Television Screenwriting

We've never had a screenwriter or playwright in our group, but I'm sure they would be welcome. It would be interesting to see their technique. The following unquoted comments come from Tom Maurstad, media critic for The Dallas Morning News. The quotes come from Matt Nix, creator of broadcast TV's The Good Guys, currently shooting on location in Dallas.

Broadcast shows are plot-driven, and cable shows are character-driven; broadcast shows are episodic, and cable shows are serialized. What those divisions have quickly boiled down to is a coded way of saying cable is good, and broadcast is bad, formulaic entertainment.

"I like plot, I like the mechanics of TV shows when they are done well. I want plot and character," Nix says. "The question I always ask is: 'Would the story happen if these characters weren't in it?'

"A writer-friend of mine came up with a good example: A guy has a gun pointed at him. If he begs for his life, that's plot-driven. If he puts his mouth over the gun and stares up at the person holding it, that's character-driven."

Self-Publishing

This originally appeared in The Dallas Morning News.

Virginia Heffernan: Today, self-publishing is respectable

Saturday, May 22, 2010

I love out-there theories and the people who are seized by them. I'm a sitting duck for crackpots. Maybe that's why I like the Web.

But even those of us who pride ourselves on never showing skepticism arrive at a crossroads sometimes. Should I really sacrifice 20 minutes of my life to hear out this particular rant (about Google, Obama, the Fed) or politely back away from the ranter? Well, you really sound as if you're on to something, sir!

In analog times, one sign that it was time to retreat was if a big talker, having declared himself an author, produced his "book" and something about the book just wasn't ... booky. Maybe the pages carried a whiff of the Xerox or mimeograph machine. Or maybe the volume – about Atlantis or Easter Island – looked too good, with engraved letters, staid cover, no dust jacket. After a casual examination of the spine or the title page, realization would dawn: self-published.

In this time of Twitter feeds and self-designed Snapfish albums and personal YouTube channels, it's hard to remember the stigma that once attached to self-publishing. But it was very real.

By contrast, to have a book legitimately produced by a publishing house in the 20th century was not just to have copies of your work bound between smart-looking covers. It was also metaphysical: You had been chosen, made intelligible and harmonious by editors and finally rendered eligible, thanks to the magic that turns a manuscript into a book, for canonization and immortality. You were no longer a kid with a spiral notebook and a sonnet cycle about Sixth Avenue; you were an author, and even if you never saw a dime in royalties, no one could ever dismiss you again as an oddball.

But times have changed, and radically. Last year, according to the Bowker bibliographic company, 764,448 titles were produced by self-publishers and so-called microniche publishers. (A microniche, I imagine, is a shade bigger than a self.) This is up an astonishing 181 percent from the previous year. Compare this enormous figure with the number of so-called traditional titles – books with the imprimatur of places like Random House – published that same year: a mere 288,355 (down from 289,729 the year before). Book publishing is simply becoming self-publishing.

And self-published books are not just winning in terms of numbers but also making up ground in cachet. As has happened with other media in this heyday of user-generated content, last century's logic has been turned on its head: small and crafty can beat big and branded. As IndieReader, an online source for self-published books, puts it, "Think of these books like handmade goods, produced in small numbers, instead of the mass-marketed stuff you'd find at a superstore."

Cheap, digital-publishing technology – especially print-on-demand options, which let individual buyers essentially commission copies of books – has been a godsend to writers without agents or footholds at traditional publishing houses.

It has also been a quiet godsend to literary history. Books that defy traditional classification now appear in print, and reprints of public-domain titles account for the biggest category of self-published books. (There are more reprints published than traditional books.)

Outfits like BiblioBazaar (which aims to "bring back the canon of global out-of-print literature and books") and Kessinger Publishing ("to publish and preserve thousands of rare, scarce and out-of-print books") style themselves as a kind of public trust, while Amazon's CreateSpace ("self-publish and distribute your book"), Lulu.com ("bringing a bigger audience to you"), as well as several imprints of Author Solutions ("Mr. Gutenberg would be proud") see themselves as heroically amplifying and even monetizing independent voices. IndieReader reminds us that luminaries like Gertrude Stein, Anaïs Nin and Edgar Allan Poe self-published books.

