Stories from the Beat: Where to start?

 

My first lesson in sports writing came in the interview at SVM in the fall of 2004. I was being hired to cover games mostly, so the lesson was in writing the game story (lovingly called the gamer), and the SVM folks practiced a few simple rules.

• In the first four paragraphs, you need the who (who was playing), the where (where was it), when (you know, Tuesday night, or something), and the why (we’re covering this because…)
• The first numbers to appear in the story should be the final score. I agree with this, although after years of observing article readers, few people keep reading after finding the final score. Therefore, I don’t think game stories should ever be very long, 500 words tops.
• Other rules were more perfunctory – byline style, etc. 

It’s not the perfect system, but it was a good road map for a guy just wading out on the beat. Over time, I adjusted this with the other thing I find to be the most important thing about writing anything – make it interesting right away. Hook’em fast or lose them. Eventually I started writing feature stories and columns for SVM which allowed for even more creativity in my ledes, and that’s where I carved the niche that opened the door for promotion. A lot of that was by the ledes I wrote, often little anecdotes from observations I made while researching the subject and story.

The opening for any piece of writing is vital whether it is a news report, a term paper, a marketing page, or a novel. You get only a few seconds to make a first impression, and if you succeed, they’ll likely keep reading until the very end. In fiction writing, I’m a fan of the line that drops you right into the action. I don’t necessarily want setting or imagery; I want dumped into the story. Use the rest of the sentences to worry about setting, tone, context, etc. If by sentence two, the reader already feels the forward motion of the story, you’ve succeeded.

The opening lines for the stories I’ve linked on this blog previously are a couple of my better attempts:

From Get a Life: “As he lay dying, Bug Boy remember the first spider, the Argiope Aurantia, curled up against the glass of the Ragu jar that his father pulled from the freezer.”

From The Second War: “Private James Amerson was dead.”

The first one is a complex sentence, introducing a character – Bug Boy – and that he is dying. There is something about a spider also being dead. What could this be about? How are Bug Boy and the spider related? Reading this line now, the only thing I’d like to change is “curled up.” Maybe just curled, but there is a better word out there for the posture of the spider that will strengthen that sentence even more.

The second line is simple – a statement, and hopefully, the reader wonders: “How did Private James Amerson die?”

When you pick up your next book, read that first line a time or two, and know that the writer spent more time on that than any other line in the book, even the last one (I’m terrible at last lines).

Here are a couple first lines that I really like from books I’ve read.

From “The Gunslinger” by Stephen King: “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”

From “A Prayer for Owen Meany” by John Irving: "I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice – not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany."

First lines like that, folks, don’t come around every day.

Write On Prompt: Sydney Goes Home

 

Note: The Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2021 meeting of the Write-On Rock Falls Writing Group, we had prompt night. We were tasked with writing something that included at least one of the objects in the picture above. We wrote for about 45 minutes. Below is what I wrote. Feel free to let me know what you think in the comments section!

Sydney Goes Home 

“When will it happen?” Sydney asked, picking a scab on her arm. The girl was nothing but bones and skin and scabs. The scab picking a vice for her like games of chance or mugs of brew for others.

“Patience.” Madra whispered, continuing to darn. The yarn was pink like the flesh of a baby pig and the needles were sharpened like a pair of steak knives. Madra’s sagging features were all shadows in the candle’s light. As she worked, the yarn was becoming some sort of figure, a doll.

This was the season of harvest or had been when crops were still grown. An orange moon with its cracked face slumbered behind wisps of purple clouds. Away from the light, things – for they were neither human nor beast - creeped and crawled, hungering for blood and anxious for the little bit of light glowing from the candle to extinguish. In the dark, they could converge on the two women and feast.

Madra pricked her finger with the needle, but her skin was like leather and barely a drop of blood escaped. She rubbed it on the doll. Madra’s eyes were green and still as young as the day she was born, which could have been yesterday or a thousand years as far as anyone else knew. Sydney certainly didn’t know, how could she? She’d known the woman maybe a week, it was hard to tell here. Days passed sometimes in minutes and nights felt like years. The girl couldn’t take another night here.

