As a very short story writer, you have to get and hold the reader’s attention right away; show him something that makes him think and feel.  One of the best ways to do it is through surprise.  Sneak up on the reader and make him smile or scratch his head.  He may not always understand the story but he will remember it.

How can surprise be created?  Here are a few ways.

Joey ran up to the tall urinal and made Dad take the short one.

This story works by reversing the perspective from which the reader views the story.  When a father and young son enter a restroom, the reader expects the father to take control of the situation and stand in front of the tall urinal while the son follows passively to the short one.  The author surprises the reader by making the boy the aggressor.   How does the father react?  Does the son say anything?  Can the boy reach high enough?  By reversing the perspective, the author has created drama out of an otherwise ordinary situation.

This technique is especially useful when it involves characters of different social status, like with the father and son.  Readers will have preconceived ideas about status that the author can break.  Here’s another example.

He wondered where he could go to buy a gavel.

The reader expects anyone who needs a gavel to have one already.  A gavel is a symbol of authority, and people who have one don’t “wonder”.  They decide.  What could be going on here?

The next story offers a twist on authority.  The author creates a surprise by showing the reader an authority figure in an unexpected place.

“Chad, this drum circle has standards.  Remember that.  Okay, let’s greet the sun again!”

Sometimes it isn’t the reader who switches perspective.  It’s the character himself.

When Mr. Jones told them to switch partners, he was surprised to find Becky Jordan’s upheld hands were red and damp.

Another way to create surprise is to show the reader a character he doesn’t normally expect to see, as in the example below.

Ron leaned on his broom out of sight of the open doors.  The last day of school was always hard for him.

Or the author can show a character doing something unexpected in a private moment.

She stuck in her front tooth and laced up her skates.  5:00 AM always came so early.

He shut the door and dimmed the lights.  He pulled the tiny roll of film out of his mouth.

Or not-so-private moment, as in the stories below.

He caught the ball on the first hop and threw it into the outfield.

Aunt Shirley poured vodka into the gravy boat and Mom put a hand on my shoulder.  “Auntie’s house, Auntie’s rules.”

Sometimes the surprise comes when we learn something unexpected about a character.

They shook hands firmly. Only one of them knew his toenails were painted with purple sparkle polish.

He never told his coworkers he used to fix photocopiers for a living.

“Lead me to the little rotters,” said the new nanny.

Another technique is to combine different images that don’t seem to go together, as in these stories.

He wanted to watch television in peace.  She wanted a puppy.

This story combines the passive act watching television with the lively energy of a puppy.  The author jolts the reader by opening the story in one way and finishing it in another.

“Stop touching me.  My grampa died in this bed.”

Ew.  Sex and death.  Who thought it was a good idea to put those things together?  And, um, was he able to win her over?  Just wondering.

He rolled his shopping cart into the parking lot in the middle of the thunderstorm.  Aluminum foil and lip balm had been on sale.

The previous story uses strange combinations in several ways.  First, the routine act of walking in a parking lot is combined with the threat of being struck by lightning.  Second, the lightning strike is combined with thoughts of buying things on sale.  Third, the things on sale have nothing to do with each other.  Okay, aluminum foil might have something (bad) to do with lightning, but how did lip balm get into the story?  Is lightning going to give the shopper chapped lips?  What’s going on here!

One of the challenges of this technique is to find images that are both natural and unexpected.  It’s easy to throw crazy images together.  It’s harder to integrate them and make them believable.  Take the story below.

She watched her soaps while she carefully painted her toenails black.  Halloween comes once a year and it was Tony’s baby after all.

Taken separately, there is nothing strange about watching a soap opera or dressing up for Halloween.  The normal images are important because they let the reader understand and accept the scene.  However, the dissonant combination of the images shows the character’s personality more vividly than each image would separately.  They draw the reader into the scene and encourage him to use his own imagination, which is exactly what a very short story should do.

Stories by Charlie Close.

Other Articles in This Series

Introduction

Start in the Middle

Use Familiar Contexts

Small Choices Make a Big Difference

Don’t be Afraid of the Ordinary

Go for Emotion

Metaphor

Appeal to the Senses

The Implied Character

Misunderstanding

About the Author

Charlie Close is a writer of very short stories. His mainstream stories are published on Twitter at @CharlieClose, and his romance stories can be found at @apinchofpassion. He is the author of Burning Embers and Other Stories of Marriage, Work, and Family, ISBN 978-1598588187. Visit Charlie’s blog at http://charlieclose.com.

One of the most useful techniques in writing very short stories is to imply the existence of a character who isn’t in the literal text of the story.  Here’s an example.

“Mom, in rock-paper-scissors, what beats SmashTron?”

We can infer that someone defeated the child using a previously-unknown element of rock-paper-scissors called SmashTron.  (In other words, Someone cheated.)  We know Someone must exist even though he or she is not shown in the story.  Someone is called an implied character.

Notice how the way the story is written forces us to think of the implied character.  If Someone didn’t exist, SmashTron would make no sense.  But the story is supposed to make sense, so Someone must exist.  The author is bending our perceptions using characters we never see!

Implied characters often go hand-in-hand with implied situations.  SmashTron is one example.  We can imagine how the game of rock-paper-scissors went even though we didn’t see it.

Here are a few more examples of implied characters.

He threw his chef’s hat in the dumpster and walked away.

The customer or co-worker who made the chef walk out is an implied character.

She didn’t cry all the way home because she did not go home.

If she is not going home she must be going from somewhere, and wherever that somewhere is, there is probably Someone.  That Someone, who must be the one to make her cry, is an implied character.

