I don't know what to do with the main character in my short story.

[CTyankee]

I wrote a short story about a dilemma faced by a woman (classic short story dilemma, right?). I now want to follow up with another sequence to the story but I cannot decide what decision this woman makes with her dilemma (in my story I left it up in the air).

Help! I have created a character (her name is Elizabeth) and I don't know what to do with her!

Does anybody else have this problem with a character they created? It's not a real problem in my life but I wonder how this can be? Shouldn't I be able to control my character better? After all, I created her. She exists only in my mind.

I thought of writing one outcome in my sequel and see how I liked it and where it led me. Or, I could write two sequels and see which one "feels" more like her. Has anybody else faced this problem? If so, what did you do?

[Brigid]

1. Well, let's see . . .

What is your aim here? Are you intending to have the decision turn out to be a mistake? If so, is it because of consequences Elizabeth couldn't foresee? Or is it maybe a decision that Elizabeth was afraid to make, but she decides to make a bold step and it turns out to be that taking a chance is the best thing she could have done? Have circumstances forced her hand? Once you've decided just what your purpose is for this story, that should help you decide.

[CTyankee]

2. Thank you for clarifying this for me!

Esp. your question about what my purpose for the story is. At first, I was just loosely basing it on someone I knew many years ago and her situation. As I updated her in my story, the character began to change. Now I see her as someone who has not come to terms with her life (an indifferent marriage, a series of indifferent lovers, and discomfort with her social situation in an upper middle class suburban Massachusetts town). I doubt she will change without "something" to make her change -- a "kick in the pants" moment, if you will.

You've helped me along with my thinking process. Do you teach writing? Or do you just write? What do you write? I'd love to hear more about how this craft of fiction is done...

[Brigid]

10. No, I don't teach.

Though if I thought I could tolerate a roomful of teenagers, I might have made a decent English teacher. I do have a degree in English, though. I used to write the occasional short story, but I had sort of gotten away from it until several years ago when I started watching a TV show that was fairly popular at the time. I started visiting a website devoted to it where some of the others were writing fan fiction and I decided to try it myself. Some of the fics were better than what actually made it onto the show in its later years. Now I've been trying to write my own stuff again.

[CTyankee]

3. I noted that you posted the first part of your story on this site. Thought I'd paste here

the first two paragraphs of my story to ask what you (or anyone else) thinks:

Elizabeth and Tom Sherman arrived early to the Davidson's party. They, like everyone in Weybourn, enjoyed Jim Davidson's gregarious nature, his creative dishes and expensive wines. His pretty wife, Shauna, possessed a guileless candor, amplifying the couple's attraction to their kindred neighbors in the town. "What you see is what you get" was mostly agreed upon by the Weybourn groomed and well schooled elite regarding the Davidsons. They were good looking, rich and popular. Everyone wanted to go to their parties, a fact not lost on a few of the men and women in their group who viewed the Davidson's good fortune uncomfortably. but quietly.

Elizabeth called her group a "coterie," since she found "posse" a bit too juvenile for this mid-forties set of earnest suburbanites, dedicated to furtherance of their comfortable class in the lives of their lucky children. Softball coaching dads and volunteer moms circulated in the little Massachusetts town's social life, forming and re-forming in groups at the middle school, dance classes and, of particular favor, the Community Farming Collective. The Collective was where Weybournites could savor the rusticity of the locavore experience, and the satisfaction of being on the cutting edge, as they brought forth their "shares" and "half shares" from the wooden stalls of the Farm's chilly barn. The produce was still caked with the black soil from which it was dug, a nice touch in the town's Arcadian narrative. Late fall's mystery root vegetation was googled so that recipes could be found. Residents took deep satisfaction in the conceit that these "heirloom" items were being grown for their consumption.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

4. OK, you didn't axe me, but I'll chime in anyway -

:)

These are two different stories.

You're confused because you're writing two different stories, and you're getting mixed up when you try to make them into one.

There's a story about a party, the hosts, and how badly it's going to go, as foreshadowed by the last sentence of that first paragraph.