Self-published books also look great these days – altogether booky. This is no trivial matter. CreateSpace makes it clear that any book it publishes for you will have a full-color cover, a professional-quality binding and an ISBN. Looks just like the real thing. And perhaps it is the real thing. The last-century notion that a book was a writer's badge of having crossed over – from eccentricity to acceptance – may be obsolete. Perhaps a book is just a cluster of symbols, printed and bound and distributed, or not.

But if everyone is carrying official-looking volumes with his name on them, how do I find the old-fashioned crackpots? As I explore indie-publishing sites, I do this by searching by familiar subjects. And there they are: Bacon's Shakespeare: Facts Pointing to Francis Bacon as Author of the Shakespeare Poems and Plays; The Jim Morrison Myth. And someone at IndieReader directed me to a wondrously weird memoir by Robert McKnight: The Golden Years ... The Florida Legislature, '70s and '80s.

Vintage kookery. Hurray. Some things never change.

Virginia Heffernan's "The Medium" collumn appears in The New York Times Magazine.

E-Books Rewrite Bookselling

The Wall Street Journal, May 21, 2010

NEW YORK—In the massive new Barnes & Noble superstore on Manhattan's Upper East Side, generous display space is devoted to baby blankets, Art Deco flight clocks, stationery and adult games like Risk and Stratego.

The eclectic merchandise, which has nothing to do with books, may be a glimpse into the future of Barnes & Noble Inc., the nation's largest book chain.

For 40 years, Barnes & Noble has dominated bookstore retailing. In the 1970s it revolutionized publishing by championing discount hardcover best sellers. In the 1990s, it helped pioneer book superstores with selections so vast that they put many independent bookstores out of business.

Today it boasts 1,362 stores, including 719 superstores with 18.8 million square feet of retail space—the equivalent of 13 Yankee Stadiums.

But the digital revolution sweeping the media world is rewriting the rules of the book industry, upending the established players which have dominated for decades. Electronic books are still in their infancy, comprising an estimated 3% to 5% of the market today. But they are fast accelerating the decline of physical books, forcing retailers, publishers, authors and agents to reinvent their business models or be painfully crippled.

"By the end of 2012, digital books will be 20% to 25% of unit sales, and that's on the conservative side," predicts Mike Shatzkin, chief executive of the Idea Logical Co., publishing consultants. "Add in another 25% of units sold online, and roughly half of all unit sales will be on the Internet."

For the full story, CLICK HERE.

Dallas Writers CAMP

READ ALL ABOUT IT.

Doesn't say where it's held.

Has Modern Life Killed the Semicolon?

The following article appeared in The Dallas Morning News, June 29, 2008.

Paul Collins: Has modern life killed the semicolon?

When The Times of London reported in 1837 on two University of Paris law professors dueling with swords, the dispute wasn't over the fine points of the Napoleonic Code. It was over the point-virgule: the semicolon. "The one who contended that the passage in question ought to be concluded by a semicolon was wounded in the arm," noted The Times. "His adversary maintained that it should be a colon."

French passions over the semicolon are running high once again, after an online publication's April Fool's hoax claimed that the government planned to demand "at least three semicolons per page in official administrative documents."

French commentators blame the semicolon's decline on everything from "the modern need for speed" to the corrupting influence of English and its short, declarative sentences. It's a charge leveled for years stateside, too.

Has modern life killed the semicolon?

The semicolon has a remarkable lineage: Ancient Greeks used it as a question mark; and after classical scholar and master printer Aldus Manutius revived it in a 1494 font set, semicolons slowly spread across Europe. Though London first saw semicolons appear in a 1568 chess guide, Shakespeare grew up in an era that still scarcely recognized them; some of his Folio typesetters in 1623, though, were clearly converts.

