Plot Twists & How to Get Them

I don't usually compare my books with other authors' books. It's not that there aren't good comparisons. I tend to read other novels while writing my own, sometimes of a similar theme or at least in the same genre; other times completely different. Either way, I find that reading a story (or seeing a film) pushes the part of my brain that I need pushed in order for me to write. I feel like writing after I come out of a movie theater or finish reading someone's novel. It seems to have always been like this.

Recently, as I work on my latest novel, a sequel to my FLU SEASON trilogy, I noticed something interesting about a pair of books I read by author Maile Meloy: Liars and Saints (2003) and A Family Daughter (2006), both about the same family. I also read a collection of her stories, Half in Love (2002). Her style is lean, like mine in my trilogy, yet paints deep portraits of the principal characters, all members of the same family in a saga beginning in WW2 and continuing up through the 1990s. I also saw an indie film, Certain Women, by way of a Netflix DVD before they discontinued DVD-by-mail service. Several of the stories in Half in Love were used in the film.

Here is what happened. Looking for a good movie to watch - even as I was working on writing my own novel - I found Certain Women, which was about women in Montana. I had just visited Montana earlier in the year as a vacation and I also know a woman in Montana (a friend / book cover artist) although I did not visit her as she was traveling outside of Montana at the time. The DVD arrived and I watched it, enjoyed it, wanted more. So I ordered the book of stories credited in the film. When the book arrived, I skimmed through the stories to find the ones made into the film. A couple were obvious, others not so much. One interesting aspect of the film was one of the four interwoven stories starred Lily Gladstone, playing a ranch hand, the actress who was about to become famous in Killers of the Flower Moon - which hadn't yet opened.

My FLU SEASON trilogy involved a family during and following a long pandemic, heavy on the family drama and just enough of the sci-fi/apocalyptic feel to keep it interesting. I was trying to keep it realistic, more to the plausible (basic survival) than to the fantastic (zombies, etc.). Seeing that film on DVD pushed me to get the first novel by Meloy, Liars and Saints, based on reading the opening pages on Amazon. The understated telling of the young couple marrying before the husband ships out to war drew me in. I enjoyed reading the unfolding drama of a family living mostly in California in the decades after WW2. I can't say I got any ideas for my own family drama from Meloy's novel but, as I stated at the beginning, my reading prompted my writing.

Then I got the second novel, A Family Daughter, based on me learning that it was about the same family but more focused on one important character of the first novel. I assumed this second novel would fill in gaps in events in the first novel. I was reading along happily, as much as one can with dramatic episodes happening, and then, close to half-way, I find myself wondering what was going on. What I was reading in Family did not match events in the first novel, Liars. In one example, a major character dies at a different point in the timeline of the second book than in the first book. I waited to read that it was actually a dream sequence of some kind. I returned to the first book several times to crosscheck episodes. I convinced myself that it was perfectly acceptable for an author use the same set of characters to write a completely different story. But that was not the answer to the mystery of the sharply diverging plot lines.

By the end, I'd figured it out. I won't say in detail what happens because I wouldn't want to leave any spoilers. I will say that the second book, Family, is apparently the "true story" and the first book, Liars, is the "novel" the character in Family writes. That the "novel" written by the character was published first (in real life, as they say) is another odd feature. What I took from this discombobulation was an idea for the perfect plot twist in my own work-in-progress novel, FLU SEASON 4: The Book of Dad, the sequel to the trilogy. Stuck in a crucial scene, I got the answer how to continue. And that answer came, thanks to Meloy's twin novels. (*I do prefer the version of the story in Liars to the one in Family, to be honest; if you are reading both, I recommend reading them in the order I did: Liars first, Family next.)

In a work of fiction, everything is made-up. It's difficult to have characters lie because everything is by definition a lie. But what if the story is going one way with its set of assumptions, truths, and facts - until the plot runs up against a character who doesn't believe those assumptions, truths, and facts? That should be a plot conundrum. But if you read the right books you will find a way through the conundrum and go on to greater and greater twists. So, in this sequel to my trilogy, the story of events laid out in the trilogy is suddenly questioned. Is that really what happened? Was the pandemic simply mass hysteria? The civil war merely border skirmishes between states? How could the protagonist in FLU SEASON 4 not see the truth? The writing is right there on the wall - the same wall with the poster of Big Sister glaring down at the citizenry.

I continue writing on this novel because it's what gets me up in the mornings. It has now passed 80,000 words and looking at 100,000 for a complete first draft (less than the other books, if you're keeping count). Editing should cut it back to 90,000 for the finished version. I hope to have it out in Summer 2024. Meantime, I highly recommend the aforementioned books by Maile Meloy although they are not in any way sci-fi or apocalyptic.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2023 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

What could go wrong?