The second paragraph is about a group. Maybe it's the group at the party, but that doesn't seem apparent. You were telling - not showing, the First Mortal Sin - about the hosts, with the Shermans just a kind of vehicle. Suddenly, in the second paragraph, you write "Elizabeth called her group," and that's jarring, because you were writing about the Davidson's party.

Why are the Davidsons hosting a party for Elizabeth's group?

See?

It's dissonant because it's two different stories.

Tell you what - because you can take what I'm saying here, and just laugh it off, saying "What does Tangerine know?" and odds are even that you'd be right - but how about trying this:

Take your first paragraph, and just write - don't give a fuck about what you write - but write the story of that party and what happens there. The Shermans can be there, of course, but tell about the party, because, honestly, that's what I was interested in when I read it.

Also, don't tell me that "Shauna (possesses) a guileless candor," because that means nothing to me. I want to see her guileless candor in action. People can come to the party for other reasons - not the personal attributes of the hostess - and your last sentence in that paragraph suggests that some are there with sinister motives.

That's the fun, right there - the idea that this very nice dinner part is going to go to hell.

The second paragraph is about a place. Lots of information about it, which is kind of nice, in a travel brochure kind of way, but I get absolutely no feel for the place.

And what's that place doing at the Davidson's dinner party?

Sometime you get more mileage in telling what didn't happen in a place than you do by listing all the things that take place in the town - something like "Weybourn was a place of choice for young families to raise their children, since the oldsters who remembered that rape and murder of four-year-old Cicely Bancroft were all dead or in one of the nursing homes that squatted on the far edges of the village."

See?

You have two great starts. TWO! Some people never even get one.

Let it rip. Don't worry about what your character might or might not do. Just have fun, and it'll show on the page - or the monitor. Have fun. Write it as if you're telling your very best friend all about this dinner party or this village or whatever it is you're going to do.

Are you a John Cheever fan? Or John O'Hara? Your writing is very reminiscent of those gentlemen, and you're making me think that I should go back and read some of their stuff again.

You've got some rich fields to till, my friend. Have fun..............................

[CTyankee]

5. I confess to be a Cheever fan. Thanks for your advice. Coming from you, I take it very seriously.

I write about what you have discussed in the next few paragraphs of the story (which are not reprinted here) which makes me think I should reverse some order of what transpires. If you can stand it, here are the next two paragraphs:

Most everyone agreed on the pressing issues of their class and their time, which, besides local food cultivation, included one recent attempt at book banning at the local library, led by a misguided parent. Bumper stickers sprang up proclaiming "Support the First Amendment: Read a Banned Book," sold to benefit the town library and proudly displayed on the town's Land Rovers and Priuses. The Globe and the Times ran stories, flattering Weybourn's newly booted and spurred civil liberarians. There was a big fuss and, to no one's real surprise, the ban was easily defeated. Progressivism was in ascendance, refreshing the spirits of free speech defenders who were grateful for the opportunity to rise in such virtuous indignation.


The Democratic wing of the coterie had had an insufficient celebration watching Obama's nimble sweep to victory on the evening of November 4. It being a week night, the party, featuring "Obama" cocktails and Baked Alaska, had ended early though joyfully. The Davidsons had invited only Democrats, leaving out some of the town's Republicans who, while well behaved during the campaign, would find only discomfort in the festivities and why rub it in? To make up for that omission, tonight's dinner would just be a big party, before the snow flew and no one would have any parties, save at Christmas.


Does this information just come too late in the story? As you have probably figured out, I have a lot of information about this fictional town "Weybourn." It gets sprinkled in as the story goes on but that is not relevant to your criticism, which is valid and needed IMO.

Thanks, Tangerine! God, you're good!

[Tangerine LaBamba]

6. You're sweet -

Now, let me see if I have this straight - you're showing me the third and fourth paragraphs of the story, right? I already saw the first two, so we're just continuing.

It's hard for me to know what you're writing about - the Davidsons, the Shermans, the town, the party, the politics, the menus (what's "an Obama cocktail"?).

You're all over the place, pushing and squeezing and crunching all sorts of information into sentences until there's no room for consideration of what's going on. I'm overwhelmed with "facts," but they're of no use to me because I have no frame of reference into which I can place them, since all I know is that there's a party, there was another party in November, the town has all sorts of things going on that may or may not relate to this party, some people at the party don't like the hosts, and the Shermans are there for some reason.