The lights ahead were streaked and blurry.  The radio was too loud.  He told himself again he would not be late.

The person at the other end of this drive through the rain is an implied character.

It’s even possible to write a story with only implied characters.

Three card monty should not be played with tarot cards.

If we say this last sentence is a proverb, no characters are needed.  If, however, we say it’s a story, we are allowed and obliged to imagine characters and a plot even though none of these are referred to in the sentence itself.  The context of words influences how we read them.

Often an implied character is as central to the story as the characters we can see.  Take this story, for example.

“Man, there are tons of fish on this side of the boat. Whoo, they’re jumpin!”

The story is designed to draw our attention to an implied character on the other side of the boat who, we imagine, must not be catching as many fish.  Note how the phrase “this side” does the work to imply the other character.

Or this one.

He said beer tastes colder in the cab of an 18-wheeler.

The point of view character isn’t the truck driver.  It’s the implied character listening to the truck driver.  How does he or she perceive the driver?  With admiration?  Trepidation?  Whatever the implied character thinks and does, as determined by the reader’s imagination, will drive the story forward.

He said, “It’s ‘barbed wire’, not ‘bob war’, and personally I don’t see what the problem is.”

Not only is a character implied but we know the character has a Southern accent.  How about that?  And we can tell that the implied character probably understands the situation better than the character who’s speaking.

She decided the picture was not her and could never have been her.  She turned it face-down on the mantle.

In this story the implied character is the hero herself – that is, her own unstated idea of who she was when the picture was taken.

He imagined that each flower delivery was really from himself.  He loved everyone and wanted them to get well soon.

The above story relies on characters who invisible not only to us as readers, but also to the hero.  He can pretend the flowers are from himself because he never sees the people who sent them.

A final example elaborates on the idea of the previous story.  Who is the hero of the story and who is the nameless supporting player is only a matter a perspective.  We are all implied characters.

His boat floated under the bridge beneath people he would never see and who were going another way.

Stories by Charlie Close.

Other Articles in This Series

Introduction

Start in the Middle

Use Familiar Contexts

Small Choices Make a Big Difference

Don’t be Afraid of the Ordinary

Go for Emotion

Metaphor

Appeal to the Senses

Surprise

Misunderstanding

About the Author

Charlie Close is a writer of very short stories. His mainstream stories are published on Twitter at @CharlieClose, and his romance stories can be found at @apinchofpassion. He is the author of Burning Embers and Other Stories of Marriage, Work, and Family, ISBN 978-1598588187. Visit Charlie’s blog at http://charlieclose.com.

Very short stories are best at showing a moment in time, capturing an event and letting the reader expand on it with his or her own imagination.  The more evocatively the author describes what is happening inside the frame of the story, the more the reader can imagine what has happened, or is happening, outside the frame.  So: what can a writer do to write vivid stories?

It’s simple enough.  Describe what the characters see, hear, touch, taste, and smell, and trust the reader to translate sensory experience into the story’s meaning.

Let’s look at some stories that rely on the senses.

The senses, especially the sense of smell, can be used to invoke a particular person or place, as in the two stories below.

Aunt Lucy buttered us each a slice of banana bread and sent us into the living room to watch wrestling.

Angela cursed herself for agreeing to drive. The car smelled like her mother’s perfume.

The senses can be used to give us a feel for a character in the story.

Mr. Gordon showed her the violin.  Stacie shook her head and pointed to the string bass.

The two chairs cast slanted shadows.  Harvey sat in one and drank his beer.

He painted a button on the last cadet and set it down.  The lamp shone above the parade ground at West Point.

Sylvia pulled off her dress shoes and wished she had different feet.

A story can use a blend of different senses, which combine into something unique, like different notes combine into harmonies.  It’s a fact: very short stories and barbershop quartets are practically the same thing.

Kevin’s sister painted his toes robin’s egg blue while he was asleep.  He awoke to the tickle of her gentle blowing.

The blue of the toes blends with the tickle of the blowing.

They sucked helium from the balloons and sang Old Man River until they fell asleep with the lights on.

High voices singing a low song combine with lights kept on at night.

Dad tied a rope to the six-pack and threw it into the deepest part of the creek.

This story combines a taught rope, the bite of warm beer, and the sound and cold of rushing water.

(Admit it: you heard the barbershop harmonies and then saw the striped shirts and straw boater hats, didn’t you?  And then you imagined the author singing the tenor part of “Good Night Irene”.  Right?  See how that works: one sense perception can invoke others.)

Another way to use sensory images is to have them represent something else.  In other words, they can be used to create metaphor.

Colin played his jaw harp for her as she went by.  He loved the way she walked.

Here the sound of the jaw harp stands in for the bounce in her step.

Denise followed her sister down to the river even as the sun was going down.

Sandra pinched out the flickering candle.  “Albert, listen to me.”

The two stories above use similar changes in the senses.  The light fades and is replaced by sound.  The light is what is safe and expected, and when it’s gone something scarier and more uncertain takes its place.

Doris brought a blanket back to the couch.  “Aren’t you cold too?” she asked him.

Doris is inviting him to get closer to her both physically and metaphorically.

Notice that the “character” stories above, starting with “Mr. Gordon”, are also using sensory metaphors to convey their meaning.  Stacie doesn’t think she’s a “violin”.  She thinks she’s a “bass”.  Whatever is on Harvey’s mind is casting slanted shadows on it.  Sylvia’s feet are tired, and so is she.

