Writing is like flying a plane.  Your cockpit is filled with gauges and switches and buttons and knobs.  Each control has its own label: word choices, verisimilitude, point of view, characterization, conflict, tension, foreshadowing, and so forth.  Smack dab in front of you is a yoke labeled “Magic Joystick.”  Underneath, in smaller print, it says “(Sequels)”.  Okay, I’ve beat this metaphor to death, but you get my point.  This is important stuff.

A Review of Scenes/Sequels

(Skip to next section for the good stuff.)

Dwight Swain in Techniques of the Selling Writer, defines two scene modes: a Scene and a Sequel.

A Scene has three parts:

1. Goal – Character must have a goal.
2. Conflict – There is opposition reaching his goal.
3. Disaster – The character fails to achieve his goal. Or achieving it, is worse off than he was before.

A Scene is followed by a Sequel:

1. Reaction – The character reacts to the disaster.
2. Dilemma – The character is forced to choose between unsatisfying alternatives.
3. Decision – The character makes her choice, which becomes the next Scene’s goal.

So it goes, Scene followed by Sequel followed by Scene throughout your book.

Randy Ingermanson, in Writing Fiction for Dummies, renames these to Proactive Scene and Reactive Scene, but the structure is the same:

• Proactive Scene: Goal, Conflict, Setback
• Reactive Scene: Reaction, Dilemma, Decision

Ingermanson’s terms are better. Less confusion.

Jim Butcher, on his blog, structures the Proactive Scenes the same as Ingermanson and Swain, but Reactive Scenes (Sequels) are a bit different:

Sequels:

1. Emotional Reaction – Here the character reacts to the setback.  He curses and pounds his fists, reacting with instinct and emotion.
2. Review, Logic, & Reason – The brain kicks in.  The character examines her options.
3. Anticipation – The character imagines what’s next.
4. Choice – The decision is reached.  The character now has a new goal for the next Proactive scene.

I’ve adopted Butcher’s model for my own use. So now we have:

• Proactive Scene – Goal/Conflict/Setback
• Reactive Scene – Emotion/Reason/Anticipation/Choice

Where’s the magic of Reactive Scenes?  We’re getting to it.

Genre Bias in Reactive Scenes

(Attribution notice: The idea of different ratios for different genres comes from Jim Butcher’s blog.)

Different genres place different emphasis on each section of the Reactive Scene.  These breakdowns are generalities. A particular book will have its own, unique flavor based on the attention paid to each part of the Reactive Scene.

• Mysteries – Reason is king.  The reader must clearly see the character’s logic.
• Romance – No brainer here.  Heavy on Emotion.  Crank up Anticipation a bit.  Romances are dripping with Reactive Scenes.
• Action – Zip through everything to get to the Choice, which gets you to the next Proactive scene.
• Science Fiction – Like mysteries, Reason is important.
• Thrillers – Depends on the flavor.  Emotion and Anticipation can be important, but many Thrillers are like Action stories and skip Reactive Scenes to maintain a breakneck pace.
• Horror – Heavy on Anticipation. Don’t forget to turn up Emotion after horrific Proactive Scenes.
• Fantasy – This genre runs the gamut.  Clear reasoning is important, but any other aspect may be weighted heavier depending on the story.

Although these are generalities, they can be used to analyze stories.  When someone says “I don’t usually like Science Fiction, but this character really has a lot of heart,” what they’re saying is the author developed the character’s Emotion in their Reactive Scenes.  Interesting, huh?

Tweaking The Magic Joystick

What happens when you fiddle around with Emotion in a Reactive Scene?  It’s a direct throttle on the character’s emotion.  You can have a Joe Friday (“Just the facts, Ma’am”) character with little to no emotion.  You can create a needy, flighty character by having him fall apart during Emotion.  An angst filled character will have her anxiety and insecurity explored.

There’s so much you can do with this.  If a beta reader says your character is too cold, then seek out or add Emotion in the character’s Reactive scenes.  If your beta reader tells you it’s hard to follow a character’s motivation, then look at the Reactive Scene’s Reason sections and make sure the character’s reasoning is logical.

Order is important.  You can’t have a character anticipate the future without first thinking out the possibilities.  You can’t have him work through different possible actions and then get emotional about what just happened (well, you can but then he must circle back to Emotion and hit Reason again).  Any of the Emotion, Reason, Anticipation, Choice steps can be downplayed or skipped, but get them in the wrong order and your story will be muddled and confusing.

In the Reactive Scene you have four knobs you can crank from 0 to 10.  The combination of these four settings creates something unique.

Anticipation is a fun setting.  It’s another way to show a character thinking, but it also gets the reader thinking about the future.  What’s going to happen next?  From the sweet possibility of being in a new lover’s arms to the gruesome realization a great white shark may attack, Anticipation can make your reader eager to get to the next action (Proactive Scene).

Choice is another setting you can manipulate.  Indecisive characters have trouble in this area and spend far too long making the Choice.  You can also keep the choice hidden, making the reader wonder what the character’s going to do next.

The single unifying element in a Proactive Scene is time.  The reader lives the Goal, Conflict, and Setback through time with the character.  Topic is the glue in Reactive Scenes.  The topic is the Setback from the previous Proactive Scene.  You can compress time in Reactive Scenes, such as having a widow mourn her loss for a entire month in a single paragraph.

Reactive Scenes do slow things down.  Whether it’s wallowing in Emotion or becoming lost in Reason’s cerebral jungle, they stop the action.  It’s not a bad thing–it’s just the nature of Reactive Scenes.  Proactive Scenes are the accelerator and Reactive Scenes are the brakes.  You need both to drive.  If you’re racing across the country in a mad dash to get to the other side, you’re going to hit brake far less than the accelerator.  The ride can be fun and exciting, but it’ll have the emotional impact of a rollercoaster ride.  If you take your time driving, see the sights, you’ll brake more often and your story and characters will have “heart.”  Just don’t stay on the brake too much or your story will be as exciting as a lump of tofu.

Until next month.  Keep writing.

***

Holly ran faster than Joss. After three blocks she stopped to wait for him.

