A Writer's Tale

I’m now going to take you on a little journey into writer-land. We’ll go on a step by step search for a way to turn the stick-up incident into a short story.

This isn’t planned.

I’ll explore the situation just as if I have every intention of writing a story for the Stick-Up anthology.

Okay.

The incident is a given.

I now have to start hunting for the gimmick, the trick that’ll make it work.

Here goes.

Is there something funny about the criminal? Something strange about the clerk? What about a customer who somehow gets involved?

Immediately, I like the idea of bringing a customer into the picture. For one thing, I can easily identify with being a customer. I’m not a criminal and I’ve never been a store clerk.

Several times every week, however, I’m a customer at a store, at the bank, at a restaurant, etc. And I often do worry that I’ll be “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

I bet you do, too.

And so do your readers.

If you toss a customer into the crime scene, you’ll immediately grab the attention of your readers. They’ll identify with him or her.

At this point, I know that I want to focus the story on the customer.

Should I make the customer a man or woman?

A woman, probably.

Though I still don’t know where this story may go, I do know that a female customer will be more interesting than a guy. After all, we’re putting the character into a dangerous situation. It’s usually more fun to do that with a pretty, likeable gal than ‘with a fellow.

She might be a career woman, a housewife, a student, a cop.

How about a cop? Right away, I eliminate that idea. Way too trite. Any scenario in which the customer turns out to “really be” some sort of armed and dangerous superwoman should be avoided or at least viewed with great skepticism. Such gimmicks are too predictable. (Of course, even predictable gimmicks can be used if you find a way to give them an unusual twist. Maybe she turns out to be a cop, but… ) Let’s keep looking.

What if the apparently innocent female customer is secretly a “bad guy?”

I’ve used that sort of gimmick successfully on several occasions. In fact, that was the main trick of “Desert Pickup,” the first short story I ever sold.

It can work because, if done well, it goes against the reader’s expectations.

Which is always your goal.

Jim Thompson used to tell people that there is only one plot things are not as they seem.

If the customer seems to be an innocent victim in the wrong place at the wrong time, readers will strongly identify with her.

They’ll imagine themselves being in such a situation. They’ll be worried about her. They’ll be pulling for her. They’ll be wondering whether she’ll survive the situation. If you pull a switcheroo (such as making her a robber, too) you can take the readers off guard.

Exactly what you want to do.

But I’m not completely comfortable with turning her into a “bad guy.” Besides, I don’t want to jump at the first halfway decent idea that pops into my head.

We’ll keep it in mind.

Let’s continue exploring possibilities, but remain focused on the female character.

We’ll call her Susan. She will be our main character, and the potential victim. Somehow, to make her story work, we’ll need to find a way to turn the situation around so that Susan not only survives but prevails over the criminal. We’ll call him Spike.

But how does she win the day?

She must do something unexpected.

While writing this, I’m partly thinking ahead. I’m thinking along the lines of, “What if she helps Spike?” Maybe he is trying to shoot the clerk, but his gun won’t fire. And Susan, standing nearby with a carton of milk or a bag of potato chips in her hands, says to Spike, “Could I give you a hand with that?”

Certainly unexpected about the last thing you’d expect a customer to say in such a situation.

And I find it rather amusing.

In any sort of story, humor can be a very good thing. Everybody enjoys smiling and laughing. And you don’t expect to find humor in such a situation, which makes it even better.

Aside from being amused and thinking, “This is odd,” the readers will probably be wondering what Susan is up to. She can’t really intend to help Spike put his firearm into working order. After all, he might end up using it on her. She must have a trick up her sleeve.

At this point, I think most readers will be very eager to find out what happens next.

They’ll be hooked.

Spike, of course, is shocked by Susan’s offer to help. And he isn’t about to turn over his weapon to a bystander, a witness, a potential victim. He’d say something like, “What’re you, nuts?”

We’re off and running.

But to where?

Who knows? I don’t.

I do know this, however: Spike isn’t likely to hand his gun over to Susan.

So what does happen?

In other parts of this book, I write that every story has a secret, internal structure. It’s the writer’s job to discover this structure, which is inherent in every story.

At the heart of this story’s natural structure is the problem with the bad guy’s firearm.