A useful thing about the senses is you don’t have to describe them explicitly to invoke them.

Davey finally got the tap shoes for his birthday.  He ran across the carpet to the sliding glass door and out onto the patio.

The story is loud with unstated sounds: the thump and swish of the shoes on the carpet, the slap of the hand on the door handle, the scrape of the sliding door, and finally the klickity-klack of the tap shoes on the cement patio.  The story uncoils with a burst of energy from sounds, all of which are only implied.

They had only one pair of boxing gloves between them.

The writer does not have to describe the boxing match for us to imagine what it will feel like.  And the imagination of both “soft” hits and “hard” hits lets us guess that the characters are boxing for fun – but not all fun.

Bettina showed him how much more fun rock paper scissors can be when you play for kisses.

Here is another story that relies on the reader to imagine physical contact, although of a different kind.  Notice also the feel-and-sound blending of hard hands and soft lips.

Sensory descriptions can be used to surprise the reader.

Dad gave RJ the bright gumball and he popped it in his mouth.  “It’s a superball, son.”  RJ gagged and spat it onto the parking lot.

The above story uses an implied sense.  We know without being told that the ball bounces on the blacktop and rolls away.

Mom asked what kind of kitten he had found at the pet store.  Dad held up the Chihuahua.

The surprise depends on a sensory expectation.  A kitten is soft and cuddly.  A Chihuahua is not.

He saw the trombone case when he woke up the next morning.  What had he been thinking?

Think how a different instrument would change the sense of the story.  Our imagination of a trombone’s sound is doing part of the story’s work.

He slumped down and cried.  And then he learned that ice melts when you sit on it.

Hot tears and ice water.  Surely our hero has a lot on his mind right now.

A writer can do a lot with sensory descriptions, but they don’t always have to drive the story.  Sometimes they just add flavor.

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye and kept stirring.  “The secret to gumbo is not to ask so many damn questions.”

Stories by Charlie Close.

Other Articles in This Series

Introduction

Start in the Middle

Use Familiar Contexts

Small Choices Make a Big Difference

Don’t be Afraid of the Ordinary

Go for Emotion

Metaphor

The Implied Character

Surprise

Misunderstanding

About the Author

Charlie Close is a writer of very short stories. His mainstream stories are published on Twitter at @CharlieClose, and his romance stories can be found at @apinchofpassion. He is the author of Burning Embers and Other Stories of Marriage, Work, and Family, ISBN 978-1598588187. Visit Charlie’s blog at http://charlieclose.com.

In school we learned that a metaphor was a thing used to describe a different thing.  For example, this sentence.

Johnny’s rage was a seething volcano on the verge of eruption.

Johnny’s rage isn’t literally a volcano, but the comparison is used to illustrate the heat and pent-up urge for violence he feels.  Writers use metaphors like this all the time – hopefully not all as purple as this one – to give color to their stories.  (Note: “purple” and “color” are themselves both metaphors.)

Metaphor is also a useful technique for very short stories.  However, the limited space of a very short story makes it necessary to use metaphor differently from the example above. The metaphor has to be integrated into the story itself, both making the comparison and carrying the story forward.

It’s not as complicated as it sounds.  Let’s look at an example.

It was Saturday night, and Melody, Morgan, and Ophelia had more than buttered popcorn on their minds.

The phrase “buttered popcorn” serves two purposes in this story.  First, it tells us that the story is set in a movie theater, which also helps us see that the characters are probably teenagers.  In other words, popcorn does the work of telling the story.  Second, by putting buttered popcorn next to the word “minds” it suggests that their thoughts are light and fluffy.  The story does not say, “Their thoughts were as light and fluffy as buttered popcorn.”  But putting the two images close together the story implies the metaphor.  We can see the comparison without having the author thrust it upon us, and a minimum of space was needed, a good thing when working in miniature art form.

A metaphor created by putting two images close together is also called a juxtaphor because the effect is created by juxtaposing two images.  Let’s look at some more.

He ordered the hash browns.  Brenda smiled and set a full sugar shaker on his table.

The juxtaphor in this story is between Brenda’s smile and the sugar shaker.  She is doing her job as a waitress (story) and she is conveying her sprit to her customer (metaphor).

Notice also how the phrase “his table” reinforces the intimacy of the sugar shaker metaphor.  Another writer might have neutralized it with the phrase “the table”.

She decided not to set the plastic bar between her groceries and his.

A juxtaphor can be created by putting something in the story, like the sugar shaker, and it can also be created by leaving something out.  The heroine of this story withholds the restraint on her groceries (story) and her feelings (metaphor).

The mailbox banged shut and Daphne felt a pang.  Soon Aiden would know everything.

The word “pang” is deliberately ambiguous.  Does it refer to Daphne’s feelings or to something more physical?  The mailbox is a clue.  If we see the mailbox and the envelope inside as a metaphor, we can guess what the letter says.  The pang is in her body, not just her mind.

Lucy went down to the shore and walked among the driftwood.  His letter had been short but plain of meaning.

The juxtaphor is between Lucy and the driftwood.  We can guess how Lucy feels from the cast-off wood around her.  Note also how bleached driftwood reflects the plain white letter.  Lucy has tried to escape from the letter but it is still with her in spirit.

Joshua crossed eight frozen blocks to Beth’s apartment for a steaming bowl of spaghetti and an hour of her company.

Hopefully the metaphor is easy to see now.  Beth’s company is like a warm bowl of spaghetti on a winter’s day.

He named his IV stand Julio.  He introduced himself as Robert and asked his new friend if he wasn’t a little too thin.