Back then, the semicolon wasn't for interrogation or relating clauses; punctuation was still largely taught around oratorical pauses. The 1737 guide Bibliotheca Technologica recognizes "The comma (,) which stops the voice while you tell [count] one. The Semicolon (;) pauseth while you tell two. The Colon (:) while you tell three; and then period, or full stop (.) while you tell four."

Lacking standards for how punctuation shades the meaning of sentences – and not just their oration – 18th-century writers went berserk with the catchall mark.

But the chaos couldn't last: By the 1793 New Guide to the English Tongue, modern usage peeks through – "Its chief Use is in distinguishing Contraries, and frequent Division."

Semicolons hit a speed bump with Romanticism's craze for dashes, for words that practically spasmed off the page. Take this sample from the 1814 poem "The Orphans": "Dead – dead – quite dead – and pale – oh! – oh!"

By 1865, grammarian Justin Brenan could boast of "the rejection of the eternal semicolons of our ancestors."

1865? But surely that's a century off: Isn't modern life to blame?

Not exactly: From the 1850s onward, it's virtually impossible to find anyone claiming a prevalence of semicolons in writing. We now lived, complained a critic in 1854, in a "fast era" that neglected punctuation.

Indeed, a 1995 study tallying punctuation in period texts found a stunning drop in semicolon usage between the 18th and 19th centuries, from 68.1 semicolons per thousand words to just 17.7.

Researcher Paul Bruthiaux notes that the steepest semicolon drop-off came in the mid-19th century. Technology is a leading suspect in rapid aesthetic shifts, so consider what debuted in the 1850s that might radically change language usage: the telegraph.

Perusing telegraph manuals reveals that Morse code is to the semicolon what weedkiller is to the dandelion. Punctuation was charged at the same rate as words, and their high price – trans-Atlantic cables originally cost a still-shocking $5 per word – meant that short, punchy lines with minimal punctuation were necessary among businessmen and journalists.

By the new century, simplified punctuation migrated into textbooks; one 1903 guide recommended that "boys and girls ... should as a rule use a period when they are tempted to use a semicolon."

Harper's could decry the semicolon as "almost forgotten among proofreaders" in a 1924 article titled "Our Passion for Haste." So, too, in 1943, when The Times editorialized against "the war that is being waged in some quarters on the semicolon."

The semicolon has spent the last century as a fussbudget mark. Somerset Maugham and George Orwell disdained it; Kurt Vonnegut once informed a Tufts University crowd that "all they do is show that you've been to college."

Semicolons do have some genuine shortcomings; Slate's founding editor, Michael Kinsley, once noted to the Financial Times that "the most common abuse of the semicolon, at least in journalism, is to imply a relationship between two statements without having to make clear what that relationship is."

Yet semicolons serve a unique function, so it's tempting to think some writers will always cling to them.

When grading undergrad final papers recently, I found a near-absence of semicolons, save for one paper with cadenced pauses and carefully cantilevered clauses that gracefully stacked upon one another, Jenga-like, without ever quite toppling. Yet English was not this student's first language.

He was an exchange student – from France.


Paul Collins teaches nonfiction at Portland State University. His e-mail address is pcollins@ pdx.edu. A version of this essay first appeared at Slate.com.

Opening Lines

The first line of a short story is very important. A good one can hook the reader and make them want to read on. A weak first line and they might pass your story by.

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." – from “Neuromancer”

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." – from “1984”

"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. – from “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect." – from “The Metamorphosis

"It was the day my Grandmother exploded." – attributed to “The Crow”

This one was brought to my attention by Writeous:
"The last camel died at noon." - from "The Key to Rebecca"

This one is mine:
It was 9:00 am and he was on his third scotch and water.

Blood Drive

Thursday night, in addition to our normal critiquing of members' submissions, we discussed the story Blood Drive, part of John Grisham's latest book, a collection of short stories he has written. Many asked when he wrote them, wondering if he had been sitting on them for some time and implying that it was not polished. When asked what grade they would give it if they were professors, C and C+ were the two responses.

