A Narrative for the Trip

Given as our car-trip in July (see previous posts) will take us through ~27 States and 6000+ miles, I decided to ping some groups that might find it interesting to use our experience as a plug for their services. E.g. "27 States, 6000 miles, 4 kids, and we enjoyed every night of it because we slept soundly at such-and-such hotel...."

I've received a few "What a brave dad!" replies. I didn't realize that "brave" was a synonym for "foolhardy"! ;^) As well as several "Thanks, but no thanks" replies.

I just received one from an audio book company who said it sounds very interesting. They've asked me to make a narrative of the trip for them to review and consider marketing. Cool! I had thought of blogging the trip, but an audio narrative could make for a fun artifact at the end. I could capture some sounds along the way of the different places. Put them with photos and we could have an interesting slide show.

Of course, I'd have to edit out the "Don't make me come back there!" comments that are bound to occur at some point along the way!

I'll have to give this some thought on how to generate an effective intro and conclusion, as well as the central commentary. I'll also have to stop by the library to see if I can find similar audio narratives that I could use as a guide.

This makes for a fun slant on the trip that I hadn't anticipated.

Have any of you done something like this before?

BTW, Happy Leap Year Day!
My wife and I have a tradition for Leap Year Day - We go out to a restaurant that neither of us have been to before. Tonight marks our 5th such outing together. It would have been 6, but Leap Year Day was on a Sunday last time and we don't eat out on the Sabbath...

E. B. Samuelson

I've had a peculiar experience this past week. I decided I wanted to write some short stories, for writing practice. I also decided to get some tutoring on the concept by reading some short stories by a master. I've done this in the past, where I've read several works by a specific author and then written a tale using their tone. This time I chose the writings of Richard Matheson. Stephen King recommended him as a significant inspiration for him.

Granted, I'm not really a Stephen King fan, as I'm not that into horror, but I know him to be extremely successful which means he has an opinion that is at least worth listening to. I've now read a couple compilation books of Matheson's short stories.

Some of them were a really fun read, particularly because I enjoyed watched "The Twilight Zone" many years ago, and several episodes were based on his short stories, such as the classic, "Terror at 20,000 Feet" starring William Shatner (which, BTW, I read while flying back from Oklahoma). Then there's "Mad House" in which everything in a guy's house becomes animated and hostile, including his electric razor which comes at him like a cobra.

Fun stuff, although there began to be a noticeable trend: the hero/heroine always ended up either dead or insane. At first it was a fun twist to find out that the hero didn't survive to fight another day, but when every story seemed to leave the protagonist in the grave, it became increasingly difficult to root for him or her. It had about the same satisfaction of watching "Episode III" of Star Wars in which you knew Anakin would give into the Dark Side, you just didn't know all of the details. Did ANYONE find themselves rooting for Anakin? It's just awkward.

But, the stories themselves are great tools for showing how to pace and orchestrate a short story. They illustrate key nuances, such as how much detail to provide vs. how much innuendo. For example, if the characters experience a recurring event, it's simply not necessary to restate each detail of that event repeatedly. A simple, brief reference to the repeating - so long as it's essentially the same event again without a key step forward in the plot - can suffice.

Sunday morning, I woke up and continued to lay there debating whether or not to actually get up, or take an early Sunday nap. While I lay there, the opening lines to a short story began to dictate themselves to me. The character's name (E. B. Samuelson), the tone and pace of the writing, the words themselves were coming to mind very clearly.

I had the first two paragraphs running through my mind, as well as the final sentence. As these wouldn't leave me, I decided to get up and write them down. I had the beginnings of a short story in the tone of Richard Matheson - sort of.

The odd thing for me was that my typing was more a matter of uncovering text that seemed to already exist. It was like using a coin to scratch off the silver bar on a coupon to see if it included a winning number. The more I typed, the more of the story I was able to see. Perhaps oddest of all was that I had know idea what was going to happen next.

The final sentence had very little to do with the opening paragraphs. They seemed to indicate a tremendous change in the mindset of the character, and I had no idea what would occur to cause that change to take place.