The juxtaphor is between the hero and the IV stand, his new “friend” Julio.  What makes this story different is not that we, the readers, can see the metaphor: the hero has a wasting illness.  It’s that the hero has invented the metaphor for himself to embody his own condition.

Also notice the ambiguity of the word “he” in the phrase “if he wasn’t”.  Does it refer to Julio or to Robert?

The accordion weighed more than he thought it would.

This one is a little trickier than the others.  The story uses two metaphors, both of which refer to things not literally in the text.

The first is the accordion.  In most places where English is spoken the accordion is considered a quaint instrument: foreign, old fashioned, and a little silly.  People like to make fun of it and the um-pa music it’s used to play.  (You thought of lederhosen and beer steins – admit it.)  Presumably the hero (“he”) does not take accordion music any more seriously than most of us.  The accordion is a metaphor because it symbolizes someone in the hero’s life, maybe a father, grandfather, or uncle, whom he has not taken seriously.

How can we make such a leap without any other facts in the story?  It is a leap, I’ll admit, and another reader might fairly come to a different conclusion.  But consider the following.  It is not the hero’s accordion, or else he would know how much it weighs.  It must belong to someone.  Who would it belong to if not someone he knows?  And what kind of person would own an accordion?  Surely someone older and less sophisticated than the hero.

If you accept the accordion metaphor, the next metaphor is easier to see.  It’s the word “weighed”.  Now that the accordion represents a person the hero thinks as silly, the weight of the accordion represents the hero’s feelings for the accordion’s owner.  Something has happened to make the hero reevaluate the owner and give him (not to say, accord him) more respect .  Maybe the owner has died.  That would explain why the hero has encountered the accordion at this time.  He has come to learn that the accordion is physically more substantial than he realized, and we see through the metaphor that the hero also realizes the owner is substantial as a person.

I hope I have made a strong case that metaphor in general, and juxtaphor in particular, is a valuable tool in writing very short stories.  If it seems a little abstract from the above examples, hang in there.  Reading and writing metaphors becomes more natural with practice.

I would leave writers with one last word of caution.  It’s great fun to invent metaphors.  How clever can you be?  How far can a metaphor be stretched and still be understood?  But please take note: the metaphor is never the point of the story.  It is only a tool to convey the story.  The stories above aren’t about a sugar shaker, driftwood, or an IV stand.  They are about the characters and their ups and downs.  Use metaphor to keep our attention on them, never to distract us from them.

Stories by Charlie Close.

Other Articles in This Series

Introduction

Start in the Middle

Use Familiar Contexts

Small Choices Make a Big Difference

Don’t be Afraid of the Ordinary

Go for Emotion

Appeal to the Senses

The Implied Character

Surprise

Misunderstanding

About the Author

Charlie Close is a writer of very short stories. His mainstream stories are published on Twitter at @CharlieClose, and his romance stories can be found at @apinchofpassion. He is the author of Burning Embers and Other Stories of Marriage, Work, and Family, ISBN 978-1598588187. Visit Charlie’s blog at http://charlieclose.com.

I autographed a copy of my book, Burning Embers, and put it in a padded envelope.  I had found a service that allowed me to advertise free books in exchange for reviews.  I was mailing off books to the seven volunteers the service had selected.

Kathy picked up one of the envelopes.  “You’re sending a book to Britain?”

“Two, actually.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”  The sign-up form had let me choose where I would agree to send books, and I had checked the boxes of all the English-speaking countries.  Looking back on it, I might have let my enthusiasm get away with me.  My marketing efforts were scattered.  It’s hard enough to find an audience in one country, much less six.  If I had been smart I would have focused on readers in the United States.  Still, it made me smile to imagine a British gasp of joy when my parcel was received in the post.

“Maybe it’s a good idea,” said Kathy.

I stopped writing the address on the envelope.  “Why is that?”

“Well – you have a British sensibility.”

“What does that mean?”

“I just mean people over there might like it.”  She gestured in the direction of England.

“What about people here?”

Kathy shrugged.  She didn’t need to tell me that the results in America had been mixed.  I had offered five copies to other reviewers using the same service I was using now.  The first two reviews had been enthusiastic, the next two had been lukewarm, and the last person had not given a review at all.

“Well, I’m not everyone’s cup of tea,” I said.

“There you go!  That’s British right there.”

“Because I said cup of tea?”

“How many people drink tea in” – she looked down at an envelope – “Deerfield, Illinois?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Maybe,” she said over the rim of her coffee cup, “you should have sent all the books to England.”

I knew she was trying to take the mick out of me – tease me, as it were – but the more I began to think about it, the more I liked the idea.  In a smaller country like Britain, maybe an unknown book could be discovered and become hugely popular instantly.  Kind of like the Beatles coming to America in reverse.

And from literary success I skipped straight into the movie adaptation.  I said, “Who do you think should play me in the Burning Embers movie?”

“You’ve been thinking a lot about this, haven’t you?”

“Just answer the question.”

“John Cusack.”

“No, the British version.”

“John Cusack,” she said.

“I was thinking Kenneth Branagh.”  I looked at her to see how she like the idea.

“Well, he does have thin lips like you.”

“Okay.”

“And he is very charming and good-looking.”

“Yeah, like me.”

“…Uh-huh.”

“Okay then.”

“But Kenneth Branagh isn’t really your type.  Too…dashing.”

“Oh, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.  Maybe Hugh Grant would be better.”

“What?  You don’t like Hugh Grant.  Every time we watch movies you tell me how he’s too, too, whatever it is.”

