HMAUS Signal

Gene Parola’s is a writer of place based mysteries, a hurricane preparedness manual and humorous short stories about medical professionals and senior care. He has both paper and ebooks. When asked what goes on in his mind and where the content of his plots and scenes come from, he responded with this.

“I never know what to write as ‘tips’, when asked to offer some.  Writing is pretty much a job like any other. The first thing one has to do is write.  You can’t call yourself a writer if you don’t do it everyday–or do research to use in your writing.

Some folks worry about what to write about.  Story possibilities are everywhere.  The faded elderly Japanese lady you see walk in front of your car as you wait for your spouse to exit the grocery store may be the former parlor maid in some haole’s Manoa mansion or she may have been the favorite whore in the mobile cat house moved near the worker’s camp when the great water tunnels were being dug on Maui.

Depends on your imagination and a little research on Maui. (“The Water of Kane”)

Research is a dream today. Go to Google and punch in a word or two and you will have a list of sources to choose from.  Be careful which you choose.  Wikipedia is for lazy researchers and is often gravely in error.

It was founded on the toothpick foundation that any/everybody is an expert and can supply reliable information. But not everybody can.

Lawsuits have resulted from faulty biographies of people wealthy enough to sue the Wikipedia and the provider.  For the rest, poor info has been used in student dissertations and even business contract language and it often takes years to untangle the truth.

Having come up with a story–a plot is a series of incidents–you will probably already know who the major agents are who will be involved.

Their character will be revealed in what they say and what they do.  Much is revealed when they say one thing and do something opposite.

You will want to describe them physically–but in great detail only if their looks are important to the story.  Let the reader participate by imagining what they look like if no element of the story turns on looks.

Where are they when these events take place?  How important is the locale to the story?  A description of the building and the balcony may be necessary if ‘he/she’ is about to jump.

On the other hand–probably why he/she wants (needs?) to jump is a lot more important. And then we come to Point of View.  Is the unnamed narrator (you the writer) the only one who knows the ‘why’?  If so all is easy–simply make it all known to the reader in an interesting prose.

Or make her tell someone–the cop trying to keep her from jumping–  ’why’.  Or get it from her husband, (lover, mother, teacher, doctor, shrink) in the dialog as he tries to talk her down.

Then decide whether she jumps or not.  And either way–is there more to the story or is that the end?

What the story is ‘about’ then is not the series of incidents, but the meaning of what has transpired, in human terms, as a result of the acts and events. Not all events need to happen or have happened in the duration of the story.  Some may be results of other previous events.

And you must pose questions in the minds of your reader, and as you answer them pose more:

Teddy Canada jerked the Mercedes to a sudden stop in front of the hotel and soaked his expensive loafer in a puddle in his haste to get out.  He tossed his keys to the valet and ran through the rain for the shelter of the awning-protected entry, leaving the doorman to help an attractive young woman out of the car.

His carefully arranged curls were plastered to his head and as he tore off the soggy sport coat, his mother wondered where he had been to have gotten so wet. It certainly hadn’t happen in his short sprint from the car.

He did not apologize for making her wait in the lobby; instead he simply threw the coat to the concierge and blurted:

“Are both lawyers here?” He tossed the question in the general direction of Mrs. Theodore J. Canada, III.

His mother nodded, rather than acknowledge his behavior with more of a response.

“Will this take long?” he asked, combing his hair back into proper prominence.

“Yes.  I’m told that the will is lengthy.”  Perhaps you’ll catch your death of cold as you sit in your wet clothes, she thought, but didn’t say.

I think this demonstrates most of what I indicated earlier.

Is the young woman important?  How about the lobby of the hotel?

What do the names tell us?   Enough?  How many questions have been raised?

In the first para. above I said the first thing to do is to write.

The second thing is to edit and edit and edit again.

Want some fun?  Complete the story in 600 words or less.”