A story in a single word

Nicknames can be a story in a single word - sometimes bestowed by friends, family, or colleagues, and sometimes self-applied in an effort to convey a certain image. Think, for example, of an episode of Big Bang Theory called The Friendship Contraction - Wolowitz tries to inveigle the other astronauts into choosing "Rocket Man" but gets stuck with "Fruit Loops"

At a writer's seminar recently a young woman from the Lower Mountains mentioned recent conflict between groups of young people in the town square.  She referred to them using a term the rest of us had not previously encountered.  It sounded like "Eshays" and prompted a round of puzzled requests for repetition and explanation.

When we learned that it was a form of "gang" terminology that some of the youngsters were appropriating from American "gangsta" movies, and that it had some sort of Spanish etymology, an online search (oh, the wonders of modern technology!) soon filled in the gaps in our knowledge.

It derives from the Spanish phoneme "esse" that represents the letter "S" and is related to the term Surenos, in turn derived from Southern Californian crime gangs with a relationship to Mexican "Mafia" groups involved in drug and weapons trade in and out of the USofA.

"Eshays" has also come to be simply a term for a young man, thus a Spanish version of "Man" "Bro" or "Dude"

Yet, for the people who have taken to using it about themselves it is meant to convey to the wider world an image, an impression, a story about who they are, and how they should be treated or regarded.

Nicknames can be a remarkably concise way of describing a person, when the listeners share the cultural heritage of the narrator.  Without such sharing, the possibilities for confusion are immense - consider the practice, in Australia, in years gone by, of calling redheads "blue" or "bluey" and black-haired men "snow" or "snowy"

Some are in-jokes, reminding listeners who are in the know of some particular moment in the history of the recipient and his/her friends.  In years gone by I had a large collection of nicknames that were bestowed upon me by various friends and colleagues.  Someone asked me if I found the plethora of alternative names annoying or confusing - in fact, it helped me work out which face in the crowd was calling for my attention.  Nicknames can add to the reader's grasp of the type and history of a character, if chosen wisely.

What about pet names?  The consensus seems to be that pet names are used by only one person, who is in a relationship - familial or romantic - with the character, so tagging a character with one during dialogue can be a succinct way of indicating the relationship to the reader.  An article in the Scientific American goes into some detail on the subject.

How often should we add nicknames and pet names to the characters in a story?  Changes of name can confuse the reader, so it needs to be done well.  My cultural millieu is middle class Australian, post-World War II, so nicknames and informallity in conversations are a crucial part of social interactions - is it thus in other cultures? How do you go about choosing names for your characters?  Do you choose them before the story begins rolling along?  Do you find yourself wanting to change them later, as their personality develops over the course of the writing?

I have read of authors who have gone to enormous trouble to attach the "right" name to primary characters, hoping to infuse extra layers of meaning into the story.  I have encountered novels where that effort has paid off.  For my part, I have tended to randomly reach into the well of memory and pluck out a few names, holding each up against the character as so far planned, and discarding each until I find the one that seems to fit.  It is a haphazard approach and has sometimes  led to my having to carefully go through a draft, swapping out the initial moniker for something that fits better with the persona that has grown during the work.

Does it really matter?  In real life we are named by hopeful (or confused) parents long before any inkling of our character could possibly be detected by them. Would it be more realistic if authors adopted the same policy?

I only turned away for a moment.......

I only turned away for a moment.......  was a prompt offered at a recent writers group meeting.  As usual, it evoked quite different responses from the individuals present.  You can see another one here - Musings from the Mountains

I only turned away for a moment, to check that all the guests were happy, their glasses full, and that the buffet held no empty trays.  Even as I turned back to answer Evelyn's latest witty remark with a light hearted bon mot of my own, I felt the ripples of silence race across the function room.

Evelyn's face was before me, but no longer the centre point of my vision.  Evelyn's waiting smile faltered and her gaze flickered from side to side as she began to register the change in the conversational tone.  The mood had gone from exuberant to expectant in the blink of an eye.