“Smarmy,” said Kathy.  “Some people would think it’s a compliment to have Hugh Grant play them.”

“Sweetie, there are two problems with what you just said.  First, you don’t think it would be a compliment to have Hugh Grant play anybody.”

“Oh, God, he is so smarmy.”  Kathy’s head rolled back so that it almost fell off her shoulders.

“And second, why would it be such a compliment to have a good-looking actor play me?  It ought to be the easiest job he has all year.  But no, you’re thinking it’s like when Charlize Theron played that serial killer in Monster.  You’re thinking, Hugh Grant might win an Oscar for playing me.”

I knew what Kathy was thinking.  Charlie, you are the only person I will ever meet who owns a copy of the soundtrack to Music and Lyrics.  That’s got Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore in it, and they’re both singing.

When she spoke, what she said was this: “Charlize Theron is too blonde.”

“She’s a great actress.”

“She’s a great blonde actress.”

“She could play you.”

“Please.  She might be able to play a serial killer, but she can’t play a redhead to save her life.  And she’s not British.  Anyway, back to you.  How about Colin Firth?”

“Who’s Colin Firth?”

“You know, he’s that actor – he’s British – who plays all these really nice guys.”

“Yeah, I think I’ve heard of him.  What’s he been in?”

“Oh I don’t know, all kinds of things.  His characters are all really nice.  Kind of like the father or the uncle.  You know, nice and British, but in a nice way.”

“So he’s nice,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Not a badass.”

“Uh…no.”

“Doesn’t sound right for me, then.  How about Ewan McGreggor?”

“I don’t like him.”

“He’s great.”

“No he’s not.  He just thinks he’s God’s gift to acting.”

“He played a junkie in Trainspotting.  He wasn’t God’s gift to acting in that.”

“I hated him in that too.”

“And he was young Obi-Wan in the new Star Wars movies.”

“Yeah, I know, and I want to just crumple all those movies into a ball with him in it and throw it in the garbage.”

“So you have no love in your heart for Ewan McGregor?  None?”

“None.  And by the way, that sounds like something Colin Firth would say.”

“Really?”

Kathy raised an eyebrow.  “Really.”

“Cause I was thinking Colin Firth would be the kind of guy to say, “SHOW ME WHERE A MAN MAY GO TO SLAY AN ORC WITH BARE HANDS, FOR MY LOINS ARE GIRDED WITH BITTER RAGE IN MUCH NEED OF HARSH EXPRESSION.” You know, kind of like kung fu Shakespeare.”

“Do you know anyone who talks like that?”

“Personally?  No.”

“And if you did, would he be named Colin?”

“You can’t just judge by the name.  Bruce Lee was named Bruce.  He could have sold life insurance with a name like that.”

“That would have been a very bad business for him,” said Kathy.

“Yeah, you’re supposed to wear a shirt to work.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“So we haven’t found the perfect actor to play Charlie,” I said.  “What about Kathy, hmm?”

“Yeah, what about me?”

“Well, who’s the greatest actress in Britain?”

“Cate Blanchett?”

“No.”

“Kate Winslett?”

“No, not her.”

“Who?”

“Judy Dench,” I said.

“She could play my mother.”

“She could play anyone’s mother.  She’s a gifted actress.”

“Sorry, Judy Dench won’t work.”

“What about Maggie Smith?”

“Not her either.”

“Helen Mirren?”  I framed a movie screen with my hands.  “Back in the big screen, in her greatest role since Prime Suspect.”

“Charlie, how old am I?”

“How should I know?  A lady never tells, right?  That’s what you always say.”

“That’s right.  But what I can say is that Judy Dench, Maggie Smith, and Helen Mirren are in a different generation from me, and even though I love them very much –”

“Yeah, they’re really great.”

“– even though I love them very much for all the work they’ve done over the years, it wouldn’t be good casting to have them play me.  At least not yet.”

“Sounds like maybe never.”

“Um, yeah,” said Kathy.

“Who else, then?”

“I was thinking Miranda Richardson.”

“Great!  She’s a redhead.”

“Yeah.  And she’s also very funny and talented.”

“Didn’t she kill her husband in Sleepy Hollow?  I’m not sure how funny that was.”

“The Headless Horseman killed her husband and she controlled the Horseman, so you could say she did it.”

“And didn’t she play a woman without a husband in Blackadder II?”

“She was Queen Elizabeth.  What did you expect?”

“You want to be played by the Virgin Queen?  Yeah, right.”

“Charlie!”

“All I’m saying is there aren’t a lot of husbands hanging around Miranda Richardson, and Burning Embers is about a marriage.  See the problem there?”

“No.”

“Well pick someone else.”

“Fine.  How about Emma Thompson?  She’s excellent.”

“Yes,” I said, “and blonde but not too blonde.”

“Whatever.”

“And I loved her in Nanny McPhee.  She just banged her stick on the floor and all her warts went away.  And she always wore black, like an English ninja.  Do you think we could get her?”

“Well,” said Kathy, “let me make a few phone calls.”

“Are you being sarcastic?”

“No.  I have her phone number on the refrigerator.”

“You are being sarcastic, aren’t you?”

“No, I went to tea with her and Renee Zellweger just last week.  We exchanged beauty tips.”

“Renee Zellweger?  Really?”

“She’s way too blonde.”

“Damn!”

“And I was just being sarcastic anyway.”

“I knew it!  I can always tell.”

“You read me like a book.”

“Thank – ”

“Oh!  I just remembered.  Colin Firth was the father in Nanny McPhee.”