He caught up, bent over, and put hands on knees while panting. “I think we’re safe now.”

“Yeah,” she said. “But this is still weird. How is it possible you aren’t hurt?”

Joss straightened back up, still breathing hard. “Like I said, the ladder must have slowed down at the end.”

“Okay, but why don’t you remember what happened. That doesn’t make sense.” She walked down the sidewalk.

He followed her. “I don’t know.  Everything’s just blank.”

“The ladder’s demolished.  How did you end up without even a scratch?”

“I have no clue.  And I feel like a vandal breaking the ladder.”

“You didn’t mean to destroy it.”

“Hey, Holly. Why don’t we put this whole ‘facing your fears’ thing on hold for a while?”

“Why? You survived didn’t you?”

He glared at her and then kicked a small rock down the sidewalk.”

“We can take a break if you want,” she said. “It was my turn next anyway. You know, fear-of-clowns?”

“You go next and then we take a break,” he said.

Holly walked closer to Joss. “Don’t look now,” she whispered, “but there’s been a squirrel following us for the last couple of blocks.”

Joss turned around.

Holly smacked him in the arm. “I said don’t look.”

“It’s not a squirrel,” Joss said. “It’s a ferret.”

Half a block behind them the ferret stood on its hind feet, watched them for a few moments, and bounded off into somebody’s yard.

***

Avery fiddled with the buttons on his chair and a life-size hologram of Joss appeared above the table.

From a pocket inside his robe Avery retrieved a pointer and pressed the end to extend it. He pointed at the hologram. “This is Joss Thistle. I will be approaching him to offer an apprenticeship within our order.”

“Why would we care about your recruitment policies?” Germaine asked.

“Please bear with me and the reason will become evident,” Avery said. “Joss first came to our attention eleven years ago, two days after his birth.  His nanro threshold rating was 9.4.”

Several people at the table gasped.

“Impossible,” Germaine said. “Not even Giavanni had such a high threshold.”

“Exactly,” Avery said. “That is why we decided to let him develop naturally. We placed a watcher with him to monitor his activities.”

One of the people standing against the wall was a short bald man with thick glasses and furry eyebrows.  When Avery mentioned ‘watcher’ this man smiled, looking around, trying to see who noticed him.

Avery nodded at the grinning man and continued. “Now, here’s a car accident when Joss was a infant.”

Joss’s image changed to a snowy hillside and zoomed in on a sharp curve in the road at the top. A small red car came around the corner, flew off the road and sailed through the air. Avery paused the scene and pointed at a baby fastened in a carrier in the car’s back seat.

“Notice Joss, as a baby, is visible in the back.”

Avery pressed a button, unpausing the holographic scene. The car continued through the air, landed on its tires, slid forward a dozen feet before flipping up and over and skidding, upside-down, to a stop. Once again Avery paused the scene. This time he pointed off to one side of the car. A baby in its car seat rested on a tree stump.

“Now Joss is safe and secure on a stump.”

Everyone in the room, those standing against the wall and those seated at the table, stared at the image of the smiling baby with thick black hair. Nobody spoke for a long minute.

Finally the African woman broke the silence. “Where did you get this video?”

“The watcher assigned to Joss recorded it,” Avery said.

“Impossible,” the Asian woman said. “Spontaneous teleportation? I do not believe this.”

“It’s true,” Avery said. He sat back down.

“I cannot believe it,” she said. “We have worked on teleportation for years with no success.”

“I know,” Avery said. “Even more amazing is that this is instinctual, not taught, performed by an infant.”

“There has to be another explanation,” Germaine said.

“The car windows, although broken, remained intact,” Avery said. “The only two explanations are teleportation, or he traveled through solid matter, both theoretically possible.”

The head of the European Chapter, a tall skinny man spoke with a velvety voice. “Could this boy be the one prophesied?  I’m not saying I believe he is.  I’m just tossing the idea out for discussion.”

Nobody around the table showed any emotion. They looked at each other, as if measuring how much weight this topic should receive.

Except for Germaine. “What a bunch of religious hooey. I don’t pay attention to any antiquated–”

“Regardless,” Avery said, cutting Germaine off. “I have a feeling Joss Thistle is very important.”

“I think,” Germaine said. “With Vanderhoak and the missing agents, it may not be the best time to bring this boy into our fold and begin training.”

“I agree one hundred percent,” Avery said. “Which is why I’ve decided to train Joss remotely. We’ll keep him apart from our group for now.  I’m approaching him, personally, tonight.”

***

« Read Part 3 | Table of Contents

Check back in a few days for Part 5.

***

Avery Fain sat on a bench in Trundle Park. The bench sat against a group of bushes, just off the path that joggers, bicyclers, dog walkers and others frequented. As usual Avery wore a brown hooded robe. His trimmed-short-and-neat beard appeared incongruent against the backdrop of his wild, Einstein-like, white hair.

He held a newspaper open, pretending to read, while watching a man jogging. The jogger nodded at Avery as he passed.

“Morning,” Avery said, rising from the bench. A woman with a small black dog on a leash rounded the corner.

Kneeling, Avery pretended to tie his shoe.

The dog walker stopped short and stared at Avery.

Accustomed to odd looks from strangers, Avery knew just what to do. He stood, bowed to the dog walker, and touched his robe. “I’m an ordinary monk. Nothing to worry about.”

“Oh,” the dog walker said, visibly relieved.

Another jogger appeared just as Avery started to step off the path.

Not another one. He squatted and fake-tied his shoe again.

The jogger passed without a glance toward Avery.

After a quick look up and down the path, Avery ducked behind the bushes and walked toward a large oak tree. He stopped under a low branch, reached up and pushed a small knothole on the branch. A soft whirring noise came from the tree. He went to the tree’s other side and reached out to touch the massive trunk.

His fingers sank into the tree trunk, disappearing from view.

He looked around once more and then stepped through the hidden door into the tree.

The walls inside the tree were smooth and glasslike except for the doorway–it shimmered green, like an algae-filled fishbowl. Avery pressed a red button on the wall.  The entrance became opaque, darkness engulfed Avery, and the floor descended.

