Overcoming Tropes:
Intimacy and immediacy in story openings
There are common openings in fiction that create a sense of stagnancy, a static, unmoving escalator that often creates dead ends rather than opening up the possibilities for characters to react to as they reveal themselves to the reader. Some examples might be: characters sitting around a table talking, the main character talking on the telephone, characters waking in the middle of the night or in the morning, characters talking in a car, parked or moving, and stories where the main character is set up to be only an observer.
Each of these can ground a story to a halt, can give it an expected plot, a lack of causality or velocity, and a plot without escalation or originality. Yet there are always examples of stories that take these very story occasions or set-ups and find a way to create tension, a way to break past the static nature of these common story tropes. Meg Pillow is a writer who finds ways to usurp common tropes, to show them in a new light, and she does this brilliantly in her story “Yell Louder.”
Afterwards, he collapses next to her on the sheets and wipes away the slick of sweat between her breasts. She lets him. She isn’t ready to move yet. Her skin is tacky, warm, and if she touches it, it will pull like taffy.
I love an opening that creates intimacy between characters and the reader through specific actions/gestures. It says so much about how a couple acts after the intimacy of sex, of passion. Do they stay together, do they pull apart, or go their separate ways? Do they reach for a cigarette or their phone, or turn on the television? There are so many small actions/gestures that characters can make in this heightened moment, each one defining themselves but also defining their relationship with one another.
Notice that this story starts with the word after because this is a story about what happens after the passion, after the sex, that the moments before the after aren’t as important to the reader, that the pressure of the story, the pressure of the actions come not during sex, but after sex, after intimacy. The story escapes being lurid because it skips the details of intercourse, the puerile or immature depictions of body parts, and icky actions that can quickly become melodramatic.
Meg Pillow’s strength is her ability to control the flow of information, to control the use of time, and the way she creates intimacy between characters while using brevity.
“Afterwards, he collapses next to her on the sheets and wipes away the slick of sweat between her breasts. She lets him.”
After an intimate moment, there can be a cleaving, but Pillow keeps these characters together by focusing on the man’s actions. It says even more that she allows his touch of her sweat, of this intimate part of her body. There’s a drawing in effect here. I’m leaning in to see how far this intimacy can/will go. How much will she allow? When and how does the intimacy continue or stop?
Just moments ago, she put her mouth to his shoulder as he thrust inside her. His skin tasted salty but underneath of something candied, like one of the brunch dishes he makes for the rich people at the hotel. It’s always a delicious agony, the way she and the Chef have to pull themselves slowly apart after sex, cell by sugary cell.
So much of my curiosity is controlled by Pillow’s use of elapsed time, flowing from real story time, the flick of sweat from her body to describing, even summarizing, how their lovemaking usually goes. But it’s more than a summary because it has happened before, and it is happening now in real storytime, too.
There’s a jolt of energy in this backfill. Her biting, her tasting, followed by even more context of his job, giving him not a name, but a title, that in the past they have pulled themselves apart, that maybe they will return to some other significant other outside of this scene? We are allowed to make inferences, to wonder about their lives outside of this shared moment of intimacy. A line of tension to consider and hope that the story plays with or against as it continues.
But the after is lovely too, and here they are in it again, soft and sweet and stuck in this bed in the warm of the room with the roiling summer boil of Miami just outside, and he is asking her something.
There’s even a smooth move by Pillow to invoke the literal heat, the city, and the weather in a quick brushstroke before getting us into the story occasion, teleporting us back into the present story, the one where things will be different, and never the same for our main character.
Ask me again, she says.
We’re moved forward through a line of dialogue, a small action, something misheard and asked to be repeated. A pause in the story, this line of dialogue enhances the tension we feel from this opening paragraph. Will their intimacy crumble? If yes, then how so?
Pillow has opened this story with an instant sense of immediacy, one that creates tension as we wonder how far it will go, whether it will break, and if so, how. All the right questions we want our readers to ask as they are confronted by the opening in a flash! She has a well-balanced first third of her story, one that functions as a kind of opening act. She makes what might have been a static scene of two lovers laying in bed fizzle with possible conflict, with a story occasion and a potential arc that has used several distinct craft elements such as action, characterization, backfill that adds context, a playful use of time, and dialogue that adds to our sense of reality as well as characterization and moves the story forward.
This opening gives these characters a stage to act on, to react to the pressure of the conflict, one of intimacy and immediacy. It’s not an opening that elicits a dead end but an opening toward something more significant.
Prompt: Find a small action/gesture to show intimacy between two characters. Allow them to be in a commonly static setup, and make it more active and immediate through these intimate gestures, through a small ribbon of backfill/backstory that adds context to their relationship, and then open the plot up to possibility through a line of dialogue. Resist the use of feeling words, but conjure our senses through concrete, and specific details. Is there something that will add to their intimacy or crush it? What could threaten their relationship, and how could they see each other?
Flash I Love:
Teen Angels by Karen Crawford
A White Camellia by Wendy A. Warren
Cracks by Kathy Fish
A Place To Be As Good As Any Other by Barlow Adams
Try At Home:
Make a list of hidden things. Give one of these hidden things, an object, a piece of history, a secret, or a feeling of regret or shame to your main character. Consider how this hidden thing can be exposed to the world or another character. What is gained or lost by the hidden thing being exposed? What does it reveal about your main character when it's hidden, and what will it reveal when it is brought to light?
Write with Me:
Writing Flash Fiction with Immediacy and Depth: 7-week Live Online Workshop
October 22-December 3, 12:00-2:30 PM EDT
Cost: $350
Number of spots: 7 out of 8 left
I’m excited to work with a small, dedicated group of writers on their flash fiction in a safe, inspiring, and live atmosphere!
Each class will contain time for lecture, discussion, and a live facilitated workshop. Students will receive written feedback from their peers and workshop leader, Tommy Dean.
Students will have their story (s) workshopped twice during the seven-week class.
Students will receive excellent, fresh flash fiction examples with analysis and writing prompts to keep them inspired each week.
Class breakdown:
Week1: Definitions and Inspirations, Finding the Clay, Exploring the form
Week 2: Escalations and metaphors, workshop
Week 3: POV and Character, workshop
Week 4: Settings and the Stage, workshop
Week 5: Endings, workshop
Week 6: Deep into the woods, workshop
Week 7: Re-envisioning, testing the market, workshop
To sign-up, email me at thomasrdean13 (@) gmail.com or send payment via Paypal. Put the class name in comments.
Mighty and Flawed: Characters That Demand Attention-Part 2 1 day Zoom generative class
Cost: Pay What You Can/Want (Suggested minimum $10)
September 17 @ 2:00-3:00 PM EDT
Join writer Tommy Dean for a all new 90 minute generative writing session focused on creating and revealing characters through their strengths and flaws in micro and flash fiction.
Character is often our vehicle for the camera and the point of view, and it’s our job to use their actions on the stage of the story to create tension and conflict and to build resonance and satisfaction while reading. One way to do all of this is to reveal characters through their relationships with other characters, to show their flaws and their failures as they reveal themselves to the reader.
To sign-up email me at thomasrdean13 (@) gmail.com or send payment via Paypal. Put class name in comments.
You explained this so well. Thanks, Tommy. Love this story.
Thanks for this. Meg is a fantastic writer and I loved the breakdown you provided. Great newsletter, Tommy!