“That’s Colin Firth?  Him?”

“Yes.  He’s really sweet.”

“He was crushed by his own children!”

“Because he was so nice.”

“If they were my kids there would have been a boot up their ass.”

“Indubitably.”

I looked at Kathy.  “That’s sarcasm, isn’t it?”

“Absolutely not.  So maybe Colin Firth isn’t a good idea.”

“Damn straight.  I could sop up runny egg with Colin Firth.”

“Fine.  If you don’t want to be played by Colin Firth that’s okay.  Who do you think should play you?”

My eyes fell.  “You would think it’s stupid.”

“Who?  Let me guess: Chuck Norris?”

I didn’t look up.  “You’re being sarcastic again, aren’t you?”

“No way.  Chuck Norris kicks ass.”

“That’s right.  But I wasn’t thinking Chuck Norris.  He’s not British.”

“Ah,” said Kathy.  “I forgot.”

“No, I was thinking John Cleese.”

“You like the older actors, don’t you?  At least John Cleese makes me laugh, like you.”

“And he was in Harry Potter, like Emma Thompson.”

“So was every other actor in Britain.  It’s kind of like a jobs program for actors over there.”

I said, “Yeah, I don’t know what they’re going to do over there when they’ve finished making Harry Potter.  A lot of standing around, probably.”

“Nah, they’ll go back to Masterpiece Theater and the Royal Shakespeare Company, that kind of thing,” Kathy said.

“Or kung fu movies.  I haven’t seen a British kung fu movie in a long time.”

Kathy moistened her upper lip with her lower lip.

“So,” I said, “John Cleese and Emma Thompson playing us?  Do you think it would work?”

“Better than Ewan McGregor and Judy Dench.”

“That could have worked too.  I don’t care what you say.”

Kathy patted my shoulder. “You better hurry up and mail those so you can get that movie made.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Before all your actors die of old age.”

“Yeah, right, thanks.”  I picked up the stack of envelopes to take them to the post office.  “Hey, Kathy?”

“What?”

“Who do you think should do my voice in the Burning Embers video game?”

“Morgan Freeman, definitely.”

I smiled.  “That’s what I was thinking too.”

About the Author

Charlie Close is the author of  Burning Embers and Other Stories of Marriage, Work, and Family, ISBN 978-1598588187, a collection of comic creative nonfiction.

He is also a writer of very short stories. His mainstream stories are published on Twitter at @CharlieClose, and his romance stories can be found at @apinchofpassion.

Visit Charlie’s blog at http://charlieclose.com.

Get a free copy of Burning Embers

Did you enjoy this story?  Burning Embers is a collection of stories like the one you just read.  I’m looking for people to write a review or a blog post about Burning Embers, or link to this blog, and I will send you a free copy of the book anywhere in the world.  (My marketing efforts are still not very focused.  I like readers everywhere.)   Contact me at charlie dot close at gmail to discuss details.

A very short story is best at showing us a moment in time and letting the reader fill in the rest.  One of the reasons it works is because, even though there isn’t much room to tell what happened, there is enough room to show how the characters feel.  A good vss can give an emotional charge like a photograph.  Emotion isn’t just a good thing for a story to have – as in, the whole point of writing it in the first place – it’s a useful technique for getting a big impact into a little space.

Let’s look at some vss that show characters at the moment of emotion.

No matter how long Sarah stared at the mirror, she could not tell how big her nose looked to Tommy.

One of the best ways to convey emotion is to make your characters want something.  It’s human nature for the reader to feel what the characters feel, and want what they want.

Jane tried not to bite her lip. “Henry.  And George. How good of you both to call on me this rainy afternoon.”

If Sarah wants her man, Jane wants not so many men.  And what do you suppose George and Henry want?

“Davey, no one’s gonna think you’re fat.  Now get your shirt off and jump in.”

Sometimes a story isn’t about what a character wants, but about what he fears.

He brought her to the swings.  If he couldn’t say it here, he could never say it at all.

And sometimes the fear isn’t of the thing, but of saying it out loud, like the story above and the two below.

The guitarist spoke a little softer.  “This song doesn’t need any drums.”

Melissa taped Michael Edwards’s senior picture deep inside her locker and shut the door before anyone could see.

The emotion can be simple, as in the next stories.

He bought a hat to go with his new riding lawnmower.

It would have been better if the day he was first issued a bullhorn was not also the day he fell in love with Stacie Stickler.

That bass!  Oooh that bass made her ankles and knees all twisty and turny, yah huh, yah huh.

Or it can be complex and contradictory.

Married him after all. Trying to love Sioux City.

He wore his old glasses on his first day of senior year.  He didn’t feel like people were ready to see him in his new ones.

He set down his rifle when he reached the buck.  His father and brother stood behind him.

In the last story, what is our hero feeling right now?  The exhilaration of the kill?  Compassion for the deer?  A desire to act in a way his father and brother would respect?  Probably all of them at once.  Emotions are often not easy to pin down.

And sometimes a story doesn’t just show an emotion in the present moment, but one anticipated in the future.

He packed away the ornaments and wrote a note to place in the last box: “This year you found the best tree ever.”

Stories by Charlie Close.

Other Articles in This Series

Introduction

Start in the Middle

Use Familiar Contexts

Small Choices Make a Big Difference

Don’t be Afraid of the Ordinary

Metaphor

Appeal to the Senses

The Implied Character

Surprise

Misunderstanding

About the Author

Charlie Close is a writer of very short stories. His mainstream stories are published on Twitter at @CharlieClose, and his romance stories can be found at @apinchofpassion. He is the author of Burning Embers and Other Stories of Marriage, Work, and Family, ISBN 978-1598588187. Visit Charlie’s blog at http://charlieclose.com.