I tried to smooth my own expression but it was too late.  She had noticed that my own focus was no longer on her gorgeous face, but had shifted onto a line that passed just over her left shoulder.  For a second or two she looked annoyed, then a brief look of confusion preceded one of open-mouthed shock as her eyes focused on the mirror behind me, and she saw what I had been staring at.

Genevieve D'Amoretto, my famously missing, presumed-dead-in-a-boating-explosion fiancé Genevieve, was standing just within the main arch.  Her eyes locked onto mine.  She smiled, or, at least, the left side of her face smiled – I could not tell what the right side was doing behind the bejewelled mask that concealed it.  The gems in her green evening gown highlighted the flawless skin on her left shoulder as well as the burn scars on her right.

Genevieve strode at me through the crowd like a shark through herring as suited men spread out along the walls to either side of the entry arch.  Four such men flanked her father, Armand D'Amoretto, as he prowled towards me in Genevieve's wake.  He was not smiling, and I knew that Genevieve's version of that fateful night had not matched the woeful tale of loss I had offered the police and media after I'd been pulled from a sea full of charred, floating wreckage.  I wondered if I would live long enough to find out how she had survived.

Stories and the tribes that listen to them

On the NeuroLogica Blog I encountered a discussion titled "Tribal Epistemology" - by Steven Novella - and was immediately fascinated.  The author describes the evolution of his studies into the willingness of people to believe in pseudoscience; from his initial hypothesis that scientific illiteracy was the cause, through the idea that a lack of critical thinking skills was to blame, to his current position - that narrative or tribal thinking is to blame.

Steven's post is worth reading, from a writer's point of view - though it is not an optimistic reading of the current world situation as seen by a scientist with real concerns about the direction we are being taken by the various forms of illiteracy and poor thinking skills that have infested public life.

As someone trained in the scientific method, with its emphasis on identifying and confirming facts, no matter how much those facts might conflict with ones own current understanding or personally held beliefs, it must be hard to come to grips with the idea that humans will so willingly set aside facts that conflict with their own pre-existing beliefs.

Authors, poets, playwrights, and storytellers have long known this truth about humans, though.  A great story, well told, can change belief in the audience. But authors beware if, in the hope of inflicting your own beliefs on others, you present your reader with a thinly disguised moral or political lecture. An audience seeking entertainment will almost certainly see through a thin plot and poor characterisation to the moralising within, and is unlikely to put up with it.

Story tellers will recognise that the reader desires a story that they can believe, even as they understand that the story is made up.  Fiction writers take the reality they have experienced and observed and rework it - taking what can be a chaotic and apparently unconnected collection of facts and weaving the material into a tale with continuity, meaning, and value for the reader.  Is this not what we have been doing with the world around us for so many millennia - trying to reduce a vast mass of incoming data to a manageable and meaningful narrative?

Of course, the snake-oil salesman and the charlatans have long known how to spin a tale the audience is willing to believe - without such a skill they would be broke, and would be run out of town in very short order.  And there, as in so many other areas of human expertise, is the trap.  Just as our ability to manage and control sharp edges, fire, chemical reactions, and so many other things, has given us wealth and comfort and safety, so have those same skills brought us pain, misery, and death.

Our skill with, and love of, narrative is as much of a two-edged sword as any box of matches or sharp knife can be. Stories can give us a sense of right and wrong, a feeling of community with our fellow humans, and a body of lore that will help us and our children to live well in the world - or they can twist our understanding of reality in ways that can ruin that same world.

Why do people fall for the wrong stories?  I wonder if it is because we have, as a species, a natural inclination to do enough to get comfortable, but not too much more?  If we have collected enough stories to make a comfortable narrative for ourselves, and have found a comfortable tribe to be with - one whose members share that same narrative - why make ourselves uncomfortable by looking too closely into stories that might invalidate that narrative?

Or is it simply because every society has its own version of the warning "curiosity killed the cat"?

We know from observation that babies and small children are determined in their curiosity.

