation.
• END: Meigan’s attempt to help the otherworldly creature fails after days of silence and anxiety. The interaction has left a mark on her.
• CDA: Our small gestures to strangers can mean a lot more to them then we can fully comprehend ourselves.

TDIS: 3440 words / 10 scenes

• MECH: Snakes in this world will grant wishes, but at strange and unusual costs. It is revealed later they can’t say no, only name the cost.
• POV: Sam is a 14yo and thinks she can make deals without too much hurt. MID: post-breakup with Simone, Sam makes deal so that Simone never forgets her. LOW: trades fertility for a gun due to gansters after her for gambling debt, due to her mishandling her breakup. CMX: Cuts herself to undo the midpoint spell.
  • P-PROG: A series of ten deals, which escalates until the eighth deal. It’s an ascension plot. Nine and ten are a denouement.
  • A-PROG: Arrogance, then in too deep, then finally accepting responsibility for her own decisions instead of blaming the snake.
• END: Arguably, the CMX is more fititng as the end where she has to trade a pint of blood to undo the deal she made at the MID. The last two deals is her accepting responsibility for her own actions.
• CDA: We make deals with the devil and shift blame to the devil (for tempting us with power) when we really need to accept responsibility for our own actions.

LRLS: 3902 words / 6 scenes

• MECH: Adriana’s best friend, NPW is collecting dead roadkill dogs (as a mysterious parting gift) as he’s leaving Adrianna at the end of the month… while Adrianna deals with her depression, loneliness, and surreal dreams.
• POV: Adriana is sad about NPW leaving, has metaphorical dreams about depression, and is confused about NPW collecting dead dogs. MID: contemplates the nature of family vs. friendship and how there’s no ceremonial bind for friendship where sex/blood binds a couple/family. LOW: Cries at work. CMX: NPW leaves. They say goodbye.
  • P-PROG: Three interwoven plots here: Mystery of the dogs and their conversations, the three dreams, and scenes to show how lonely Adriana is: visiting her mom with Alzheimer’s, her contemplation b/w friends and family, sadness at work.
  • A-PROG: Adriana is depressed. Shortly before the CMX, their conversation on seeds released after a forest fire is about rebirth. After their goodbye, the dogs give her hope.
• END: NPW leaves and the ghost dogs appear to relieve her of her loneliness and give her a “rebirth”. Dead dogs are alive again.
• CDA: In our darkest hours, it is our friends, even when parting, who can give us the second chances we need.

OHHH: 3015 words / 3 scenes

• MECH: A benevolent haunted house uses their powers to make an open house work: shuts/opens doors, gives visions, levitate items.
• POV: 133 Poisonwood Avenue is a sentient “haunted house” that doesn’t want to haunt. It’s been empty for over thirty years and needs an open house to work. 133 Poisonwood Ave. uses it’s powers to make themselves pleasant, and the guest comfortable. MID: 133 Poisonwood reveals a secret room to lure them. LOW: Daddy takes Ana away after she gets hurt playing with a spinning wheel in the secret room. CMX: Daddy plants the missing locket where Ana would find it.
  • P-PROG: It’s a romance. There’s a meetcute, there’s teasing of “will-they/won’t-they”. There’s a “almost kiss”. There’s a separation. There’s an emotional reunion and acceptance.
  • A-PROG: 133 Poisonwood does their best to be presentable, then shows off, but eventually realizes Daddy is just broken and exhausted, but keeps going for Ana. 133 Poisonwood commits to helping him raise Ana.
• END: Daddy takes another look around, sees himself turning the secret room into a podcast studio. 133 Poisonwood commits to helping him believe in himself again.
• CDA: Second chances can happen to worn down broken beings if they try. Both houses and single dads.