FLU SEASON - a pandemic novel, part 4

We have all been through it, whatever 'it' may be: the lockdowns, the protesting, the looting, the shortages of food and supplies, the worry, the fear, the numbness of being helpless. It is the stock footage of most "post-apocalypse" novels and films. And our reality the past couple of years - and others back through time when things just didn't seem too good and people had to deal with their world.

When I started to write a 'pandemic' novel during the first lockdown period, thinking I could fill my time best that way (while teaching virtual classes for the second half of the semester), I realized my first mistake: trying to write about the very thing I was living through. It all seemed surreal to me and other sci-fi writers who had been through it before via stories we'd read. I did manage to start planning what became my pandemic novel FLU SEASON and, two years in, I've now completed it.

The first thing I did was think of what could happen in the actual situation around me. I refused to go full Mad Max or, as a working title, the A Boy and His Dog film version of a post-apocalypse situation. For us, it was a virus, hence pandemic (rather than, say, a nuclear holocaust) that shook up everything. But I didn't want to get into discussions of disease and health care, so I didn't want my main characters to be medical or science people but ordinary citizens.

So as society broke down around them, what would they observe? I imagined going two ways:

1) Less Freedom to move about, to purchase or otherwise obtain needed items such as food, water, fuel, medical supplies, toilet paper, weapons and ammunition.

2) More Freedom to move about, breaking into stores and homes, taking whatever was desired or needed, ruling the streets through might and fright, making your own laws. 

I suspected most people would fall into the first category. They would obey the laws, the mandates, the changing customs as best they could...until they stopped and refused to go further, at which time they would either revolt or succumb to hopelessness and death. Or they would flee a worsening situation - which makes a better story. Have an escape plan! At what point will you 'pull the trigger' and run away from all you have in the world for the lonely trek through a lawless landscape?

Those in the second category would get right on it, exercising their newfound command of the streets, law enforcement too strained to respond to everything. In films we typically see rioting, people protesting their mistreatment, demanding justice, eager to fight each other for a piece of soylent green or worse: actual, unprocessed meat. They would be less concerned for what may be corrupting the environment than those people in the first category.

But let's go with the people in the first category: They flee the harsh and dangerous city. They have a plan: go to the grandparents' farm to wait out the pandemic. It will be safe there. If they must, they can eat the farm animals. Then the story becomes what happens along the way. Unlike A Boy and His Dog, where our heroes traverse an empty nuclear wasteland, in FLU SEASON the trip out of the city is full of traffic jams and fighting among people trying to leave - but they know this will happen and so take to the lesser roads, winding through the rural areas where everything seems as it should be. You could almost forget there is a pandemic ravaging the world.

What can happen on the journey? We might first worry about our vehicle and its fuel, which will run out eventually and not be replaceable. Full tank to start with full cans in back as spares. Even electric vehicles will fail when charging stations (assuming there are any far from a city) are no longer supplied with electricity from power plants. You stock up and take food and drink and other supplies with you, but these will run out as you use them up. You will need to stop for restroom breaks - but what will be open given the situation? And would you trust this odd toilet during a pandemic? Drinking fountains and bathroom faucets would most likely be turned off - as many were from the start of the pandemic, discouraging people from sharing them. 

So far, it's not too different from the usual road trip. However, you are out on the road, where help is not too easy to come by. And even the 'help' may be dangerous: yes, there are good cops and bad cops, but which will you get when the lights flash and you pull over? They can do whatever they wish with you - especially with new laws regarding vaccination cards and face masks giving new excuses to harass travelers. Meanwhile, rioters, looters, and other criminals run rampant in the city but not so much in the rural areas. That doesn't mean the rural areas are safe: country folk may have their own ideas of right and wrong and see a lone vehicle as an opportunity to "get me some o' that".

Basically, you have one shot to make your escape: one fuel supply, one day on the road, hoping not to encounter anyone because you don't know if any of them is safe (not infected) or dangerous (violent). You must assume everyone is a threat. You think you can handle whatever may come at you but you have your teenage son with you. And you have your precious heirloom tuba that you'd rather not let get harmed. But you can make it to your parents' farm, expecting to find comfort from a difficult life in the city, and not what you actually find when you finally arrive there.

Then you'll need a new plan, one which takes you into even more dangerous territory....

NEXT: Setting up a New Community (a.k.a. Let's rebuild society in our own perverted style)

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(C) Copyright 2010-2022 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

Understanding the Horror in Horrible

It has been a horrible week. Reality has been too loud, too immediate, yet somehow distant when projected through the filters of social media and mainstream news reporting. What we feel is muted, in some way, because of the increasing frequency of events and the routine reportage. It may be similar to an aficionado of the horror genre who reads too much and becomes jaded, unable to be frightened any longer. Are we there yet?

