On days when the international news is unbearable, our democracy is rotting, and my stomach has been unsettled, I’m thrilled when my inbox delivers a gem of a short story. Electric Literature has a recommended reading feature and today’s recommended short story Blue by Richard Bausch is one that has stayed with me for the past few hours. And I plan on reading it again later today.

Jennifer Haigh, another award-winning short story writer and novelist, introduced it by saying, Richard Bausch, one of our greatest living short story writers grounds his fiction in a pivotal moment–the moment after which nothing will ever be the same….She continues, Ernest Hart is a mild, amiable man who spends his days painting portraits of other people’s cherished grandchildren and working part time at the public library to make ends meet. Earnest to a fault, he’s the kind of guy you worry about, a dreamy eccentric who habitually reads a book while walking down the street. Reading the opening pages, I thought, this guy is going to get hit by a bus.

I don’t want to spoil the story by saying more, but seriously, you need to read this story. Then analyze why it works.

I’ve been meaning to pick up a copy of his latest short story collection, The Fate of Others and this was just the nudge I needed.

Been madly busy, but in good ways. Last weekend attended a wedding in Cancun that was so lovely and joyful that I’m still dazzled by it. And that’s not to mention the tropical views and lapping ocean, food, and lots of dancing. But mostly the just-right-happiness of the beautiful couple.

Back in Oregon I’m tackling weeds and honeysuckle overgrowth, ailing yew trees, and general yard neglect. I’m also working on a  tricky manuscript that launches a thriller series, so making lots of notes trying to make certain the stage is set for all that follows.

A few things I’m focusing on that you might find helpful:

Determining if the protagonist and leading characters’ main personality traits are apparent in book 1. There will be more time to develop secondary and contradictory traits in the next stories, but first impressions are crucial. A character’s main traits don’t change over time; they’re embedded like your height or toes or elbows. {I had to pause for a moment here for the body parts that cannot be changed by cosmetics, dentistry, or surgery.}  I’ve also shrunk half an inch since my last physical so there’s more stretching in my future. Here’s more on this topic: Nail Your Character’s Essence

Pacing–this particular story needs a shattering sense of threat and urgency that pushes the story forward and grates on the reader’s nerves.

Structure–determining if the events are unfolding in the best order for overall coherence and suspense.

Voice–do the characters sound age and background appropriate? I often suggest to clients that their younger characters can sound edgier or more contemporary.

Word potency–I’ve got hefty word and phrase lists on my iPad and in my Commonplace Books (I create seasonal ones so I’m on Spring 2025 right now). The word lists are divided into power words, descriptions, settings, and bringing characters to life. I peruse them for inspiration with every manuscript I edit.

Nailing the landing–does the ending tie up the plot threads and provide enough emotional resonance and nudge the reader to look back at what came before?

Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart

I just wanted to drop in and remind, nag, and exhort writers to gather words wherever you find them. I woke too early so lounged in bed reading news stories on my iPad. And since I was reading online, a New York Times headline was set amid a film of giant birds gliding and cavorting across a pale gray sky.

Titled “An Expedition, for Art and Nature;” the subtitle-slash-logline is: Each spring, hundreds of thousands of cranes converge in Nebraska. The phenomenon draws in artists, conservationists, and curious friends alike.

Next this luminous opening paragraph appeared followed by a background information: They look like peppercorns ground into the sky and then like black silk or a stain spreading overhead.

Each spring, for close to a million years, hundreds of thousands of sandhill cranes converge on the Platte River Valley in central Nebraska. For roughly a month, the birds rest and refuel on their annual path from the southern United States and Mexico, where they winter, to the Arctic regions of Canada, Alaska, and Siberia, where they breed. Jane Goodall, who tried to make the trip every year to witness the phenomenon, has called it “without a doubt one of the most spectacular events in the natural world.”

Naturally I was hooked.

Birds compared to peppercorns–hats off.