TCM: 3160 words / 4 scenes

• MECH: The court magician can do actual magic for the king, but each time they cast a spell, they lose something they cherish (body part, favorite things, a friend)
• POV: The narrator could be “the magic” or a previous magician, we’re not sure. But thru their eyes, we witness the increasing cost of casting magic (PROG). MID: The boy casts their first spell and loses their left-hand’s pinky finger. The king is happy. LOW: It’s been ten years, the boy has lost much. He tries to love the king in hopes the magic gets rid of him. It doesn’t work. CMX: The boy leaves the court.
  • P-PROG: It’s an ascension story. S1 is about how he’s the perfect candidate. S2 is where he’s offered “the deal with the devil”. S3 is paying the cost for the first time. S4 ramps everything up, he tries to hack it, fails, and gives up.
  • A-PROG: The boy starts off curious, resourceful, clever. Can figure out street tricks. The narrator tempts him with real magic. Offers him a blind deal. And then the boy justifies and makes excuses for himself. But the costs becomes overwhelming.
• END: The boy asks “why” instead of “how” for the first time in his life. He leaves the court.
• CDA: We often willingly and unknowingly pay the hidden cost to satiate our curiosity without asking why we’re doing it in the first place.

WGE: 4885 words / 10 scenes

• MECH: Some librarians are witches who recommend the “right books” to you at the exact times in your life when you need them (to help you go through whatever you’re going through in your life). They also have a secret stash of actual magick tomes they’re not allowed to lend out on penalty of exile.
• POV: The unnamed librarian becomes intrigued with a black teenager who keeps taking out a trashing portal fantasy book. MID: After learning of the teenager’s situation, librarian reveals how every witch has a secret stash of books that are actual magick. But they can’t be lent out. LOW: The teenager hasn’t shown up after a “sleeping in the library” situation". Librarian worries. In the last scene, she thinks about the pregnant teen that committed suicide (the half-man) she could’ve helped but didn’t. CMX: She gives the teen the book, pays the cost (exile),
  • P-PROG: A series of book recommendations to help the teenager. It’s an institution story, a “shaken faith” one. The witch wants to do her job but a policy says she can’t. She’s a fairy godmother who’s not allowed to actually help.
  • A-PROG: Librarian describes her job, how she helps, sharing the “rules” of her world in the first half. We meet the “supplicant” who needs help. She tries. She eventually realizes fictional escapism is not enough. But thinking about the cost of lending out a book of magick, while also reflecting on the “one that got away”, and also how’s she’s tried for nine weeks… and now he’s hiding and sleeping in the library… it’s too much. And then he disappears for a spell. She questions her job until she makes the decision she has to.
• END: She gives the boy a spellbook for portals. She gets banished.
• CDA: Some laws were made to be broken if it helps someone in need. Some laws have lost their meaning and their raison d’être. Context matters.

WAIE: 5806 words / 10 scenes

• MECH: Written in second person, “you” are a native American who acts in a VR simulation for white tourists.
• POV: “You”, as a native American, mime the cheesy, tropey TV/Film versions of what it means to be “Indian”. This works great until a white guy, who claims to have aboriginal blood rejects the experience, calling it “fake” and not authentic. MID: White Wolf quits VR early, but shows up again and asks to talk, they make plans. LOW: You are drinking at a bar. White Wolf comes in with DarAnne and acts as if he doesn’t know you and beats you up. CMX: You go home and White Wolf has taken over your home, taken your wife, and kicks you out.
  • P-PROG: It’s a horror plot. A monster comes into the meta-VR and starts picking off all of Jesse’s (yours) stuff: his job, his friend, acknowledgement of his person, then his home, wife, and very existence. The “sin” in the horror plot thread is very clever here due to the second person. We, the reader, are the fake Indians in this VR simulation.
  • A-PROG: Jesse (you) refuse to play sides, then makes friends with a white tourist, and trusting him, lose everything.
• END: After everything is taken, Jesse (we as reader) are told the possibility that “we” are the tourist, and this is White Wolf’s VR experience.
• CDA: We appropriate other people’s culture without thinking about it and are shocked when we’re called out on it.