October has just begun. As Halloween approaches, we accept the once a year opening of the door to the underworld and the unseen and possibly the undead, as well, it may be the best time to also reflect on what makes horror horrible...er, uh, scary. (You knew what I meant, right?)

Ever have a scary dream? Maybe it awakens you in the middle of the night and you don't know where you are. Maybe you still feel those pin picks or knife cuts in your skin. Perhaps your throat feels tight and the skin is rough from where the rope scraped. You might have been sensing the increasing pressure of heavy stones laid upon a barn door which was itself laid over you, all the better to extract a fictitious confession. 

Or perhaps your brand of scary is biting into a chocolate birthday cake and instead of pleasure, finding crunched up bits of cricket or other "foreign" matter there. Perhaps the beverage served reminds you a bit too much of freshly squeezed blood, donated by the kid who did not bring any gift. Or the sandwich you packed for lunch today somehow tastes strangely like human flesh instead of what it is: braised cow tongue. You open the lunch box and there are cockroaches squirming about. Is that your kind of scary?

Still another kind of scary is logging on the Internet - or, just as easily, flipping on the television - and there they are: so many stories of horror happening all around us and across the world. Killings of all kinds done in many creative forms. Solo assassins, self-designated mayhem artists, gangs of revengers, harmful idiots out for their own entertainment at the folly of anyone who gets in the way. Or the larger forms of them: armies of nations or parts of them doing the same thing: creating chaos for its own sake or the sake of someone's power structure. Where is the candy?

Or take it down to street level in your local town. Same thing: street thugs, simpletons with weapons, angry for anger's sake, and loners with axes to grind, guns to shoot, people to kill--for the sake of Halloween? Nope. Just people afraid of people, shooting before shaking hands. People afraid of their own shadows--or the lingering shadows of the previous night's dream. "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" It's all the same in an unsettling way: a spark of angst in the middle of the brain and we shriek. Meeting the tiger in the jungle or the human on the street, which worries you more?

Whether the horror is on the screen in a movie theater or on the page in a book, the mind provokes the body into a certain set of sensations and we act or react. Let the horror be real or let it be a fictitious fright. We feel it the same way biologically. And yet, the fictitious kind usually leaves us stronger, more confident, even less afraid, while the real horrors leave us in constant terror, constant stress, that we cannot simply put down or walk away from when we've had enough. That is the true horror of the horrors around us. 

Halloween is coming. Is it too little an event now? Is it too unscary compared to the real world today? Is it more trick than treat? Is it becoming a little better, or are we not yet at the peak? Be safe in your own little world and, at least for a night, pretend that all you have to worry about is a bad dream that will go away when you open your eyes. Or (it's happened to me too often), a lot of children ringing the doorbell after you've already given out your last bag of candy corn.

Looking forward to a day when this is the scariest thing we will see.

If you liked this rant, I accept donations of Kit-Kat and Jelly Belly jelly beans (any flavor). Thanks.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2017 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

The Art of Observation

I'm a writer. That's not just a fanciful moniker of wannabe-ness. I write. I'm not an "aspiring" writer. I've got the manuscripts to prove it. I do, however, take a humble stand now and then by saying I fancy myself a writer. But I do qualify: I'm closing in on 800,000 words (novels, novellas, and short stories). Or I could call myself an "author"; that just takes having what you write published. Today, anybody can do that, of course. Even so, they must be written before they can be published. Quality, value, worth are other blog posts, however.

A large part of what I do with writing is not writing. It's observation, consideration, reflection, and analysis. Why do people do what they do? So I do not mind waiting in waiting rooms. I can occupy my time and my mind by inventing scenarios for the people I see. Malls are also great for this sordid activity. I'm not saying that's where I get my story ideas, just that it's a good place to develop this useful skill. And I've been developing it over the course of my life. To some, that makes me creepy. To others, I'm a harmless dreamer. I prefer 'Observer of Life.' I was recently promoted to First-Class, by the way.

So suppose there's this guy who is a little bit like me. That is, he is older, lives alone, has a decent job but is not really satisfied, likes to indulge himself with writing stories, and is starting to calculate that there may not be too much time left to start his life over again--as he has done before. Then he meets somebody quite by accident, someone who is so completely wrong for him--or more accurately, perhaps, he is so completely wrong for her. Nevertheless there is a click, a connection. It's all online so far, so there are only the words passing back and forth.

At first, it's quite innocent. Lots of humor. Facebook. Twitter. Emails. Texting jokes. Kidding around. It's fun; something to break the monotony of the week. The next step is to meet--in a public place because you know what the odds are that this is going to involve a creepy person. Coffee in a bookstore. You know, the latte experience. Laughter ensues. It's even more fun in person. No risk, no pressure, it's just for laughs. It's good to crack that weekend open.