The story goes on to follow a group of friends led by Sheila Berger, a piped piper of sorts who gathered witnesses to the wonder of the giant cranes taking flight. As the story wraps amid a generous photo montage, we learn that in the previous week 736,000 cranes had been counted–the highest number ever. This evening it felt like there must have been at least as many. 

“It’s so meditative,” whispered Rosanne Cash, whom Berger met over 20 years ago through their mutual friend “M.A.S.H.” star Mary Kay Place. “It looks like an etching.” Ms. Cash’s breath was visible in the dark. “If somebody else had said to me, ‘Hey, come to Nebraska to see some cranes–it’s pretty hard to get to and it’s going to be freezing cold,’ I’d say, ‘Nah.’ But because it was Sheila, I didn’t think twice, and then of course it turns out to be so better than you ever dreamed of.”

The world is so, so noisy, distracting, and distressing these days. But you know that.

Some days it feels like small habits and noticing wonder are all that keep me sane. And words ground me, help me describe these strange times and my own joys.

Keep gathering, keep dreaming, have heart

Pale skies with an overlay of chalk here this morning that gave way to fine, spring day. Of course, rain is arriving later, but there’s time for work, a walk, and weeding.

I turned on my TV earlier as I exercised, and HBO was playing a Game of Thrones episode. It’s the epic fantasy based on the novels of George R.R. Martin. It’s season 7 of the 8-season series and the camera focused a closeup shot on Peter Dinklage who plays Tyrion Lannister, a crucial player in the sweeping drama.

Earlier in the series Tyrion had taken part in The Battle of Blackwater, a major battle to defend Westeros from invaders. He was injured by a sword slashing his face. In the novels, Tyrian, a dwarf, is ugly, misshapen and brutish while Dinklage is attractive. And in the novels, his face is seriously maimed in the battle including losing part of his nose.

The TV series downplays his injury likely since it would have required CGI, but his face is never the same after the battle.  And no doubt the showrunners knew a television audience would have no stomach from such gruesomeness–though the series offered up gruesomeness and senseless cruelty and diabolical cunning and rat tortures, and slavering dogs episode after episode. And that’s without dragonfire.

Because in Georgie R.R. Martin’s storytelling no one is safe. And because fictional people suffer. A lot. 

The closeup in season reveals how the wound has been healing—in other words, it’s showing the passage of time. I’ve advised how writers should take great care with wounding major characters and how the scenes that follow the injuries, surgeries, heart attacks should reveal healing or grievous damage.

How are you showing the passage of hours, days and seasons? Your characters growing or diminishing? Becoming hardened or hopeful? This can be especially tricky when your story covers years or generations as children become teenagers, then adults. When adults become elderly and governments fail, worlds crumble.

All fiction requires fallout and repercussions. Aging and declining. Birth and revival. Plan for downstream effects.

You can find more information on pacing and using time passing in my book Between the Lines: Master the Subtle Elements of Fiction Writing.

Keep writing. Keep dreaming. Have heart.

Resist.

The first people a dictator puts in jail after a coup are the writers, the teachers, the librarians–because these people are dangerous. They have enough vocabulary to recognize  injustice and to speak out loudly against it. Let us have the courage to go on being dangerous people….

So let us look for beauty and grace,  for  love and friendship, for that which is creative and birth-giving and soul-stretching. Let us dare to laugh at ourselves, healthy, affirmative laughter. Only when we take ourselves lightly can we take ourselves seriously, so that we are given the courage to say, “Yes, I disturb the universe!”   ~ Madeleine L’Engle

Modernist manuals on writing often conflate every story with conflict. This reductionism reflects a culture that inflates aggression and competition while cultivating ignorance of other behavioral behavioral options. No narrative of any complexity can be built on or reduced to a single element. Conflict is one kind of behavior. There are others, equally important in any human life, such as relating, finding, losing, bearing, discovering, parting, changing.

Change is the universal aspect of all these sources of story. Story is something moving, something happening, something or somebody changing. ~ Ursula K LeGuin