“This better not be a trick, you promised,” Sydney said. Trying to find another scab with her fingertips. Her mother had hated her habit, like she hated Sydney’s green hair stylized short and pointed like a porcupine. Her mother hated Sydney’s torn jeans, black boots and pierced nose. Her mother didn’t know about the tattoos – the orange serpent on her right shoulder blade or the bloody dagger on her left hip. Her mother tried warning her away from things like witchcraft and the occult. Scolded her for the séance her and Liza performed when they were thirteen and the voodoo doll she made of her freshman biology teacher. God, if she’d only listened. God, if she could only see her mother now.

“You won’t.” Madra said.

“I won’t what?” Sydney said.

“See your mother,” Madra said. “I can send you back to where you came from but not to the when.”

“How did you know?”

“What do you take me for?” Madra said. “Some village midwife dispensing spoonfuls of honey for upset stomachs and roots to cure body aces? I am Madra of the Green. I could spin this damned earth upside down if I so chose. Reading your silly thoughts is hardly a skill.”

“Sorry.” Sydney slouched, looking very much like the girl her mother knew all-to-well. The sullen, moody one who pouted instead of taking responsibility. She was sorry for not listening to her mother, if she had, she wouldn’t have landed in this hell. This world where the hairs on your arms never went down because something meaning harm was always close by. You couldn’t see them, but you could feel them, lurking just out of sight.

“How does that candle work?”

“There’s a wick and wax, you dullard,” Madra said.

“Yes, but even when the wind hollers, it barely flickers.”

“Does it now,” Madra answered. “You’re not completely useless. That candle is sitting in a dragon’s tooth. Dragon’s never let their fire go out.”

“Really?”

“Stop saying that, when I say something, it becomes real.”

With that, Madra held out the object she was darning, it was a disfigured doll with six arms or maybe they were legs. Then the witch blew into its backside.

“Hold it.” Madra said. Sydney let it drop into her waiting hand, expecting it to feel like yarn. But it didn’t, the yarn was taut and warm and pulsating. Sydney thought at first it was just her own blood, coursing through her veins so fast, but it wasn’t. The doll had a pulse and a warm, faint breath brushed against Sydney’s palm.

“What in the hell?”

“You brought yourself here with magic you didn’t understand,” Madra said. “It’s best you leave here with magic you couldn’t never even dream of. Take out that key and hold it.”

With her other hand, Sydney took out the key. It was to a Honda Civic that she could only barely remember being brown or maybe red with balled-out tires and a cracked rearview mirror. Her father had left for work one morning when she was seven in the Civic and never returned. The police gave her mother the key back, as if she wanted a momento from that time her husband’s car was t-boned by an 18-wheeler. Sydney’s mother hadn’t wanted it, but Sydney had carried it everywhere, always in her front pocket.

Madra produced a scrawny orange pumpkin spotted green. Cracking it open, she slapped the guts into the dirt and then spat three times. Next came a wand, which Sydney soon realized was a pen, or had been in some long-ago time. The witch stirred the pumpkin’s guts with her spit, chanting some incantation in a language no mortal had ever known. It was guttural, lacking vowels or any discernible form.

“Place the Gralla,” Madra said, pointing to the breathing, slimy doll in Sydney’s hand and indicating to put it on the pumpkin’s guts, which were beginning to smolder.

Madra handed Sydney the darning needle.

“Stab it.”

“I can’t.”

“It has to be you.”

“I”

The witch slapped her, and Sydney responded by plunging the needle into the doll. It cried, wailing like a baby left too long without food or changing. It cried out like hope was something that could be ripped from one’s soul like a piece of candy from a child’s hand. Sydney pulled her hand back, leaving the needle inside the doll, tears streaming down her face. When she looked up, the witch was gone, except from her eyes. They glowed a moment in the ether through the space between them which was now considerable then they were gone.

Sydney looked around, she was in an alley between two brick buildings and before her was a mouse, skewered by a rusty nail. She heard traffic and smelled grilled meats. She didn’t know where she was, but she knew she was closer to home.

Contest Entry: NYC Midnight

This past weekend I participated in the second round of the nycmidnight.com flash fiction contest. The challenge is to write a story 1,000 words or less in 48 hours based on the prompt they provide. 