After several moments the descent stopped and the entrance appeared again, but this time the opening was clear, not translucent green. Avery stepped out of the strange elevator and walked quickly down the underground corridor.

Rock walls, polished to a shine, extended up ten feet to the ceiling, which contained recessed lights every few feet.  The corridor merged into a larger corridor, an immense cavern, as long as a football field, with several dozen doors along one side and large double-doors at the end.

A beep sounded from inside Avery’s robe. He stopped and pulled out his pocket watch. He grimaced and returned the watch to his pocket.

He pulled his hood over his head and held it in place with one hand under his chin. He squinted, focusing on the double-doors at the end of the great corridor.  Then, without moving his feet, he travelled to the double-doors.  A spectator would have seen a brown blur and maybe felt a rush of wind as Avery covered the three hundred yards in less than a second.

He exhaled and pulled his hood back down. With a wave of his hand the double-doors opened wide.

Avery stepped through the doors, smiling.

* * *

The doors automatically closed behind Avery. The room contained a large oak table with five people seated around it. They were engaged in a silent, but animated discussion. Around the room’s perimeter a dozen more people stood with their backs to the wall.

“Sorry I’m late,” Avery said to the people at the table.

The others didn’t respond.  They continued waving their hands and talking to each other, without sound.

Avery raised an eyebrow to a woman standing against the wall next to him. “Kate?”

She shrugged. “They were driving me crazy so I muted them.”

“Ah,” Avery said. He sat at the table and pushed a button on his chair’s arm. Instantly the muted voices could be heard.

“Ahem. Sorry I’m late.”

As one, all heads turned to him, several showed open hostility.

“Let’s begin,” Avery said.

A blond man to Avery’s right spoke with a thick Australian accent. “We weren’t sure when you’d be joining us, mate, so we’ve begun discussing the disappearances.” The blond man’s name was Germaine. He pressed a button on his chair and a large three dimensional world map appeared above the table.

“Notice the map’s red areas,” Germaine said. “These show locations where agents have disappeared in the last six months.”

An Asian woman of indeterminate age sat next to Germaine.  She cleared her throat.  “Mr. Fain, I find it unusual that only North America does not have missing agents.”

Avery examined the map. Europe didn’t have many red marks, perhaps half a dozen, but North America had no red marks. He locked eyes with a burly man who stood against the wall. “Tristen, do we have a report on this?”

Tristen stepped forward to hand Avery a paper. He passed it to Avery right through Germaine’s head.

Avery laid the paper on the table and steepled his fingers in front of his face. “Interesting.”

A black woman dressed in a patchwork of earth tones said “More than interesting.  This is most urgent. We must find Vanderhoak without delay.”

Avery cringed. “We have no proof Vanderhoak is behind the missing agents.”

“Does anyone doubt it’s him?” she asked.

The others around the table shook their heads. Nobody other than Avery doubted it.

“We must have evidence before making an accusation,” Avery said. “Additionally, we don’t know where Vanderhoak is.”

“Take a gander at this,” Germaine said. He pushed a button on his chair and the map changed to a three dimensional hologram of a hospital. It rotated slowly above the table.

“This is Mercy General Hospital in New York City,” Germaine said. “We have detected an absence of nanros surrounding this hospital. Perhaps if you had not moved your headquarters from New York to Washington State you would have found this yourself.”

Avery ignored Germaine’s criticism, but his face flushed at the implication that he didn’t know how to do his job. What right did Australia have conducting investigations in North America? “That does sound like an anomaly. Thank you, Germaine. I’ll look into it. Kate–”

Germaine interrupted Avery. “We’ve also had sightings of Vanderhoak in New York. There you go mate, the answer to where Vanderhoak is.”

How many people did Australia have operating in this country? Avery pushed a button and the rotating hospital disappeared. “Even if it is Vanderhoak, what should we do? Kill him?” Avery met each of his colleague’s gaze, one by one, when nobody answered he continued. “Our mandate has always been to observe and, if needed, subtly influence, but never to take overt action.  I believe this rule is the primary reason our organization has remained a secret for so long.”

The Asian woman said, “We have never faced such a threat before. I propose we vote on searching out and eliminating Vanderhoak before he–”

“We cannot!” Avery said.

“Now Avery,” Germaine said, “we must put it to a vote. Do we also need a vote of ‘no confidence’ on your role as chairman?”

“Very well,” Avery said. He inhaled, holding his breath while counting to three before exhaling. “The question is, should we search out Reese Vanderhoak and attempt to capture or subdue him. South American chapter?”

“Nay,” the large man to Avery’s left said. “We should seek him out and observe before deciding.”

“Australia?” Avery asked.

“Absolutely,” Germaine said.

“African chapter?” Avery asked.

The black woman said, “Yes, definitely.”

“Asia?”

“Yes.”

Avery shifted in his seat. One more ‘yes’ and it would be decided. “European Chapter?”

“I believe we are premature. No, not yet.”

“And North America votes no,” Avery said. “We are deadlocked.”

Looking directly at Germaine, Avery said. “This matter is closed until our next meeting. Now, I want to discuss a boy named Joss Thistle.”

***

« Read Part 2 | Table of Contents | Read Part 4 »

Check back in a few days for Part 4.

***

The water tower’s ladder swayed, swinging out several feet before rebounding and taking Joss so close to the tower he could reach out and touch it, but he didn’t dare unlock his arms.  One was hooked around the ladder’s side.  The other,  wrapped around a rung.

“You’ve got to stop moving it or the whole thing will come down,” Holly yelled up at him.

What was she talking about? He wasn’t moving it. The ladder moved by itself.

If he lowered himself slowly, maybe he could climb down a few rungs. He had to do something.  If not, he’d fall and die.

He tried to unhook his arm around the rung but his muscles wouldn’t respond.

“I can’t move,” he said.

Holly paced around the water tower’s base. “If you stay up there too long somebody’s going to see you.”

“That’s the least of my worries,” Joss said.

“I didn’t want to say at any moment you could come crashing down.”  She stopped pacing and held out her arms. “Want me to try to catch you?”