No.

It's sloppy.

You're doing something that we all do when we're starting out and unsure of ourselves, and that is to WRITE! You're putting down one-liners as fast as you can, bumper stickers, gas-guzzlers, libraries, book banning (which was the only interesting thing in the list - that might be the story you should write), as if you're afraid to get to the real story. Throwing down obfuscation that does nothing to forward the story.

Remember this about writing fiction - you need to respect the narrative arc. Everything you put into the story must move it forward. You can't just stop and prattle on about libraries and hybrids - you have to advance the narrative, and there are a variety of ways to do it. But, the characters you introduce in the beginning - if there's a single protagonist, then the "character" - must undergo a change during the story and be a different person, however slightly, when the story concludes.

Put it down, walk away from it, and go back to what I said about two different stories. Decide what you're going to write about.

The Davidsons?

A dinner party?

The Shermans?

The town?

Then, pick one and write about it. Write as much and as well as you can about it, and you just might find, once you're finished, that you're ready to write about the next topic, and then the next, and then you might have what could conceivably be seen as a great big outline, you can put it all together, and you just might have a great big coherent and wonderful story.

But you've got to get what John Gardener (and, no, I wasn't a big fan of his) called 'dirt' out of your writing - dirt being defined as "matter out of place." Your job as the writer is to create a believable atmosphere within which your characters can move and experience and grow - or shrink. But, they must undergo change as the story progresses.

Stop telling. You're writing a narrative, but the real interest is in showing the reader, not telling.

Remember grade school history classes? Remember how boring they were because - if you had teachers like I had - all they did was throw dates and facts at you. It was miserable and hard and boring and no fun at all.

But, imagine if that same history class had been biographies of the people involved, and we got to see where they lived, what they did, who they were, who they loved, what and who they ate, and how it all came together to send them around the Cape of Good Hope, or whatever it was they went and did!

That's what you want to do with your writing. That's what I'm trying to explain, and probably not doing a very good job of it since I just woke up (yes, I do sleep until noon).

Here's the hardest part of being a writer: put away everything you've written and start over.

See what happens.

And check in with me anytime, here or PM or carrier pigeon...........................

[CTyankee]

7. Thanks. It was great of you to take the time to critique this. I have never written

a short story before, as you can see.

The story is loosely based on a woman I knew who had adulterous affairs, remained married and raised children, all in an upper middle class suburb (my original model was in New Canaan, CT). Why would a woman stay married to an indifferent husband? What was she getting out of her affairs? What is the cost of living a life in which you refuse to make choices (the existential point)? The details about the suburb were context, really. The town in MA is fictional but the basic details are accurate,this is the milieu Elizabeth lives in. I guess part of the story is the town's self consciousness and preoccupation with the maintenance of its inhabitants social status. Elizabeth is a deviant (or is she? do we know that?).

I start the story of E.'s adultery in the 6th para. her current lover and his wife arrive at the dinner party...and then the past affairs are revealed and her unwillingness to question what she is doing is explored. Her crisis comes when she takes a piece of her hostess's jewelry: "...for a short time... It could be her talisman, she thought, a sort of temporary amulet to clear her mind, to ground herself in something so tangibly a cherished and beloved thing." The question we end up with is how she resolves it...or doesn't (consistent with her past behavior).

At any rate, I'll have 3 weeks up in Door County WI in August to wrestle with the story. I may or may not come back with something!

[Tangerine LaBamba]

8. Three weeks in Door County?

That's a gorgeous area, and I wish you the most wonderful time. Have a ball, have a total ball, and come back happier..............

[CTyankee]

9. It's a good getaway. No electronics (maybe a radio).

We inherited a place there. Not sure how long we can keep it what with maintenance and taxes. Door County has developed nicely. Our place is on Lost Lake between Egg Harbor and Jacksonport, if you know DC at all. I'm seeing my stepdaughter from Cincinnati who is studying to be a rabbi.

I think I'm a bit jaded, tho. I got back from Martha's Vineyard only a week ago (i get to stay with my dtr and granddaughters). Helps to have family in places like that...

[ChicagoSuz219]

11. Pick it up where you left off... nt