The more I wrote, the more I would guess at what was coming up. I began to have a feeling that I knew what Mr. E. B. Samuelson was up to, or going to experience next, or what the point of his story was, and then the topic would take an unexpected shift and another aspect of the story would present itself in a way I hadn't predicted. Small things became significant, and obvious plot lines faded to the background.

My goal was to write only a ten-page short story, not a novel. I was growing fearful when I was on the 10th page last night, and it appeared from the direction of the story that it would go on for at least 24. Then some more scratching away at the words revealed that it was actually only a couple of paragraphs away from being completed. Things that I thought had to be said, or were going to be said, needed no saying at all. The story climaxed and ended with the very appropriate final line that had been written long before the story itself had formed.

I read through the thing from start to finish and am surprised that it works. I'm not saying it's the greatest short story ever written, far from it, but it works.

There is much about it (the tone, the verbiage, the characters, the topic, even the plot) that is something I would not generally care to read, much less write, but somehow, working together, they form an experience that is worth reading. I found that the tone became an essential defining aspect of the main character's character, as clearly, or perhaps moreso, than a written description of his physical persona.

I also enjoyed the twist that the story is timeless in that the reader is left to wonder if the story takes place today, or in the 1950's. Either would work. Likewise, the location is left to the imagination. It could take place as easily in London as it could in New York City, or any of a dozen other cities. Those aspects are not critical. What is critical are the degrees of change the character undergoes as he tries to maintain his rigid life. The tagline for the story also dictated itself to me: "A punctual salesman discovers that there is more to life than selling shoes."

I enjoyed the writing being an act of discovery as much as creation. For example, while I often have trouble coming up with names for characters, these names seemed to come pre-written. As each character introduced itself to the page, it arrived fully named and depicted.

I'm sharing this little experience for the benefit of those who have had other similar experiences, or as an encouragement to those who are becoming interested in writing and might want to get a feel for what it can be like.

Mapping it out

I'm posting a graphic of the mapquest map that shows the trip we're planning for this summer. See the previous blog...

6,000 Miles, 3 Girls, and a 5-yr-old

I have to confess that I don't remember when it was. How long ago. What I was doing at the time. What we were even talking about. But, I do remember my oldest daughter, Holly, declaring that before she graduated from high school, she wanted to have visited each of the contiguous United States - and then go to Hawaii for a graduation present. (Obviously, being somewhere in her pre-teens, she didn't actually use the word "contiguous" but that was what we knew her to mean. Although she was probably throwing Alaska in there, too. Sigh.)

I also remember agreeing to the "contiguous" part of her request/goal. At the time, we had relatives living in Oregon, Washington, California, Utah, Arizona, Oregon, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and even South Carolina. Maybe I've even left a couple off... At any rate, with all of the traveling we did, it seemed like a pretty easy thing. Hit the South and New England, and be done with it.

Well, now she's finishing up her freshman year in high school, and there's a family reunion in Palmyra, New York, so it seems like this summer is the year to hit the missing States.

I just mapped it out. To get the ones we're still lacking, we need to drive from Utah to South Carolina, to Maine, to Upper Michigan (just to visit my old stomping grounds), to Butte Montana, and back home again. We'll cover 27 States in all - several we've already hit before. And, thank goodness we've already hit the Deep South, or this would be an even longer trip.

All in all, mapquest says it will be a trip of 6066.76 miles and take 95 hours and 34 minutes. Ouch!

I'm estimating $2000-3000 in gas, depending on prices. We'll get an oil change and tune-up before the trip and then need another one - and probably new tires - about the time we pull into Maine.

It will take at least 10 days of 9-hour drives. This from a group of kids that can rarely make it through dinner without a squabble...

It should be quite a bonding experience. And, I'm sure that at several points along the drive we'll ALL feel like we're in bondage.

It's bound to be one for the books, so I'll have to make some notes.

BTW, when did the concept of "graduation trips" enter the picture? Is that suddenly some sort of right? When I graduated high school I got a pat on the back and an overly large suitcase. I hope she's got some frequent flyer miles saved up if she's expecting to go to Hawaii.... ;^)