“Oh, that’s hilarious,” he said.

She dropped her arms. “Try climbing down real slow.”

“I told you I can’t move at all.”

Twenty feet below Joss the bolts snapped off with an audible ping and this time on the down bounce the ladder didn’t rebound, but swung farther out.

Joss screamed.

The ladder slowed and stopped on a 45 degree angle out from the water tower.

His legs felt like limp spaghetti.

“I’ll go call 9-1-1. Hang on!” Holly sprinted to the hedges bordering 7-11′s parking lot.

Joss couldn’t believe this was happening. He should have called it quits the first time the ladder wobbled.  Or better yet, he shouldn’t have attempted the climb in the first place.

He watched Holly disappear through the hole in the hedges. She’d get help. It’d be embarrassing, but at least he’d be alive.

As soon as Holly disappeared from view, a small furry animal emerged from the bushes and stood on its hind legs like a meerkat. The animal raised its arms, placing a paw on each cheek, as if surprised to find Joss dangling there.

The ladder started moving again, picking up speed.

He closed his eyes and let out a strangled yell. “Aaaeeeeiiihhh.”

* * *

“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”

Holly rapid-fired her answer. “My friend is stuck on the ladder on the old water tower, the one near 7-11 on Wabash, and the ladder isn’t attached any more, and he’s stuck like sixty feet in the air and can’t move and you need to send a fire truck with a long ladder–”

“Aaaeeeeiiihh,” Joss’s scream interrupted her.

She turned and watched her friend clinging to the falling ladder. The hedges blocked her most of her view, but she heard the crash. Joss stopped screaming.

The dropped the phone. This was her fault. She shouldn’t have challenged him to climb the water tower.

She sprinted across the parking lot and dove through the hole in the hedges.

* * *

Joss felt somebody shake his shoulder and lifted his head to see who it was. It was Holly. He had been laying, face down, on the ground next to the old water tower.  He rolled over and sat up. “What happened?”

Holly didn’t answer. She looked at him, eyes glistening with tears.

He tried getting to his feet, but fell to his knees. The world spun around him.

Holly helped him up and threw her arms around him, squeezing.

He broke free of her hug. “What’s going on?”

“You fell.” She rubbed her eyes.

He cocked his head sideways, but didn’t say anything.

“Don’t you remember falling?” she asked.

“No.”

“I can’t believe you’re not dead,” she said. “You fell over fifty feet. I was calling for help, saw you fall, and then ran back over here.”

Joss rubbed the back of his neck. It felt like dozens of small spiders were flitting around there.

“You remember climbing?” Holly asked.

This didn’t seem like one her jokes, so he answered. “I remember I was getting ready to climb. I was at the base of the ladder and, whoa!” He stared at the busted up ladder next to his feet. “I … uh, this is crazy.”

“Yeah,” Holly said.

“So I was getting ready to climb, I looked up the ladder, and then it’s just sort of a blur after that.”

“You were almost to the top,” she said. “It started to fall and it was swaying up there with you clinging on. I ran off to call 9-1-1. Then I heard you screaming–”

“I wasn’t screaming.”

“Whatever, yelling then, you don’t even remember.  Anyways, I looked back and the whole thing was falling down.”

“No way.”

A siren wailed in the distance.

Joss pointed at the top of the water tower. “I fell from clear up there?”

“Yeah,” Holly said. “I didn’t actually see you hit the ground because I was on the other side of the hedges, but I saw you fall.”

He examined the ladder on the ground and noticed the bend ten feet up where it was still attached to the water tower. “I bet it slowed down. See it didn’t break, it’s just bent. It must have slowed me down right at the end.”

The sired sounds were closer.

“I don’t know,” Holly said. “Maybe. That’s the fire department I bet. Unless you want to explain why we’re here, we better leave.”

They both ran toward the hole in the hedges.

***

« Read Part 1 |  Table of Contents | Read Part 3 »

***

The red-and-white checkered water tower loomed above Joss, it’s sides marred with graffiti and rust.  He looked up the metal ladder attached to its side and gulped.  “No way.”

“It’s totally safe,” his friend Holly said.

“I don’t know.” Joss looked up, shaking his head.  Climbing the tower was a crazy idea.

“You got to do it,” Holly said.

“Why don’t you climb first?”

“I could totally climb it,” she said. “No big deal. But we’re not doing this for me, are we?”

Joss took a deep breath, gripped the ladder in both hands, and climbed the first two rungs. He stopped and looked up again. It was a long way up, eighty feet at least.

From the bottom he couldn’t see much: the fence around the abandoned field where the water tower stood; the 7-11 in the adjacent lot; and the surrounding housetops. When he reached the top he figured he’d see most of Warner’s Crest.

“Sure, that’s the way to do it,” Holly drawled. “Stop on each step and look around so you can get scared.”

He ignored her. He could do this. Just climb up, touch the top, and climb down. Five minutes and it would be done. He reached up, grabbed the next rung with his left hand, and stepped with his left foot. He repeated the process with right hand and foot. An easy pattern–left, left, right, right. Left, left, right, right.

“Stop!” Holly yelled.

His heart skipped a beat.  He looked down to see what was wrong.

She rummaged around in her backpack, pulled out a video camera, and aimed it at him. “I forgot to start videoing.”

“Oh no,” Joss said. “Why do you need to video?”

“In case you fall. I want to document it.”

“That’s so funny I forgot to laugh,” he said.

“Seriously,” she said. “Don’t you want to record facing your fear of heights?”

Heights didn’t scare him.  It was the falling, or, more specifically, the crashing into the ground. When he was up too high the world became a spinning top, slowly swaying around him. Once, in Holly’s tree house, he got so dizzy he had to lay flat on the floor. He almost puked. How embarrassing.

Joss began climbing again. Left, left, right, right. He kept his gaze level, focused forward.

The ladder wobbled.

He let out an “Eep” and clasped his arms around the ladder. His heart echoed in his ears and the familiar swaying feeling started. He closed his eyes and forced himself to take deep breaths.

“What happened?” Holly called from below.