The story is a fairly simple one of three young men, ages 21 to 27, taking a road trip from Ford County, Mississippi, to Memphis to donate blood for a friend, Bailey, who was in the hospital due to a construction site accident. During the trip they drink beer and make pits stops, one an integral part of the story. Once they arrive in Memphis they stop at a strip club. Finally they head to a hospital, not knowing which of the seven in the city their friend is in. And though two of the three had gone to school with Bailey, they weren't sure if that was his first or last name. Odd.

Apropos title.

JOHN GRISHAM

In Cold Blood

It begins:
The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call "out there." Some seventy miles east of the Colorado border, the countryside, with its hard blue skies and desert-clear air, has an atmosphere that is rather more Far West than Middle West. The local accent is barbed with a prairie twang, a ranch-hand nasalness, and the men, many of them, wear narrow frontier trousers, Stetsons, and high-heeled boots with pointed toes. The land is flat, and the views are awesomely extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as Greek temples are visible long before a traveler reaches them.

Later:
"It doesn't make sense. I mean what happened. It had nothing to do with the Clutters. They never hurt me. They just happened to be there. I thought Mr. Clutter was a very nice gentleman... I thought so right up to the time I cut his throat."

TRUMAN CAPOTE

Terms Needing Termination

From The Dallas Morning News, May 11, 2010. Mark Cuban on Ross Perot Jr.

"What I do know is that being in business with Ross Perot is one of the worst experiences of my business life," Cuban said. "He could care less about Mavs fans. He could care less about winning. ... The other partners have no problem with how the team is run. They want to win as badly as I do."

Hey Mark. The term is couldn't care less.

For the full story CLICK HERE.

Those Three Minute Fiction Stories

CLICK HERE. Links to the stories are on the right.

My Writing Process

Outside of our Writers' Workshop, there are only two short stories that I share with friends. About the only question I receive from them is how do I come up with stories. The answer given is if I knew I'd write a book about it. But the truth is it comes from various sources. Events in my life help mold certain situations, but not the story. I'm constantly thinking of concepts. They usually come from conversations or newspaper articles. Then I build on that idea. Most days I walk, perhaps up to two miles. That clears my head and gives me time to create a basic plot. The next step is to put those thoughts into writing. This is done is cursive on cheap notebook paper. The computer is not employed until the title is decided upon.

A new paragraph is warranted here to emphasize that the ending is not known at this time. Usually.

Character development comes next. Sometimes dialog is used to express this. Other times it is narrative. Some writers place great importance on the characters' looks. For some reason I don't really care whether or not the characters have blond hair or black, blue eyes or brown. I'd rather leave that up to the readers' imaginations. It's fun however to make a least one character quirky. I like quirky.

I feel very strongly about location. All in our group live in Dallas or the surrounding cities. But there is really no reason to use Dallas as the location unless the story involves the Cowboys or the Kennedy assassination. I need a reason to name a city, or else it's just "the city." It can take place in Hollywood if it's about a movie star or D.C. if it involves the federal government. Small towns however are different. I like to make up their names. One of my stories ended in Pie Corner, Oklahoma. Now Mesquite, Texas, is a different animal. It has a great name and you don't feel guilty making fun of the place.

Endings can be tough. I don't enjoy knowing the ending of a story when I begin writing it. But that's just me. It's sort of like being a kid and knowing on December 20th what Santa will bring you for Christmas. Again, my daily walks help. Readers expect answers. On one occasion (Time, Cotton) I didn't provide the answer.

I enjoy being critiqued. It makes me a better writer. I don't need to be told if a story is good or not. I know.

• • • • •

Addendum: Some writers set aside 2-4 hours daily in which to write. I tend to get on a roll. Once some thoughts are assembled I may start early on a Sunday afternoon and write into the night. And if the ideas keep rolling in I'll continue Monday night. And Tuesday night. And

Story Idea

Write something that comes to mind after looking at the cartoon below.