Everything is interesting to babies and toddlers.  Before they can talk or walk, and often for a long time after they can, everything is picked up and examined. Each new object is tested with every means at their disposal, including biting, pulling, and tossing.  Why does that curiosity fade?  Is it, as some people suggest, that adults and the education system somehow crush it through the imposition of uniformity and regulation?  Could it be that most humans reach a point where the facts they have collected are "good enough" to form a world view?  That once a satisfactory narrative has been composed, the natural inclination for many is to "leave well enough alone"?

It is possible - how often do we see people who have been resistant to the "facts" of others suddenly shaken out of their old world view by some personal encounter with disaster?  We see their horror as a comfortable old narrative is suddenly shattered by events, and beliefs held as certain collide with unexpected reality.

Is that not the goal of the song writer, the poet, and the author - to string together words that jolt people with new facts and feelings, that shake them from comfort into confusion and excitement, to open eyes and ears to possibilities  that are present but have been ignored? 

Where does it Come From?

We draw material for our stories from the world, and the lives we see and hear around us - both the ones that are physically close to us, and those brought close by that two-edged sword that is modern technology.

Old farts such as myself can be fond of reminding younger people that "the human race got by for thousands of years without mobile phones, televisions, and the internet" but we can find ourselves just as thoroughly reliant on the constant, flickering flow of information and opinion as any of the generations younger than us.

While that flow of story can provide us with prompts, information, and inspiration for our own creative work, it can also overwhelm us - especially when that flow seems to be a tsunami of tragedy, and ominous behaviour and utterances from those who claim to be leading us to a better future.

It can be hard to write something in an upbeat tone when the media is full of the droning mendacity of politicians who are busily doing nothing while trying still to look competent, effective, and worthy of re-election.  It can be even harder when the various media are full of the posturing of nuclear armed bully boys.  Hope and optimism can be difficult things to find on days like that.

It is enough to send you back for another look at On The Beach, or The Earth Abides.  There is plenty of dystopian and apocalyptic literature around, full of action and drama featuring heroism or technological miracles that ultimately lead to some form of salvation and renewal for the human race.  These two old novels, however, are more likely to be true to life - a brief, dramatic disaster caused by human agency, followed by a slow and painful decline for the survivors.  At least George R. Stewart allowed nature to survive - indeed, to thrive - as humanity faded from the scene, and he did allow a glimmer of hope for homo sapiens towards the end of the novel.

Perhaps I need to throw myself back into the escapist fantasy of my youth, by authors like Asimov, Tolkien, Ransome, and Heinlein.  Or, maybe I should be re-reading my Scouting for Boys before heading out into the backyard to practice my survival skills.

Out there, I will be among the trees and gardens, surrounded by the sounds of running water, windblown leaves, and birds of all sorts - and the Scout's guide book won't be so necessary after all.  I will be instantly reminded of the good in the world.  It must be time to turn off the news and listen to life again, for whenever I do so, I find life not only persisting, but flourishing. In the recent winter warmth my ear was pulled along by a familiar buzz until it brought me to the rosemary bushes by the letter box - where I found lots of these little folk, out in numbers quite unexpected for a winter's day.

I wonder where their hive is - rosemary honey would surely be wonderful, fresh from the comb.  Incidentally, if you are a drinker of green tea, it is worth brewing a pot with a pinch of rosemary leaves, fresh from the bush - fresh plucked thyme is also a lovely addition.

A Moment of Triumph

At a meeting of our writer's group someone suggested as a prompt to work from the phrase "A moment of triumph"  This is what that drew from my pen that afternoon...

Lift, reach, hack, and scrape.

Lift, reach, hack, and scrape.

Lift, reach, hack, and scrape.

Mick had settled into the same easy rhythm as his team mates, Sean and Garry.  Over the past hour or so, they had cut a narrow trail of bare earth through the thick leaf litter, angling down from the landing pad on the ridge top, weaving between trees and boulders, to flatter ground.