With this contest, you are put in groups of about 30 writers each with the same prompt. In each of the first two rounds, the judges score the top 15 stories. So, get first place, you get 15 points. The scores of the first two rounds are combined, and the five writers with the most points move on to the third round where you are placed in new groups of about 30. There are four rounds (the final being everyone writing off the same prompt), and the top ten writers will receive cash and prizes with the top prize being $1,000. 

I have never advanced to the third round in the flash fiction contest, but I did score 14 points on the first-round story, the best that I've done. I would share that story, but I like it, and will be looking to submit it various places to get published, so I don't want it out there for free. 

I am going to share my second round story. The prompt was: 

Genre: Fairy Tale

Setting: An Uninhabited Island. 

Object: Butter

So, I had to follow those. I am fairly happy with the story. I don't think it's as strong as the first round, and I don't have any long-term plans for the story. If you get a chance, check it out at the link below and let me know what you think. 

https://bit.ly/3Ahluyv

I don't generally enter these contests to win, but to get story ideas or characters or scenes that might evolve into a better story or a longer work. It's good practice and I encourage other writers to enter contests like this to sharpen your skills. 

Stories from the Beat - Yeah, I’m Going There, Sort Of.

 

Unless some unlikely scenario occurs, this will be the first fall in eighteen years that I won’t cover some sort of sporting event for Sauk Valley Media. Whoops, I should amend that. I didn’t cover sports in the Fall of 2020 because there were not many local sports to cover thanks to COVID-19. So, this is the first fall with all local sports occurring since 2003 that my name won’t appear in sports section ink for any SVM publication.

Why? Oh, there’s the long-winded version of that story, and the straight-to-the-point version. The middle road is this: I worked at SVM full-time for a decade (give or take), rising to the rank of Sports Editor. I left in late 2015 because I got a gig that allowed for a personal life. I accepted a part-time position to help the crew in the fall of 2016. That position was a casualty of COVID. This fall the offer from SVM to provide content as a freelancer (or Stringer in newspaper parlance) didn’t equal the value I give my free time. No hard feelings and life moved on.

I could fill two blogs with my thoughts on my former employer, on my former profession, and the relationship between media and the public. I don’t doubt some would enjoy that, as some would see it as an airing of dirty laundry for an industry that is in the public’s crosshairs now more than ever.

But that’s not me.

First, while I am not fond of the current direction of Shaw Media (the parent company of Sauk Valley Media), I was treated reasonably well during my tenure. I was able to work with tremendously talented people, and, for a time, we produced one of the best small-section sport sections in the country. I also have tremendous respect for the employees that remain at SVM, plugging away through morale-crushing blow after blow.

Second, I believe in journalism. I believe in asking questions that rankle the hairs of those in power (I don’t care about what letter is behind those people’s name either). I believe in telling the public what is happening in the most accurate terms possible. I believe journalism is the source of information for the citizenry. I believe journalism can also provide thoughts, opinions, and guidance. Will I agree with everything journalism produces? No, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m right and its wrong.

Finally, and this was 100 percent true. Whenever someone in a position of power started complaining to me and my colleagues about doing our jobs, calling us names, and frankly, being rude. They were always (let’s say that loud) ALWAYS the ones hiding something. So, when you flip on the TV and some talking head tells you not to believe the media, trust that they are hiding something, and want to keep it that way, and when it’s exposed, hope you won’t believe the people reporting it.

So, what the hell is this post about?

Well, part of this blog is going to be about my time at SVM, but only in how it relates to my writing journey. So, probably not juicy (well maybe a little), but if you’re breaking into writing there are lessons to be gleaned from my experiences.

My “Stories from the Beat” will talk about writing, reporting, listening, and learning. Stay tuned for more.

Write on – Rock Falls Writing Group

Something I didn’t know about until the winter of the 2019 was that the Sauk Valley had a writing group. I found out about the group at the Festival of Trees at Northland Mall – the group had decorated a tree for the festivities and silent auction. I finally was able to attend a couple meetings late in 2019 and early 2020 before COVID-19 restrictions halted in-person meetings. I worried that after finding a group that the pandemic might shut off another avenue.

We were able to meet a few times online, but participation was low. Late last spring, as restrictions started to ease, we were able to meet in-person again.

If you are an aspiring writer, joining a writing group can be a vital support system and provide a chance to bounce your ideas off other people – real people and not
pithy online trolls. It is also an opportunity to meet other talented writers and learn about the projects they are working on.