Restaurant Review

Hey, I was bored one night so I wrote this.


J’s Breakfast & Burgers

Retro baby! This place is analog in a digital world but the wait staff can chew gum and call you ‘honey’ at the same time. J’s is now in its 29th year and its 2nd coat of paint. The front door is unlocked 24/7/364. If the key can be found they’re closed on Christmas. Being in Addison, the Marlboro Man is a regular. Seating for 42 in the front coffin section, 36 in the non-coughing section plus 6 at the counter pleases the fire marshal. Husky-voiced night shift manager/waitress Dorothy has been there the last 15 of her 64 years. Her cook has been there 24. This is where the bar habitués go after last call on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Breakfast and lunch are busy. During supper time feel free to cut the cheese because no other diners are there. J’s has no web site and they think Wi-Fi is some kind of knock-knock joke. The last cigarette machine in Dallas County is behind booth #1. There’s an 8-liner (it pays off in Walmart gift cards), juke box (the volume is turned down at 5:00 am) and (take a camera) an honest-to-goodness working pay phone complete with an honest-to-goodness working telephone book. Don’t ask them to change the channel on the lone TV set because someone walked off with the remote years ago. Before the question arises, it’s a black and white.

Coffee: Community brand served in a ceramic mug with 3-4 warm ups for a buck thirty-five. I take mine black. No cream, no sugar. Ask for a latte. Go ahead. I dare you.

Breakfast: Try the 1x4 which is one each pancake, egg, bacon strip and sausage link. Or try the 2x4 which is pretty much what you think it is. I like the two egg omelet. A popular choice is breakfast tacos (2) which costs $5.00 but come with free hash browns. Everything is available à la carte. Add a pork chop if you wish. Salsa for the scrambled will make you sweat and Tabasco and Cholula are on every table. Served 24 hours.

Lunch: Burgers baby. $5.50 and up. Make it yellow-topped for 40¢ more. There’s also chicken fried steak, T-bone steak, rib eye steak and hamburger steak plus old school sandwiches and salads. Served 24 hours.

Dessert: Home baked chocolate pie is $2.40 per slice. It’s big enough to share which saves time for the dishwasher who is also the cook and restroom attendant. You’re out of luck if you’ve just had your tonsils taken out because there is no Blue Bell here.

Tuesday Special: Any burger plus Idahos and a drink is just $5.95.

Tip: $1.00 per person.

J’s accepts Visa, MasterCard and, for the 3 people who still have them, Discover Card. If you try to use Amex or Diners Club cards, well, that’s too retro even for this place.

At J’s it’s hard to find any bells and whistles but if you can find a dial tone you can call 972-239-7619 and your order will be ready to go when you get there. In Styrofoam, baby.

14925 Midway Road, one traffic light south of Belt Line on the sunset side.

The Scarlet Letter

Do not read if you are offended by foul language. The comments below were found on the Internet. They are about the book "The Scarlet Letter." I happen to agree with each and every one of them.

A horrific torture device devised by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850. Since then, English teachers across America have been using it to mentally maim their students, as this book can cause brain anuerisms and seizures within five minutes of reading. The only *human being* that has ever finished the book without damaging himself is Chuck Norris.

In Guantanamo Bay, the interrogators utilize the Scarlet Letter as a highly effective extraction tool.

The reason why the national high school drop out rate is so high. The book borders on the topics of guilt, religion, and fucking. Most English teachers percieve this book to be a literary treasure chest, hence why the English department is usually targeted first when students go on homicidal rampages.

Teacher: I love the Scarlet Letter, yet I hate you so I'd like you to write an essay explaining the main theme of the sto-...
Student: Uh, ma'm?
Teacher: Yes miste-...
Student: Blow me.