A hundred metres back up the trail, another team in white overalls scraped and clattered with their rake-hoes, dragging leaves, sticks and pebbles further from the reach of the approaching fire.  Fifty metres further uphill, another trio were working with chainsaws and hoes, trimming branches and saplings away from a winding avenue of bare rock and sand, in preparation for the application of the drip-torch.

Behind the trees on the ridge top, helicopter turbines began to scream their way to full power.  The thrumming of the rotors vibrated in the bones of the workers as the machine powered away from the landing pad, having left another crew safely on the ground.

Mick wondered if the pad was properly cleared yet.  Having to unload crew and fire-fighting gear onto a narrow ledge from a helicopter that was rocking under power, while the machine's  front skids were just balancing on the rocky edge of the ridge had been a new experience for him. It was better than having to come down ropes through the trees, but it would be nice to have a full sized landing pad to leave from.

He looked up to watch it thunder overhead, and saw that  there was more white smoke drifting over from the west than there had been earlier in the afternoon.

"Should be nearly at that old logging track," Sean said, "it'll be easier going then."

"Hope so, that fire's getting close" Garry replied, still scraping and digging.

"Another crew just came in, must be their turn to break trail," Mick replied, stopping work to take a big swig from a water bottle.

Lift, reach, hack, and scrape. The three men went back to work.  Fifteen minutes later, more white overalls appeared from between the trees.  Sean groaned and swore, and the other two looked up.

"I wondered when that bastard'd get here" he said.  Leading the new arrivals was the stout figure of the Senior Field Officer, Tolley.  His white overalls were half hidden by army surplus webbing, spare water bottles, radios, batteries, and, probably, three days supplies of food for a normal person.

"Can't leave you lot unsupervised for a minute, can I?" the SFO snarled, "Can't you do anything properly?  This break needs to be twice as wide if it's going to be any use."

"It will be when the follow-up crews come through," Garry muttered.  Tolley ignored him as he stepped over and snatched the McLeod tool from Mick's hands.  Mick jumped back a few feet – experience had taught him never to be close to Tolley when he had any sort of tool in his hands.  Sean and Garry followed suit, while the two who had come down the trail with the SFO backed away up hill a bit.

Tolley started taking savage swings, sending sand, pebbles, leaves and twigs flying everywhere.  With a dozen violent strokes, he had doubled the width of a short section of the fire break.  With a flourish, and a cry of "this is how it's done" he leapt onto the newly bared earth and began striking at the leaf-litter on the fire-wards side of the track, dragging tangles of it across to the lee side.

"See?" he said, as he turned and began tearing at the next section of the break.  Moments later, he was airborne, screaming.  The rake-hoe flew between Mick and Sean, as Tolley began a wild dance back along the track.  As he leapt, he tore at the buckles of the webbing, and then at the press-studs of his overalls, while the others watched in wonder.

Various items of equipment flew off in different directions, followed by two boots, and finally, the overalls, as Tolley continued to yell and slap at his body and legs.

Mick leaned carefully forward and surveyed the newly cleared ground that Tolley had fled from.  On it, heads high, and pincers wide, a tribe of very large, black bull-ants – meaner and deadlier by far than their better known red cousins – milled around, searching for the offender who had just torn the roof off their cosy nest.

Ten yards up the hill, Tolley, clad now in socks and white undies, was bent over, checking each leg, nook, and cranny, while at the same time keeping a watchful eye on the ground around him.  Sean, often the preferred victim for Tolley's work-place tyrannies, stopped laughing and straightened up.  Putting on a serious, almost concerned face, he called to their boss.

"Hey mate, do you know if you're allergic to insect bites? Just asking, you know, 'cause a couple of years ago, we had to carry a bloke off the fire-ground after some insect bit him. He started to swell up and then he passed out."  Tolley's eyes widened in horror.

"Dunno?" said Sean, " Well then, you'd better start marching, cause it's three hundred yards back to the helicopter, and you're too bloody big for us to carry up that ridge."  Sean grinned as his nemesis grabbed the overalls, boots, and other gear that was being handed to him and took off back towards the top of the ridge.  Peace had returned to the fire-ground.