He didn’t respond.

“Joss, come on. You can’t freeze there. You’re not even twenty feet up.”

With eyes still closed he yelled. “The ladder’s shaky. It’s not safe.”

Holly grabbed the ladder at the bottom and shook it.

He snapped open his eyes and glared down at her. “What are you doing? Stop it!”

She shrugged. “Feels pretty solid to me.”

She focused the camera on him and narrated. “Here is a rare sighting of the species Joss Chickenanus. This animal climbs a few feet into the air and then stays there until somebody knocks it down with a rock. I will demonstrate.” She found a rock on the ground and cocked her arm back to throw it.

“Not funny,” Joss said.

“This will be great on YouTube.” She held the rock for another moment before letting it roll from her hand.

“Seriously, Joss, you totally have to do this. If you give up now you’ll regret it.”

“But the ladder wobbled.”

“So what?” she said. “Of course it’s going to wobble, but it’s not like it’s going to fall.”

She was right. If he quit now he’d feel bad later. He took another deep breath and started climbing again. Left, left, right, right.

“You’re doing great,” Holly yelled.

He looked down at her, feeling lightheaded. To forestall the dizziness he took a couple deep breaths.

As he climbed the next rung he looked up the ladder. It was still a long way to the top, but he had to be halfway now.

From his vantage point he could see his rooftop half a mile away. Viewing it, he realized how high he was and started feeling dizzy again. He breathed deep, focusing on the climb. Left, left, right, right. Two more rungs behind him. Left, left, right, right. And two more.

The ladder wobbled again and he stopped, gripping the ladder rung so tight his fingers turned white. This was not fun.

“I’m done,” he said. “I’m coming down.”

“You’re over halfway there,” she said. “You got to keep going.”

“I don’t want my headstone to read ‘Here lies Joss Thistle, he died of stupidity.‘”

“Tell you what,” Holly said, “if you touch the top rung, you can have my Space Quest video games.”

Joss considered this. His grandmother thought most video games were too violent.  The Space Quest series was one of the few she allowed him to play. “I dunno.”

“Deal?” she asked.

He hesitated.  “Deal.”

Joss looked up. Thirty feet to go. Through clenched teeth he chanted “left, left, right, right” as he climbed.

After climbing ten more feet, his left hand slipped off the rung.  He gulped, but didn’t panic, instead he hooked his elbow around the ladder’s side and wiped his hand on his shirt.

“What happened?” Holly yelled.

He grabbed the ladder with his left hand and wiped his right one before replying. “My hands are super sweaty.”

“You’re almost there.”

“I know. I’m going to make it.” He started climbing, confidence renewed, the top almost within reach.

Every few feet during his ascent Joss had noticed two large “L” brackets on the ladder bolted to the water tower. The brackets at eye-level to Joss were missing the bolts.

Joss could not believe his eyes.  He held his breath and moved slowly down to the previous rung.

“What’s wrong?” Holly asked.

The back of his neck tingled.

Time slowed down as the ladder pulled away from the water tower. Above him, the ladder’s top had moved five feet away from the water tower. Below him, the next three brackets began pulling away.

“Joss!” Holly screamed.

To Joss she sounded far away, as if she yelled from inside a tunnel.

He felt the familiar swaying. This time the feeling wasn’t in his head. This time the ladder physically swung in slow, lazy circles in front of the water tower.

Joss yelled, but only a hoarse whisper came out.

“Help.”

***

Read Part 2 » | Table of Contents

Please note that prior to this edit I considered the work to be fairly well polished. I had already revised these words at least two or three times and in places perhaps ten times or more.

The Scanned Pages

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Here’s a list of what’s available so far:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4

I wasn’t asleep long before a tap on my cheek startled me awake.  I sat straight up in bed.  The cheek-tap came from my son, Jake.  He stood beside my bed, dressed in SpongeBob SquarePants jammies.

He rubbed his eyes.  ”I can’t sleep.”

“Come on.  Let’s get you a drink of water.”

“I’m not thirsty.  Can I sleep with you and mom?”

I glanced at my wife.  She snored softly.  ”No, let’s not wake Mom up.  You’re a big boy. You need to stay in your own room.”

Hi sniffled.  ”But … there’s something in my closet.”

I swiveled my feet out of bed and stood.  ”Come on, Tiger.  We’ll go check your closet.”

I herded him into his bedroom, turned on the light, and opened the closet.  All his clothing was off the hangers in a heap on the floor.

“Jake, why are these clothes on the floor?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, there’s nothing to be afraid of in here.  But in the morning I want you to hang these clothes on their hangers.”

“But–”

“No buts, let’s go.  Into bed.”

“But Dad, it’s the clothes.  They’re alive.”

I never believed in repressed memories, thinking attention-craved Hollywood celebrities manufactured them.  Childhood traumas created to “remember” and talk about.  Sad, desperate attempts to feed their egos with sympathy from concerned fans.  How pathetic.  But when Jake mentioned the clothes being alive, cold fingers crept up my spine and tickled my brain, releasing a childhood memory.  A terror-filled incident long forgotten.

I gasped.

“What’s wrong?” Jake asked.

I knelt down beside him, our heads at the same level.  Even though my newfound memories demanded attention, I pushed them aside for a moment.  I didn’t want to scare my son.

“Jake, tell you what.  Just for tonight, you can sleep with Mom and me.”

Relief washed over his face.  I picked him up, carried him to my bedroom, and laid him next to my wife.  He fell right asleep.

She woke.  ”What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I said.  ”Just nightmares.”

She sighed and rolled over.

I got into bed next to Jake.

Memories flooded back to me.  The mental trick I had used to ignore them no longer worked.  I’d been focused on Jake, making him feel safe, but now the past filled my thoughts.

I lay on my back, wide awake, watching shadows play sinister games on the ceiling, and turned things over in my head.  Jake had said the clothes were alive.  I knew it to be true.  Years ago I had the same experience.  The clothes, if not alive, were animated by some invisible force.