Let's say the two of them feel that looks do not matter, that age difference isn't an issue, that no future needs to concern them. It's just for now. If it's good, why ruin it by pushing for more? However, little by little, it happens. There are dates. Dinners, movies, walks, talks. He makes dinner for her. She makes her specialty dishes for him. The evenings run late, slip into sleepovers. Nothing inappropriate. Just friends hanging out, getting sleeping, and the couch is right there. And then a mysterious thing happens: affection.

The sense of humor is now accompanied by a hand on the shoulder, in the small of the back. A one-armed hug. A friendship hug of full arms. The peck of a cheek. Peck of a cheek and a full hug. A quick lips on lips kiss. Longer kisses. There's a sudden realization that it's no longer just having fun for now. Enjoyment for now becomes a desire to continue the enjoyment. What's the harm in making plans? thinking of a future together? If they like all of it, why panic and fear it will go away? Tie it down, make it fixed.

The weekend trip, simply a sightseeing adventure, becomes an open door. A shared room becomes a shared bed, and a relationship is born. Not the exchanging of texts. Not the occasional invitation to attend church together, grab a lunch, or hang out with a couple of DVDs. Now something is serious. Soon a routine develops, brief loving moments mixed between job duties and other obligations. Why worry about the future? Because someone wants to be sure everything will continue as it is. They might as well make it official, as much time as they spend together, as much contact as they engage in, as much affection as they share. It's all good.

That's always the next step, isn't it? First, simply like a message: I like what he says, writes. Second, like the person: I get along with him. Third, let that person into your life: We get along just fine. Four, time together increases: I really like being with him. Five, affection increases: We've started kissing and other things. Six, something more than like but less than love ties them together: I like having him always there for me. Then come obligations--meetings, connections, each other's friends, the families, the jobs, the keys to each other's places although more and more time is spent together at one or the other residence. Then the big, special weekend: a preview of life together. Intimacy. The serious talks--no longer jokes via text message--but the push for more, and the making permanent of the more.

And a stroll through the mall pauses at the jewelry shop and just having fun for now becomes are you serious? Playing along, pretending, wishful thinking, dreaming. You know the type. There's reality for the realist. There's a virtual reality for those who play around the edges of reality. And then there is pure fantasy: things that will not ever happen yet we like to imagine what if they did? Is it a game or is it a dream? So they play the game, believing in the dream. There is, indeed, one ring to rule them all. And that is magic in the first degree. Nothing can take back that moment, that feeling, when the future coalesces from the mist and becomes concrete.

But concrete is hard and inflexible and it's scary. Too many thoughts of falling and cracking a head open against the stone. Fear unfolds. Doubt forms. Everything adds up, overwhelms, disturbs day and night, and finally erupts in the classic medium of text: "Sorry. I just can't do it. Goodbye." And winter arrives early, blows cold, freezes reality into some kind of hoarfrost statue of Defeat personified. It's not just fun for now any more. It's now, but without the fun.

What to do with a ring that's been officially sized for one particular finger in the universe? Save it for a rainy day? Go Prince Charming-like in search of another finger to fit the ring, another Cinderella fairy tale? Or get on that phone and beg, beg, beg? No, that's not actually, umm, dignified, so don't. Wait. Could do that. Life goes up and down, everyone knows. This is down. Next comes up. The Earth still spins, the sun shines, the night comes and goes. But it's not fun at all, even just for now.

"If you wanna meet at church I can buy you lunch after" reads the text message early one Sunday morning after a sleepless night full of ogres and goblins speaking in iambic pentameter. Lightning is not so quick, comets too slow, sunshine a mere flicker as the future suddenly explodes. There is nothing quite like sitting on a hard pew next to the lady bearing the naked ring finger, listening to the words of instruction from one who has been there, chiding one to keep it fun, that life is not meant to be a drudge, not intended to be hard, though drudgery and hardship do come, will always come, to those who fear having fun for now.

She's in a flowery dress as fresh as springtime; he's in a suit, serious for once, as they walk around the lake. Warm sun, cool breeze, and somewhere along the shore, where the trees offer shade, there is a pause for explanation. If not now, when? If not just for fun, then what else? If not you and me, him and her, them, if not us then who? who else? who else is there for you and me, him and her, them? Hand in hand, an examination of fingers, perfect for bearing symbols of significance--symbols that mean more than what anyone can say, and less. There is no symbol required to just have fun for now, they seem to understand. Let "for now" go on forever. Let "having fun" be whatever touches them, ties them together, ensures their continued enjoyment. Or, as sometimes is done, let the enjoyment be simply joy.

Usually at this point, I'll get up and go on my way. We all have errands to do, places to be. A writer is no different. We always wonder how things got to be that way, who these people are, and what happens next. You can answer that yourself. Grab some paper, power up your word processor, or flick on a digital voice recorder, and let everything go....



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(C) Copyright 2010-2013 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.