Apology Hour, Episode 3: The Questing Beast

The Twenty Percent True Podcast

Season 7: Apology Hour

Episode 3: The Questing Beast

Apology Hour: Episode 2: The Spriggins Bean Stalk

The Twenty Percent True Podcast

Season 7: Apology Hour

Episode 2: The Spriggins Bean Stalk

When the Podcast Season Changed Theme

 

I started Season 7 of the podcast inspired by the subreddit "Am I the Asshole?"  In this subreddit, posters present a story in which they have a conflict with another person.  They then ask the commenters if they are the asshole in the situation, or if the other party is.  Sometimes, both parties are at fault (Everyone Sucks Here) or no one is at fault (No Assholes Here).  Although the stories are supposed to be true, there really is no guarantee of that.  Therefore, this form of storytelling has become a new genre of short fiction.

I love it. 

So I wanted to write a season which was all posts with a story like these, with a wildly one-sided story, and a low stakes conflict, and there would be something supernatural involved.  Then there would be comments debating who was the asshole.  It sounded so fun, and I was stoked about writing the podcast for the first time in a long while.

But there were several problems with this.

The first stumbling block was fairly minor, but just using the word "Asshole" would lose me the "clean" label on iTunes.  I've had to work fairly hard in a few previous episodes to avoid swearing, and it feels like a waste to throw that away by doing a whole season labeled as "Explicit."  So I needed to change the name, and I changed it to "Am I in the wrong?" which works, but doesn't have the same pizazz.

The second stumbling block was making the format make sense in an entirely audio medium.  I can change my voice for different commenters, and I was planning to put in a little ting noise each time there was a new comment.  I think that would have worked, but for a while I was considering bringing in some voice actors.  That would, however, require that I have everything written WELL ahead of time, and then I would have to wait on the turn around as they recorded.  It seemed that it would be less time, less of a logistical struggle, and cheaper to do it myself.  Someday, I might look into it further, but not now.

The final issue (and the nail in the coffin) was that my usual short stories have a chronic tension (a problem that the character has been having for quite a while) and a situational tension (the event that sets off the story).  Stories that work well have these two tensions work together and the situation will make the chronic tension more prevalent and the chronic tension will make the event hit harder for the character. 

Am I the Asshole posts are specifically about a situation.  The relationships between characters are often unclear, and the background (if it's given at all) is either given as an info dump at the beginning, or comes out in bits and pieces in updates or comments.  The background info is often VERY important, and when it shows up, it makes the original poster the asshole.  But the narrators are not reliable to clue you into the chronic tensions they're experiencing.  They're here for advice about this one single situation.  They often aren't self aware enough to realize that the situation is the straw that broke the camel's back.  And often, knowing more about the situation and the poster's life makes it too real to be a silly distraction.  There was a girlfriend who was mad that her boyfriend buried beans in the back yard.  That's so strange and ridiculous.  But if we knew more, it might turn sad.  What kind of insecurity is the boyfriend going through to bury food stuffs?

I wrote four episodes, then decided it wasn't working, and scrapped the concept.  Luckily, around the same time, a friend introduced me to a radio show where people called in to apologize.  This felt related, and the show changed theme to "The Apology Hour".  Several of the story concepts have been preserved, but with the change of format to prose, it's easier for me to weave in that chronic tension and get at something deeper.

Apology Hour, Episode 1: The Corn Fairies

The Twenty Percent True Podcast

Season 7: Apology Hour

Episode 1: The Corn Fairies


More about the Corn Fairies

More About Corn Fairies

 

Corn Fairies are an invention of Carl Sandburg, renowned Mid-Western poet.  They appear in "The Rootabaga Stories," which is a collection of short, fairy-tale like stories for children, inspired by the every day magic of the Mid-West.  Specifically, they are from the story "How to Tell Corn Fairies if You See 'Em."

"Have you ever stood in Illinois or Iowa and watched the late summer wind or the early fall wind  running across a big cornfield?  It looks as if a big, long blanket were being spread out for dancers to come and dance on."  Well, corn fairies come and dance on those corn fields.  They sing and dance and make the corn grow.  They shoo away mice and crickets and nail down the corn in high winds so it doesn't blow away.

Corn fairies wear overalls, ("The reason they are proud is that they work so hard.  And the reason they work so hard is because they have overalls.") which they weave themselves from corn each year.  When corn fairies laugh, the laugh comes out of their mouths like a golden frost.  And you can tell where a corn fairy is from, because the corn fairies in each state have a different number of stitches in their overalls.  Some regional variances also have various accessories made of different kinds of flowers.

I don't often use folk tales or creatures that only appear in one source.  But here, I believe corn fairies (although specific) tie into a long tradition of fairies who aid in growing flowers or forests or crops.  Also, it feels as if the original short story (which has little plot outside of Carl Sandburg's daughters asking him how to identify corn fairies and him explaining) is set up as a jumping off point for other stories.  He presents a character and expects children to come up with their own stories about that character.  There's something in the question and answer format of the story (where he is clearly making things up as he goes along) that feels as if it's teaching his daughters how to create a story, how to add details, how to roll with it.  He has created a folk tale and would be not be upset when it takes hold and grows and bends.