The Past

I was six years old the first night it happened.  Something woke me in the night.  I remember waking and feeling a malignant presence in my room.  Evil pervaded the heavy air.  I strained to feel, or hear, or even smell the intruder, but it remained just outside my senses.  I suppressed a scream, knowing the presence would kill me if I made a sound.

They say when you lose one of your senses all the other ones improve to compensate for your loss.  In the darkness I was blind, but felt an increase in air pressure, as if something in the room had displaced the air, pushing the molecules together, making the atmosphere thicker.  A faint scraping noise came from my closet.

In my bed I lay frozen, afraid to breathe.  Minutes, dragging on like hours, passed before I worked up enough courage to take action.  I leapt from my bed and shot through bedroom door.  I ran to my parent’s bedroom and dove under their bed.  The next morning Mom discovered me there.

“Michael,” Mom said, “why did you sleep under my bed?”

“I had a bad nightmare and got scared.”

“I don’t want you sneaking under there at night.  If you have a problem get me, okay?”

I nodded.

“Now, young man, I want you to clean up your room.  It looks like a tornado hit it.”

What did Mom mean?  I left my bed unmade and there were a couple things on the floor.  Far less damage than a tornado would cause.

I stood outside my bedroom door and gulped.  What if the monster from last night waited for me on the other side?  I opened the door, ready to bolt if needed.  Clothes were scattered across my entire room.  Shirts on my desk, sweaters in balls on the floor, and pants hanging off the edge of my bed, as if they’d been trying to climb onto it.  I tiptoed through the clothing mine field and opened my closet–it was empty!  All my clothes from the closet were strewn across my room.  I checked my dresser, nothing disturbed there.

Whatever entity visited me during the night must have went crazy with my clothes.  Maybe it made the mess so I’d get in trouble with my parents.  That’s pretty weak logic now, but for a six-year-old it made sense.  I picked up, re-hung, refolded, and put away the clothes.

All day I worried about the upcoming night.  I snuck a flashlight from the garage and hid it under my pillow.  At bedtime I kissed Dad goodnight.

He ruffled my hair.  ”Don’t worry, Mikey.”

Walking to my bedroom I felt like a man on death row, slowly marching toward an unwanted fate.

Mom waited for me in my room.  ”Quit dragging your feet, it’s past your bedtime.”

I climbed into bed.  She tucked me in.

“Maybe,” I said, “I could sleep with you and Dad tonight?”

She kissed me on the forehead.  ”No.”

She turned out the light and left, closing my door behind her.

In the darkness I froze, laying there, listening to the house creak and groan, waiting for something to happen.  I tried to stay awake but somewhere along the way sleep took me.

The clock read 3:12 when I awoke, its LED display providing scant illumination.  I fumbled for the flashlight and aimed it at every nook and cranny in my room.  Nothing.  I felt the presence, but couldn’t see anything.  Summoning my courage, I jumped from bed and turned on the light.

The closet was closed.  Should I open it?  Having the light on helped me feel brave.  I tossed the flashlight on the bed and grabbed my baseball bat.  Holding the bat in one hand, I reached out and flung the closet door open, ready to swing at anything that came.  No creature jumped out.  The only thing in my closet were clothes.  A shirt had slid off the hanger and lay on the floor.

I went back to bed.  When I next looked at the closet, I gasped.  The shirt from the closet floor had moved a foot toward me.  Or something had moved the shirt.

My mind reached out for some logical explanation.  Maybe I had snagged the shirt with the bat.  No.  I had held the bat in front of me.  Goosebumps tingled my entire body.  How did the shirt move?  I stared at it, ready to rush to the door if the shirt so much as quivered.  Nothing.

I honestly don’t know how long I sat on my bed and stared at the shirt.  It had to have been at least an hour.

I couldn’t leave.  Where would I go?  If I got out of bed, would the shirt come at me?  I couldn’t take a chance, nor could I stay.  Maybe I could holler for Mom and Dad, but then what?  Tell them my clothes were alive?  Yeah right.  They’d have my head examined.

There comes a point in every boy’s life when he has a hard decision to make.  Does he take the easy choice or the difficult one.  Whichever way he decides, defines the man he is to become.  Similar to Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken,” two roads diverged in a wood.  It’s all about the choice.  Unfortunately, you don’t know when you’re making “The Decision.”  I certainly didn’t.  My choice was either to run away from the problem and, in all likelihood, have to face it again, or I could put an end to this.  I decided to end it.

I closed my eyes, thinking hard.  What could I do?

When I opened my eyes, the shirt was halfway across the room.  Also, another shirt and sweater had moved toward me.

I almost screamed, opening my mouth to yell, but a thought stopped me.  My clothes moved only when I wasn’t watching them.  I had stared at the shirt for an hour without it moving, but the moment I closed my eyes to think, it had moved several feet.  Was this true?  If my clothes couldn’t move when I looked at them, maybe I found a weakness.  Something I could use to fix the situation.

For several long minutes I watched my clothes.  They didn’t budge, but I had to see if they would move if I stopped watching.  I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and started counting in my head.

One …

Two … I’d go to 30.

Three …

Four …

Five.  Long enough.  I opened my eyes.

The shirt from the middle of my floor was now halfway up my bed.  I scrambled backwards like a crab.  The shirt didn’t try to follow me.

My remaining clothes had also moved toward me.  They were off the hangers and partway across the floor.  Did they move only when my eyes were closed or when I wasn’t looking at them?  It didn’t matter; I couldn’t watch them all night.

Mom had just done laundry, so my clothes hamper was empty.  A plan formed in my head.  I crept off my bed, never taking my eyes from the possessed shirt.  I got the clothes hamper and placed it in the center of the room.  I didn’t want to touch the clothes so I used the baseball bat to pick up the shirts and sweaters one by one, dropping them in the clothes hamper.  After gathering them into the hamper, I closed the lid.

Scurrying sounds immediately came from the hamper.  I yelped, dropping the hamper.  It landed at my feet.  The lid came open, and a couple shirts fell out, but they did not move.

So, my question answered, I didn’t have to close my eyes for the clothing to move.  I only had to not see them.  Armed with this knowledge I felt more powerful, in control.  As long as I kept an eye out, they couldn’t get me.  Of course, if I fell asleep, I was doomed.