Most of the stories we read are about the big things: big wars, big romances, big chases, visits from big creatures from very far away.  Yet we spend most of our lives in the ordinary way doing ordinary things.  The big events are few, and most of how we see ourselves and others comes to us from small moments that we think are too unimportant to notice.

These are just the kinds of moments we can find meaning in if we learn to pay attention to them.  Let’s look at some stories that show us the value of the everyday experiences.

New Year’s Day.  Jerry took his book to the laundry room and sat on a drier.

Did Jerry meet the love of his life, the new resident of apartment 2B?  Did he find a secret stash of money behind the detergent dispenser?  Probably not.  It’s more likely that all he did was turn a bleak day and a boring chore into a pleasant afternoon.  And what’s wrong with that?

He looked down at his knuckles.  Then he kissed them.  Good thing no one else saw that.

All of us do things we assume no one else would understand.  And all of us take ourselves more seriously than others do.

He reached past the candle to pat her hand.  “Love you.”  She smiled.  “Love you too.  Is there anything in my teeth?”

It’s not the big things that make two people into a couple, the declarations of love and candlelight dinners.  It’s the intimacy they share in the little things they do together.

Chris flinched when he saw, carved into the lid under his desk, “Chris ‘72″.

Is Chris more or less unique than he thought he was?  Maybe both.

He carried his camera all the way to Istanbul and took pictures of people eating.

What’s ordinary and what’s extraordinary is in the eye of the beholder.  It’s one thing to know that Turks eat too.  It’s something else to see it yourself for the first time.

His karate skills were not yet amazing enough to slice a cabbage in midair.

There aren’t many things more ordinary than a cabbage, and yet our hero might make something incredible from it if he just keeps practicing.

She pulled out a club.  “Use the seven iron,” he said.

It’s just a game of golf between a couple, and it’s just a single moment in the game – and it shows us all we need to see for us to know what they’re like together.

Uncle Charlie tried to explain the old days of hating the Russians.

Sometimes what used to be ordinary no longer is.  One thing, however, is still as normal as ever: trying to get the young to understand and appreciate the past.

It always gave Vera a smile to type his memos: LO:ve.

Joy is where you find it.  The trick is not so much to know where to look for it, but rather to see it where it already is.

Stories by Charlie Close.

Other Articles in This Series

Introduction

Start in the Middle

Use Familiar Contexts

Small Choices Make a Big Difference

Go for Emotion

Metaphor

Appeal to the Senses

The Implied Character

Surprise

Misunderstanding

About the Author

Charlie Close is a writer of very short stories. His mainstream stories are published on Twitter at @CharlieClose, and his romance stories can be found at @apinchofpassion. He is the author of Burning Embers and Other Stories of Marriage, Work, and Family, ISBN 978-1598588187. Visit Charlie’s blog at http://charlieclose.com.

All writing depends on the author to pay attention to word choice and phrasing, to make the writing clear and to make it sing.  This is all the more true with very short stories, where there are only ten or twenty words to work with.  If you don’t consider each word – and every punctuation mark and even every syllable – a good idea can come out as a flat story.  On the other hand, a well-chosen word resonates beyond the word itself.

Let’s look at some examples of where small choices create the effect of the story.

He played a note on the piano.  “I’m dedicating this B-flat to Brianna.  Every time you hear it, darling, I’m thinking of you.”

This story contains several important details.  The word “darling” tells us the speaker is an older man.  The piano and the reference to the key of B-flat suggest that he’s about to play jazz, standards, or maybe classical music: again, something older, even quaint.  Notice also how the first sentence refers to Brianna in the third person.  He is speaking to an audience, not only to Brianna.  The scene is a party or perhaps a concert.  The occasion is festive and intimate at the same time.

Joey took his new crash cymbal to the basement.  This was the best Christmas ever!

Punctuation choices are important too.  The exclamation point tells us what Joey is going to do with the crash cymbal in the basement and lets us infer the impression it will make on the people upstairs.

He opened the door to the garage and looked around for the noise.  At first he didn’t see the deer’s eyes.

Another writer might have said “deer eyes” instead of “the deer’s eyes”.  The difference is subtle but important.  “Deer eyes” means some deer, an abstraction.  “The deer’s eyes” means this deer, sharing this moment with this man.

Todd hung his Metallica poster in the middle of the wall.  That’s what you can do when it’s your apartment.

If the author had written “You can do that when it’s your apartment”, it would have contained the same textual meaning: the poster is now on the wall.  But the wording “That’s what you can do” turns the act of hanging the poster into a declaration.   And the choice of what he’s hanging (a Metallica poster, not a flower arrangement, which would have been very nice too, I must say) and where he’s hanging it (in his apartment, not someone else’s home, not a house) reinforces the scene of early adult independence.

Why wouldn’t anyone teach her how to twirl a baton?

The word “anyone” instead of a particular person heightens our sense of her frustration.  It helps us feel what it’s like to be a small girl with big ideas in a world of unfeeling grownups.

“What do you mean this shirt looks autumnal on me?”

Here a single syllable – “tum” – gives the story its meaning, both from the full vowel sound and its resonance with the word “tummy”.

Mom told Dad, don’t buy a pogo stick for Christmas.  Wait until summer, she said.  But Dad wouldn’t listen, and now he’s yelling at me.