Chapter Endings and Jokes that don't Land

I recently read a blog post from BookFox, in which they categorized twelve different kinds of chapter endings.  They gave an example of such a chapter ending for each of their categories, which was illuminating.  It's worth reading, and I'm not going to repeat what they said.  Instead, I'm going to talk about what I got from it. 

Namely, however you end a chapter should have some pull to draw the reader further into the story.  A cliff hanger is the obvious one, but there was also ending in a question or a mystery or having someone enter the scene who you know will carry forward the action in the next chapter. 

On the other hand, the end can be a breath, or a moment of pause, and that's fine as long as the rest of the chapter sets up action pushing the reader forward.  Let's say something very exciting happened in the chapter, but then the chapter ends with a description or a character moment or reminds you of the main themes.  It's fine to take that pause because the reader is propelled through it and into the next chapter.  I found that to be a relief, because I find it exhausting to ready when every chapter ends on a cliffhanger, and even more exhausting to repeatedly write cliffhangers.  I'm reminded of feeling manipulated while reading The Divinci Code.  I'm reminded of getting bored reading weekly Shōnen manga, that attempt to have to have a cliffhanger or a reveal at the end of every issue.  The issues are so short that there are hundreds of reveals and therefore they all blur together until none of them are important.

But the main take away I got from this blog post was that I could go through the chapter endings in my novel and identify what I was trying to do in each one.  It gave me a vocabulary.  And with that vocabulary, I was able to pin-point what was going wrong with the endings that felt weak.

There are four chapter endings that I'm unsatisfied with.  In all four of them, I try to end on a joke that doesn't land.

Keep in mind, a lot of my jokes do land, and make for great chapter endings.  As pointed out in the chapter ending blog post, a good joke can elicit an emotional response that will connect your reader to the work so that they carry on reading.  Jokes can also be surprising, which can draw a reader along.  There are several good jokes in this novel (as far as I'm concerned).  And the ones that weren't working are good jokes that I hadn't set up to be "chapter ending jokes."  They aren't set up so they end in a cymbal sting.  They're set up like jokes thrown in during a longer dialogue.  I need to recenter the conversation leading up to them so that the conversation actually leads up to them.

If you have chapters, I encourage you to try this exercise, because it's a good one.

Characterization through a Lens

Spring Fling, a conference for the Chicago North Romance Writers of America, was the other weekend.  I didn't know about it, but a friend of mine attended virtually and had nothing but rave reviews about it.  Since it was virtual, participants got to see every presentation and panel, instead of having to chose to fit a schedule.  That sounds very very cool. 

"I'm so smart now," she told my critique group.  "I learned about tension and character arcs and--Oh!  There was this thing!" She dug into her copious notes, which shows better than anything what a great time she had.  "Okay," she explained, "so you can assign every character a movement."

There's a theory from anatomy and kinesiology called Laban Movement, created by a dance choreographer.  He said that any human movement has four parts: Direction, Weight, Speed, and Flow.  Each of these can is on a polarity: Direction is either direct or indirect, weight is either heavy or light, speed is either quick or sustained, and flow is either bound or free.  Or, as Wikipedia explains it: Both punching someone in anger or reaching for a glass are done by extending the arm.   But the strength of the movement, the control of the movement and the timing of the movement are different.  So basically, there end up being eight broad categories of movement:  Float, Punch, Glide, Slash, Dab, Wring, Flick, and Press.

Now you can assign each character a characteristic motion.  This character who is direct is a Punch Guy.  This anxious dude is a Wring Guy.  Then if you write your character through this lens, their physical stances and their motions will set them apart from one anther.  This will also trickle into their dialogue, because a Flick Person and a Float Person will speak differently.  Then it will affect their thoughts and motivations.  Looking at your characters through this lens will color every aspect of their characterization.

I think this is a helpful thing to think about.  Not because I believe there are eight type of people.  That rings of explaining everything you do through the lens of your astrological sign or your Myers-Briggs type, which I generally find reductive.  But I think this could be helpful because 1. it is descriptive enough to be an easy visualization to keep your characters from all sounding and acting the same.  And 2. if you keep referring back to this lens, it can keep your characters on target and in character.

A while back, a friend of mine was trying to explain a theory that I now see is remarkably similar: every character is a color and the three primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) are aspects of a character that I have now forgotten.  I think red was active and blue was thoughtful, so a red person acted before they thought and a blue person thought very hard but never acted and a purple person would both think and act.  My friend then proceeded to tell me that the main character of my story was red, and I got a bit miffed, decided this framework was unhelpful, and didn't think of it again until now.

But now, I'm working on revisions for a novel, and I'm reading through and constantly asking myself "What does this scene have to do with this central theme?  How can I bring the theme out in this section?  How can I tie it all back together?"  It's kind of like I'm looking at my whole novel through a lens and making sure everything lines up and stays on target.  And suddenly these methods of forming a character through a lens make more sense to me.

It doesn't matter what lens you look through: movement types; elements like water, air, fire, and earth; or even zodiac sign.  Simply having a lens, even if you only use it during one round of revision and not through the entire writing process, can be useful.  Just coming back to one central visualization, one solid idea throughout a story can pull things tighter and cut out extraneous bits that wander away from the point you're trying to make or the idea you're trying to express.