I kicked the shirts back into the hamper and, in one motion, swept up the clothes hamper into my arms, closing the lid as I did.

The scurrying began again.  It became more violent and the hamper jarred and bustled and almost fell from my grip.  They couldn’t get to me as long as I remained vigilant.  I placed the hamper on the floor against the wall and sat on its top.

The Future

In bed, next to my wife and son, I realized I needed to take care of the clothes.  I fixed things as a kid; I could do it now.

That time of my life, the time I now remembered with amazing clarity, was an emotional roller coaster.  First the frightening, clothes-in-the-closet incident.  Then came my quick thinking and bravery, solving the problem.  Afterwards, a dark period filled with depression and despondence.  A time when adults–my parents, teachers, doctors, police–asked questions.  ”Why did you do this Michael?”  ”What made you think the clothing moved?”  ”Did any stranger give you something to eat?  Maybe candy or a pill?”

My actions horrified my parents.  They looked at me as if I were an alien, some monster they couldn’t trust.  I tried to explain why, but they wouldn’t listen.  They thought I was crazy.

Eventually, the doctors convinced me it was all in my head.  Nothing I described actually happened.  A psychosis, they called it.  They scanned my brain, asked more questions.  Was I abused?  (I wasn’t.)  Doctors must come up with reasons for the unexplained.  If the real cause cannot be believed, other explanations must be created.

As I lay in bed, tears welled up in my eyes.  Sadness for the child I had been.  Nothing was the same after that night and, even though I repressed the memories, I had lost my innocence.  A child should be able to be a child as long as possible.

I rose from the bed, vowing the same thing would not happen to Jake.

I went to the bathroom and dumped the clothes from the hamper onto the floor.  Still loath to touch the clothes, I grabbed salad thongs from the kitchen.  I went to Jake’s bedroom.

Clothes were now strewn everywhere.  Hamper under my arm, I marched around picking the clothes up with the prongs and dropping them in the hamper.  After gathering them all, I shut the hamper lid and the clothes began rustling inside.  Exactly as they had when I was little.

Keeping the lid closed, I carried the hamper with me as I went to the kitchen to fetch the matches and then went into the garage to get the gas can.  In my underwear, holding the hamper, and gas can I dashed outside to our burning barrel and emptied the hamper’s contents into it.  I then doused the clothing with gas and threw in a match.

The fumes ignited with a flash, but this quickly subsided into a steady flame as the clothes burned.  The ending was, well, a bit anti-climatic.  I didn’t expect the clothes to writhe in pain or scream, they hadn’t when I destroyed them as a child, but somehow the moment left me feeling empty, like it should have been bigger.

My childhood fire was grander.  To a kid everything seems bigger.  We didn’t have a burning barrel, I burned them in my room, right in the hamper.  The flames caught my bed on fire and Dad rushed me outside.  Firemen came.  We stood on our lawn, watching them put out the fire.  The worst part of it all was Mom and Dad’s look–worry, confusion, disappointment, and maybe a bit of fear.  They didn’t understand why I had to do it.

Once the clothes in the burning barrel had burned down to a few red embers, I went back into the house.  I’d have to come up with some excuse to explain to my wife why I destroyed our son’s clothing.  I didn’t relish lying to her, but it was better than the alternative.

~ end ~

While researching for this column I realized I’ve become lax in consciously using MRUs in my own fiction.  MRUs are a tool I must keep on my writing toolbox’s top shelf.

Evoking an emotional response in the reader should be fiction’s primary goal.  This is what entertains, what lets the reader leave their humdrum lives and go on an adventure.  Emotion is what moves the reader.  The key to creating this emotion is to have the reader live through a character, establishing an empathetic bond with the reader.  By empathy I don’t mean feeling sorry for the character, although sympathy can be an element.  True empathy is more than feeling pity, it is vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of the character (thanks Webster!).

In Techniques of the Selling Writer, Dwight Swain explains the MRU is the mechanism that creates feelings in your readers and helps them keep the feelings straight.

Here are the two parts to a MRU:

1. Motivation – What happens external to your POV character.  The Motivation is always objective.  It begins a cause-and-effect pattern.
2. Reaction – Your character’s reaction to the Motivation.  This is from your POV character’s perspective.  The Reaction is subjective.  It is the effect.

Here’s a simple, two sentence example:

The deer froze, illuminated by the headlights.  Bob gasped and slammed on the brakes.

Not the greatest prose (yeah, I’m using the deer-in-the-headlights cliché) but it illustrates my point.  The first sentence is external to the character, providing the cause for the character’s reaction.  The second sentence is Bob’s Reaction.

Turns out there’s logic and flow to the Reaction.  It consists of three parts.  Any of which may be omitted. The Reaction must flow in the following order:

1. Feeling.  The immediate feeling the Motivation evokes in the character.  The feeling must come first.
2. Action. The action the character takes.  It follows the character’s “feeling” (if present).
3. Speech. What the character says or thinks.  This must come last.

In the two sentence example above I only provided the Reaction’s Action portion.  Let me expand the example to provide all three parts.

The deer froze, illuminated by the headlights.  Bob’s heart skipped a beat.  He gulped and slammed on the brakes.  Mom’s gonna kill me if I wreck her new car.

Still, this paragraph won’t win any awards, but the Reaction’s three parts are all there.  It is more compelling.

The reason the Reaction must be ordered is to mimic real life.  Feeling occurs first, instantly, without conscious thought.  Action comes next, taking a bit more time, possibly building upon the character’s feeling.  Speech demands conscious thought and occurs slowest of all.

Try reversing the Reaction’s order in the example sentences:

The deer froze, illuminated by the headlights.  Mom’s gonna kill me if I wreck her new car. Bob gulped and slammed on the brakes.  His heart skipped a beat.

Yuck!  What a stinker.  Even worse, try reversing Motivation and the Reaction, putting the Reaction before the Motivation.  Do this and your reader (if you have any left) will throw your book across the room.