HDSM: 6567 words / 9 scenes

• MECH: There are predator women who suck out the souls of evil, abusisve men. The more evil they are, the more “filling” and satisfying for the predator. The predator can also regurgitate their soul into a bottle for later consumption. They also become the male victim’s doppelgänger for a brief while after consuming their soul.
• POV: Jen is one of these predator women. We see her interact with an alpha male, her best friend Aiko, her mother in Flushing, a predator who goes with “easy and boring” prey, and Seo-Yun, a more powerful predator. MID: Very clear mirror moment here. Jen visits her past (her mom) and refuses the “play it safe” route, and chooses to chase after even darker, more dangerous prey. Finds Seo-Yun. LOW: Pushes Aiko, the one good thing in her life, away. Again. CMX: Ends up fighting Seo-Yun as she threatened to consume Aiko. Aiko saves Jen, Jen sucks out Seo-Yun’s soul.
  • P-PROG: This is a “fuck-around-and-find-out” ascension story. Jen hungers for more at the cost of good people in her life.
  • A-PROG: Seems tied together with the P-PROG. First, gets a taste of a truly evil date, Harvey. Too much for her to handle. Rejects Aiko for being too good. Rejects mom for playing it safe and boring. Tempted into the apex predator world of Seo-Yun. Then realizes how much it cost her (losing Aiko).
• END: Jen has regurgitated Seo-Yun’s soul into a pot and she’s sifting through all the vicuous mess to find parts of Aiko so that she can feed it back to Aiko. Regrets all around.

MH: 6916 words / 6 scenes

• MECH: In order to avoid a plague and provide plentiful harvest to their realm, a king and queen made a devil’s bargain with a witch. The three rules are: one, king only has one hour of lucidity from midnight until one; two, no one is allowed to say the queen’s name; three, queen is not allowed to leave the castle grounds.
• POV: It is from the viewpoint of the Nameless Queen as she babysits a husband who’s mad 23 hours of the day, who never sees their daughter… while also dealing with the escalating threats of Prince Volis. MID: The Queen agrees to dance with Volis at the end of S4, with S5 the king and queen realizing they’ve been tricked. LOW: Volis witnesses the mad king near end of S5. CMX: Volis fails at guessing the queen’s name, tries dragging her off the grounds. Mad king fights Volis, fails, and almost gives Volis the queen’s name, but the queen punches the king in the crotch and kills Volis with a poker.
  • P-PROG: Horror plot thread. Volis is the monster. The castle grounds the house. It’s all dread and games until he arrives. Then Volis drops hints he knows the curse. Then it’s all out “monster in the house”. Or actually, this is more of a “Tower Defense” Thriller plot. Yeah, that’s more accurate. They know the monster. Although there is a “sin” here technically.
  • A-PROG: Queen is escalates the “tower defense” from deflection and lies, to a spectacular distraction (a ball), to retreat (after found out), to begging/pleading (in order to prevent Lennart from killing Volis), to running, to making herself dead weight – all these actions could be argued as passive, until – she punches the king in the groin, and then bludgeons Volis to death.
• END: The queen kills Volis as a last resort, not needing to be rescued.
• CDA: This is interesting because a lot of these FAFO stories are from the POV of said person doing the “fucking around and finding out”. But this is the reverse. It’s the power being fucked with. The dramatic argument seems to be “stand your ground to defend your home” at a surface level. I guess one simple dramatic question here is: “At what cost are you wlling to defend your realm?” and the answer is “at all costs”.

The Elements, Again

So to summarize the core revelations here:

1. We want to build a story engine that UNFOLDS so you can develop a story.
2. The story engine consists of five elements:
   • MECH - the premise, which should unfold conflict and characters.
   • POV - the viewpoint character and the conflict that makes the most sense
   • END - the ending with the EGP and CMX
   • PROG - how the story progresses and escalates (examples, deals, listicle, interactions, separation/reunions, costs, recommendations, thefts, various arguments).
   • CDA - the “central dramatic argument”. The theme.
3. Do not try to think of this linearly or sequentially. When you’re developing a story, PLAY. You are brainstorming on the five elements. Suss out the midpoint, lowpoint, and climax while you’re at it.