Most... boring... book... ever, by Nathaniel Hawthorne

I guarantee you, you won't be able to stay interested long enough to read just five sentences of this piece of shit. It's nothing but paragraphs that are one page long, talking about a bunch of crap that you can't understand, which leaves you thinking "ok.. now where the hell is all the fun stuff?"

"In fact, this scaffold constituted a portion of a penal machine, which now, for two or three generations past, has been merely historical and traditionary among us, but was held, in the old time, to be as effectual an agent in the promotion of good citizenship, as ever was the guillotine among the terrorists of France." - Passage from The Scarlet Letter.
Seriously.. does that sound interesting to you?

A horrible book written by American author Nathaninel Hawthorne. One is forced to ask, why is this book considered in any way, shape or form, a good book, especially when one considers that at the same time, geniuses such as Fyodor Dostievsky were writing their works. Even in American literature of the time one can take such examples as Thoreau and Emerson and wonder, why on earth is this book considered good?

One of the worst books ever is the definition of THe Scarlet Letter.

A famous book written by Nathaniel Hawthorne that deals with Puritan beliefs. The main character is a woman named Hester who has a baby, is accused of adultry, and is forced to wear a red letter, "A" on her clothes, so everyone in the town knows she's a skank. Highschoolers are forced to read this book. Only God knows why. At first, the book seams alright. The plot seams interesting enough, because it deals with sex and suspence, but when you start reading it you have to keep your eyes open with clothes pins to avoid falling asleep. Also known as, the most overrated and dissapointing book of all time.

I thought that reading The Scarlet Letter would be interesting, but once I actually started reading the book it made me want to gauge my eyes out with a spork and smear my eyeball blood all over Nathaniel Hawthorne. What the hell was my English teacher smoking when he read this book and thought it was a masterpiece?

A boring book most highschoolers are forced to read. Written in the 1700's, and is completely irrelevant now.

For a book that's basically about fucking, this thing sucks!

The Scarlet Letter is the worst fricken book ever that our dumbass teachers make us read because they are retarded and like ruining our lives.

And my favorite, because I wrote it, is: They should Fahrenheit 451 this book.

BTW, Timberglen has 1 copy of this book. The Dallas Public Library has 21. Find out how many are checked out.

LOOK HERE! YOU CAN ACTUALLY BUY COFFEE MUGS AND STUFF.

Why I Don't Like Poetry

A Red, Red Rose
by Robert Burns

Oh my luve is like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June:
Oh my luve is like the melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile!

Will someone please explain to me why he's famous?

Story Idea

Start here:

"Where's the salt I requested?" I asked the man who delivered my supper.

"The dietician says salt is bad for your health. She doesn't allow it here."

Jeez Louise, I know salt's bad for your health. But I wanted it anyway. I wanted it on the steak, the ketchup I'm going to put on that steak, the new potatoes, the macaroni and cheese, the jalapeño cornbread, the iced tea, the vanilla ice cream, and even the peach cobbler. This is, after all, my last meal. In twelve hours I'll be executed for a murder I didn't commit. And she has the gall to tell me salt is bad for my health.

"And the warden won't let me smoke a cigarette because he's afraid I'll become addicted."

Bad Writing

This is the first paragraph from an article that ran in The Dallas Morning News on May 1, 2010. It was written by AP reporter Qassim Abdul-Zahra.

BAGHDAD – Leery of using a mobile phone, the militant tasked with directing some of Baghdad's deadliest recent bombings would get his orders from the leadership of al-Qaeda in Iraq by meeting a go-between near a grocery store named Mr. Milk.

A grocery store named Mr. Milk? How quaint. I don't think that's the name of the store.

Full article.