Swain goes on to explain much more about the MRU.  Here’s a few points he makes:

• The Motivation must have significance to your character.
• The Motivation must have pertinence to your story.
• The Reaction must be characteristic, reasonable, significant and pertinent.
• The character should actively react.

That’s all there is to MRUs.  They’re a deceptively simple, yet powerful, technique.

Here’s a little word processor trick I’ve used to keep track of the MRUs in a first draft.  (I’m using Microsoft Word, but this should work for most word processors.)

1. Create a new paragraph style called Motivation with a blue font.
2. Create a second new paragraph style called Reaction with a red font.  Set the “Style for following paragraph” to be the Motivation style you just created.
3. Go back and edit the Motivation style,  Make it’s “Style for following paragraph” be Reaction.

Now, as you write, each time you hit Enter to start a new paragraph you’ll automatically switch between Motivation and Reaction.

Until August, keep writing!

Beginning, Middle, End

In Aristotle’s Poetics he describes a story as a whole thing having a beginning, middle, and end.  Actually, he describes the tragedy plot this way, but the modern meaning of comedy and tragedy differ from Aristotle’s time.  Most stories today, even happily-ever-after stories, follow Aristotle’s tragedy definition.  I digress.  The point is thinking of stories in terms of Beginning, Middle, End has been around for over two millennia.  It’s a structure that works.

Act I, Act II, and Act III are different names for Beginning, Middle, End.  The basic formula for this structure is quite simple:

• Beginning – Introduce problem
• Middle – Attempt to solve problem
• End – Problem resolution

Beginning, Middle, End is a high level structure.  It’s the birds-eye, 10,000 feet view of your story.

The Monomyth

Another structure for storytelling is the Monomyth, also known as The Hero’s Journey.  Joseph Campbell, a mythologist, discovered a common pattern from myths around the world.  In his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell presents this pattern as “The Hero’s Journey.”  According to Campbell there are 17 steps, or stages, in the mythic journey.  Some myths contain most of these stages, while others use only a few.

While working at Disney Studios, Christopher Volger created a memo “A Practical Guide to a Hero With a Thousand Faces.”  Later, he expanded this memo into the book, The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers.  Volger combined and renamed Campbell’s steps into the following 12 steps:

1. The Ordinary World
2. The Call to Adventure
3. Refusal of the Call
4. Meeting with the Mentor
5. Crossing the Threshold
6. Tests, Allies, and Enemies
7. Approach to the In-most Cave
8. The Ordeal
9. The Reward
10. The Road Back
11. Resurrection
12. Return with the Elixer

Whether you use Campbell’s 17 stages, or Volger’s 12 stages, the monomyth is a powerful way to structure your story.  It’s a closer look at your story than Beginning, Middle, End is.  I’d say it’s at the 3,000 feet level instead of the 10,000 feet level.

Three Other Structures

There are many other story structures on the same level (around 3,000 feet up) as the monomyth.  Here’s a list of three of them.

• John Truby’s 22 Building Blocks – He defines 22 steps for a story to go through.  He starts with Self-realization, Need, and Desire and ends with New Equilibrium.
• Robert McKee’s Story – He describes five stages from Inciting Incident to Resolution.  McKee also provides a structure dealing with the rising and falling of conflict through a story.
• Michael Hauge’s Six Stage Plot – He goes from Setup to Aftermath, with a simultaneous six stages for the character’s inner journey.

All these structures are great.  They work for lots of people, but I was searching for something different.

Scenes and Sequels

Then I discovered Scenes and Sequels by Dwight Swain.  It is the absolute best way to structure a story I know.  Can I be blunt?  It’s damn good.  Try it and you’ll like it. It’s much closer to the story than the monomyth and other structures I’ve described.  Your view is up at 700 feet, instead of 3,000 or 10,000.

In his book, Techniques of a Selling Writer, Swain asks the question “How do you build a story?”  He answers it: “With Scene, followed by Sequel.” You write a Scene on page one.  Follow it by a Sequel.  Follow with another Scene, and another Sequel.  Repeat until the end.  It is the technique he used to author dozens (maybe hundreds) of stories.

Here are the definitions of Scene and Sequel from Swain’s book:

• Scene – A unit of conflict, lived through by character and reader.
• Sequel – A unit of transition that links two Scenes.  It sets forth your focal character’s reaction to the scene just completed, and provides him with motivation for the Scene next to come.

Naming the first unit a “Scene” is confusing.  The word “scene”, in the non-Swain sense, means a continuous action occurring at a specific setting.  I don’t care what he calls it though, as long as it works.

Scene and Sequel each have their own three-part structure:

SCENES

1. Goal – The character must want something.  Preferably, they should want it desperately.
2. Conflict – The opposing force that requires the character to struggle or fight for his goal.
3. Disaster – The logical, but unanticipated event that throws your character a loss.

SEQUELS

1. Reaction – The character reacting to the disaster.
2. Dilemma – The character must decide between unsatisfying alternatives.
3. Decision – The decision emerges, which becomes the the next Scene’s goal.

Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it?

Jim Butcher, on his blog, says this is the structure he uses throughout the Dresden Files.  These books are great reads, sucking you into the story, pulling you deeper chapter by chapter, keeping you up way too late to function at work the next day.

Discovering Scenes and Sequels helped me tremendously.  Although, I hate to admit, lately I’ve slacked off using them consciously. (I will, cross-my-heart, start using them more.)

I’ll leave you with a few random thoughts on Scenes and Sequels.

• Not every disaster has to be the end of the world.  It is important to hook the reader, which can be the promise of future doom.
• Sequels control the story’s pace.  Short Sequels move the story faster, long Sequels slow it down.
• Scenes are where all the action is.  They are where plot points occur.
• Longer Sequels give your story more plausibility.
• It’s a balancing act between speed (shorter Sequels) and believability (longer Sequels).
• New information coming into a Scene can heighten conflict as well as provide the disaster.
• Scenes contain details and actions which make your story come alive.
• Summary should only occur in Sequels.  That’s where Sequels shine.  Indeed, Sequels with too much Scene-like detail will bog down a story.

Until next time.  Keep writing.