If you think a writing group might be a help to you, and you live in the Sauk Valley, then I recommend you stop by.

We meet the first and third Tuesday of every month at Harvest Time Bible Church in Rock Falls. The meetings begin at 7 p.m. and lasts two hours.

The first Tuesday of the month is Constructive Critique. Writers sign up to read pieces to the group and they are reviewed. It is always constructive and covers the positives as well as suggested changes.

The third Tuesday is Creative Cafe. Prompts are provided and we are given time, typically between 45-60 minutes to write using either previous material or a given prompt. Writers can then choose whether or not to read aloud.

There are announcements, recap of what is going on in the area and planning for various events. Reading and signing up for Constructive Critique is NOT required to show up to group.

Poetry – Not a Complete Waste

Every August, my wife and I enter about as much as humanly possible into the Carroll County Fair. I can’t say why we do it, must be something faulty in our wiring. We each spend considerable time throughout the year contemplating different categories we might be able to enter. The last couple of years (not counting the COVID-19 year of isolation), the fair has offered two writing categories in the adult education section. One is a short story of under a thousand words. That’s any easy one for me. As I discussed in a previous post, I enter a Flash Fiction contest every year, so I usually have at least two stories to choose from to enter. 

 The other category is a poem of no more than four stanzas. I’ve never written poetry, and while I certainly read plenty of it at college – you know the stuff – Shakespeare’s sonnets, Milton’s epic, a little T.S. Eliot, a few others that sleep latently in some neuropath of my mind – I never really fully grasped most poetry. I can tell you about it, sort of like I can tell you about politics, but truthfully, I don’t understand it. 

Still, I wanted to challenge myself, so I entered the poetry category without having one in mind, and I have to admit that there is some masculine, pre-evolved part of me that thinks poetry and then thinks I have to write about flowers or sunrises or love. I know better, but that’s still where my mind goes first. It took a day or two to break my mind out of that trap. 

 The first thing I wanted was a structure. I knew if I could commit to some type of poem, I could focus on structure and then worry about content. I am a subscriber to Writer’s Digest and each issue they have a page called the “Poetic Aside” that introduces a form of poetry. One of the old issues I had demonstrated a form called a “Rime Couee.” Here’s the bullet point breakdown: 

• Six-line stanzas. 
• Eight syllables in lines one, two, four, and five. 
• Six syllables in lines three and six. 
• Rhyme scheme: aabccb. (For those that didn’t study poetry, that’s the end word rhyme scheme, so lines 1 and 2 would rhyme, lines 3 and 6 would rhyme, and lines 4 and 5 would rhyme). 

Next was a topic. I decided I wanted to write a sci-fi poem. Something off the wall. I had few strains of ideas from various stories that I had started but never finished and I sort of mixed them into a poem soup. The two major ones being “The Wretches” which I conceived as breeds of humans mixed with animals engineered by scientists for various functions. The second was the standard post-apocalyptic world of “The Waste.” From there, I came up with a poem called the “The Waste.” 

 While I doubt I’ll ever become a serious poet, the value of writing poetry is that it forces the writer to be focused on word-choice, something that is important in prose, but can often get lost when writing longer pieces. So, I think I’ll keep trying poetry, at least writing one each year for the fair. (By the way, this one was awarded the blue ribbon, beating the one other poem that was entered.) 

 With no further ado, here is my one and (so far) only poem: 

The Waste 

Max chased the Wretches to the waste 

Such beings bred from scientists’ haste 

A blend of man and beast 

Conjured in labs for tasks discrete 

Controlling the brood proved a feat 

Till peace time here did cease. 

From corners and cages they flew 

As bombs dropped at morning’s dew 

Raging, frantic, incensed 

A spirit of boldness soon grew 

Freedom taught the Wretches life true 

Bonds no longer made sense. 

 

Enter our hero of pure stock 

Max, a born leader of the flock 

Determined, committed 

To wrangling the Wretches in field 

But the brood refused to yield 

Could they be outwitted? 

The waste, the devil surely carved 

A place where all creatures soon starved

Cruel, careless creators 

Cursing the brood to such sad fate 

That man always held heaven’s gate 

Unmasks God’s true traitors.