Soldiers' Pay

The air was sweet with fresh-sawed lumber and they walked through a pale yellow city of symmetrical stacked planks. a continuous line of negroes carried boards up a cleated incline like a chicken run into a freight car and flung them clashing to the floor, under the eye of an informally clad white man who reclined easily upon a lumber pile, chewing indolent tobacco. He watched them with interest as they passed, following the faint wagon road.
Chapter IV, 4

Mahon liked music; so Mrs. Worthington sent her car for them. Mrs. Worthington lived in a large, beautiful old house which her husband, conveniently dead, had bequeathed, with a colorless male cousin who had false teeth and no occupation that anyone knew of, to her. The male cousin's articulation was bad (he had been struck in the mouth with an ax in a dice game in Cuba during the Spanish-American War): perhaps this was why he did nothing.
Chapter V, 7)

Jones looked up with his customary phlegmatic calm, then he rose, lazily courteous. She watched him narrowly with the terror-sharpened cunning of an animal, but his face and manner told nothing.
Chapter VI, 1

The sentries in her blood lay down, but they lay down near the ramparts with their arms in their hands, waiting the alarm, the inevitable stand-to, and they sat clasped in the vaguely gleamed twilight of the room, Jones a fat Mirandola in a chaste Platonic nympholepsy, a religio-sentimental orgy in gray tweed, shaping an insincere, fleeting articulation of damp clay to an old imperishable desire, building himself a papier mâché Virgin: and Cecily Saunders wondering what, how much he had heard, frightened and determined.
Chapter VI, 2)

"Soldiers' Pay" was William Faulkner's first novel, written while he lived in New Orleans and published in 1926.

Simile

The security guard at Timberglen is as annoying as a Netflix pop-up ad.

Simile.

Writer's Digest Best Writing Communities

2009 LIST OF WEBSITES

2008 LIST OF WEBSITES

Three Minute Fiction Round Three Winner

For the third round of our contest, we asked you to send us original works of fiction inspired by [the above] photograph.

Please Read
by Rhonda Strickland

In Tucson, we found the train-hopping kids, and went with them to New York City. I was 15 and had never been out of Arizona. That summer, I'd learned to eat from Dumpsters, carry a knife in my pocket and sleep with my backpack chained to my waist. My girlfriend Sarah was scared to try, but when she saw I'd go without her, she came. New Mexico and Texas floated past, framed in the open rail car door. We slept under a Baton Rouge bridge, partied in New Orleans, changed trains in Atlanta. Sarah was liking this now. At Penn Station, we stepped outside, and the cold stung our skin. We stood there and blinked. The other kids headed round back of a coffee shop to Dumpster dive. Sarah called to me. I shook my head, and she went. I knew she'd bring back something — a stale doughnut, a still-warm half-cup of coffee. In the shop window, I studied my reflection. Wild red hair stuck out from knots Sarah couldn't untangle with her broken comb. My eyes seemed too large and staring. My beard still looked strange. I thought of Phoenix. I'd left home over a month ago, telling no one. I hugged myself, shivering. We'd have to find coats, sweaters. I stopped seeing myself, and looked through the glass, at a warm table with a spread-open newspaper, carelessly left behind. The pages fluttered each time a customer opened the door and went in. Sarah came up beside me, handed over a half-eaten apple. She said, "No coffee." Her hands were blue. She followed my gaze. "We'll get newspapers tonight." She meant for sleeping. Old papers were everywhere, littering the ground under bridges, inside doorways, beside creeks and riverbeds. We stuffed our clothes and covered ourselves when it rained. She said, "Come on, Ben," but I couldn't stop looking at the newspaper, how people walked past, ruffling the pages, not noticing. The paper danced in the draft they created, and inched across the table, moving close to the edge. Sarah tugged my arm and looked anxiously at the Tucson kids rounding a corner, searching for food. I didn't know how to explain to Sarah I wanted this paper. I wasn't thinking of Phoenix anymore, of my home and my parents. I wanted to fold this newspaper shut with a crease, protect it from the gray sooty day, keep it from falling to the floor, where it would soon get covered in black shoe prints. But I could not get myself to go in, take it from the table. In its perfect frame of polished wood and gleaming glass, lit by lamps and the glowing smiles of people sipping coffee from steaming china cups, I knew the paper wasn't mine.

459 words