The trick in this story isn’t any one word.  It’s in the repeated rhythm of each sentence, reflecting the bouncing pogo stick.

She said, “Sometimes, I put my hand up first, when I don’t know, because I’m sure I will know, when Ms. Bennet calls on me.”

This story also uses rhythm, similar to “pogo stick”.  The girl’s speech is chopped into short breathless phrases, which allows us to intuit something of the girl’s personality.  Notice also how she says “when” Ms. Bennet calls on her, not “if”.

Sam remembered the day his mother said he could make the baloney sandwiches.  He had used too much mustard, but she said he could try again.

Do you see the key word in this story?  It’s the “the” before “baloney”.  Without the “the”, they are any baloney sandwiches and it doesn’t matter that Sam used too much mustard.  With the “the” left in, they are part of a larger context.  Maybe they’re for a party and his mother wants to impress her guests.  Or maybe they have baloney sandwiches every Saturday afternoon.  Either way, there are expectations attached to the sandwiches and it matters to Sam that he didn’t meet them.   And this makes his mother’s compassion all the more powerful for him.

Note also the word “remembered”.  He carries this moment with him even now.

Stories by Charlie Close.

Other Articles in This Series

Introduction

Start in the Middle

Use Familiar Contexts

Don’t be Afraid of the Ordinary

Go for Emotion

Metaphor

Appeal to the Senses

The Implied Character

Surprise

About the Author

Charlie Close is a writer of very short stories. His mainstream stories are published on Twitter at @CharlieClose, and his romance stories can be found at @apinchofpassion. He is the author of Burning Embers and Other Stories of Marriage, Work, and Family, ISBN 978-1598588187. Visit Charlie’s blog at http://charlieclose.com

The space allowed in a vss, just two or three sentences, is too small to describe everything to the reader: who the characters are, their history, the people they know, the things they care about.  And yet these help explain the characters and give meaning to the story.  How is it possible to tell a story when so much has to be left out?

Even though every story is different, we as people are mostly the same.  Our actions spring from common experiences and motivations – or contexts.  If a character appears in a familiar context, the reader can fill in details that don’t appear in the story.

Let’s look at some examples stories and the contexts they use.  Notice how the stories communicate more than is literally written in the text.

Family

By her third day gone, Doug had to lie sideways in the bed to fall asleep.

This vss doesn’t say it’s about a marriage.  It doesn’t have to, and anyone who has experienced the absence of a husband or wife will know how Doug feels.

She knew better than to ask her mother if she looked good in this black lipstick.

We can guess how old “she” is and infer how she sees herself, how she sees her mother, and how her mother sees her.  We’ve all been there.

His sister said, “What makes you think I know how to tie a tie?”

The family context here does all the work.  The text says the characters are siblings.  The way the sister speaks to the brother hints at their ages and how they interact with each other.  Now that we know these things, we can guess the situation behind the brother’s request and the complicated and unstated emotions they are both feeling.

Dating

She wore her white dress for him.  He ordered the buffalo wings.

The phrase “for him” tells us they are dating.  The story depends on their (and our) expectations of what it means to be a couple.

To their embarrassment, Ed and Tricia’s dogs did not believe in waiting until the third date.

The behavior of the dogs tells us less about themselves than Ed and Tricia.  How well do they know each other, and how far along is their relationship?  What are they like as people?

School

They were backstage when Brandon showed how he could turn a cummerbund into a bra.

There is only one stage in life when Brandon could pull off his awesome trick.  We know who’s with him and where their parents are.  And we know where the person who is supposed to be watching them is not.

When the dance was over Janice stood and asked the other girls if she could help clean up.

Janice was sitting instead of dancing.  What does this suggest about her relationship with the other girls?  How do you know?  The words “girls” and “dance” imply a school scene, helping us to interpret the story.

Music

Rachmaninov was the only sound left in the building.  Leah continued to practice.

What do we know about Leah from her relationship to her music?  It is helpful, although not necessary, to know that Rachmaninov’s music is notoriously difficult to learn.

Work

Michael saw his old college friends often.  Amber, for one, worked in a nearby building and bought a latte from him every morning.

This uses both the context of college and of work.  College holds friends together, and the working world pulls them apart.  The story is built on the tension between the two contexts.

Holidays

He poured gravy over everything on his plate.  He said, who’d have thought so many women could fit in one kitchen.

We can infer (how?) that this is a Thanksgiving dinner.  Notice how the story and the context create a feedback loop.  The facts in the story suggest a context, and the context helps us guess the relationship of the women to each other and to the man.

The Seasons

Cindy stored the flowerpots in a corner of the garage where she could see them throughout the winter.

This story relies on our feelings about two seasons: the drudgery of winter and the anticipation of spring.  We understand the cycle of the seasons, and so we learn something about Cindy from how she copes with it.

These are just a few examples of stories that rely on familiar contexts, and with practice you can find many others.  Don’t be afraid to use them as a writer.  They can help you create a connection with the reader based on a shared understanding of the world.

Stories by Charlie Close.

Other Articles in This Series

Introduction

Start in the Middle

Small Choices Make a Big Difference

Don’t be Afraid of the Ordinary

Go for Emotion

Metaphor

Appeal to the Senses

The Implied Character

Surprise

Misunderstanding

About the Author

Charlie Close is a writer of very short stories. His mainstream stories are published on Twitter at @CharlieClose, and his romance stories can be found at @apinchofpassion. He is the author of Burning Embers and Other Stories of Marriage, Work, and Family, ISBN 978-1598588187. Visit Charlie’s blog at http://charlieclose.com.