  Short Stories
This week: The Watcher Edited by: Shannon  
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Welcome to the Short Stories Newsletter. I am Shannon and I'm your editor this week. |
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"Let’s get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up." ~ Stephen King
I was at the gym yesterday, sweating profusely as I scrambled like a hamster on a treadmill set at a 10-degree incline. The treadmills face a wall of windows that overlook the parking lot, the freeway beyond, and wide open fields beyond that. Since I spend an hour at the gym four times a week, I've gotten in the habit of watching people as they come and go. When someone leaves I try to guess which car is theirs. Sometimes people arrive and circle the lot three or more times looking for the closest parking space, which baffles me because ... hello, you're at the gym! Shouldn't you walk a little? Isn't exercise the whole point?
Anyway, I watched a woman walk out to her car and swing the driver-side door open so forcefully that she dinged the car next to her. I was appalled; it's why I always park at the far end of the lot where there aren't any other cars. She appeared not to notice. After a time she found what she was looking for and started to head back inside, then she stopped, turned, and walked back to her car. Again, she swung the driver-side door open and hit the car beside her. I was like, What the hell?
Of course, before I left the gym I reported what I'd seen; I'd've appreciated someone else doing just that had it been my car getting the crap beat out of it. I thought, What kind of person does that?
Stephen King says, "We're supposed to be the secret agents of the arts. We cruise around and see what you guys are doing and end up putting it in books." He talks about how Cujo was inspired by a real-life encounter with "the biggest goddamn Saint Bernard dog you ever saw in your life"--a 150-pound behemoth named Buster, and he estimates he can tell you where his ideas came from 50% of the time because they were inspired by something he saw, overheard, read about, or experienced, after which he asked himself "What if?"
Here are a few odd things I've experienced over the years:
 When I was very young, under the age of five, a babysitter in our town (Anchorage, Alaska) was arrested for inserting pins into babies' soft spots. When I asked my mom a few years ago whether or not it is an actual memory, she was shocked. "You can remember that? You were like four at the time!"
Several years ago my husband and I were in Seattle visiting friends. We were in a food court eating lunch when I noticed a woman sitting in a corner with a basket at her feet. People walked by, tossing in spare change. There were a few wadded bills on top, but the sum wasn't enough to buy much of anything. She looked frail and malnourished, so we decided to buy her lunch. We handed her the meal and went back to our seats. We watched, stunned, as she stood, walked to the garbage can, and tipped the untouched food inside.
In 1978, when I was 10 years old, a brother and sister who lived across the street from us--kids we saw all the time and played with on a regular basis--vanished from their home in Sterling, Alaska. They're missing to this day.
In August of 2005 my husband and I traveled from Idaho to San Francisco to attend a Dave Matthews concert. The event took place at SBC Park (now called AT&T Park), but we had a few hours to kill before the show and my husband wanted to walk around the city; he was hellbent on going to the Tenderloin District. Now, we both grew up in very small towns (fewer than 1,000 people), and everything we "knew" about the Tenderloin District we'd seen on TV, but it was enough to scare me and I didn't want to go. He said, "I'm six-two, two-fifty. No one's going to mess with us. Besides, it's broad daylight. We'll be fine." So we went. After an hour or two we decided it was time to head back to the hotel to get ready for the concert. As we waited for the all-clear to cross a busy intersection, a homeless man sidled up next to me. My husband looked him in the eye and said, "How's it going?" to which the guy replied, "Man, I just got me a shot of penicillin. That sh*t hurts!"
I'm a people watcher. I read Weird News, peruse Missed Connections, and watch Dark5 videos. I pay attention to my surroundings and remember odd interactions. I eavesdrop, and when I can't eavesdrop I let others do it for me.
The babysitter incident was turned into an essay, and my missing friends morphed into a short story. As far as the other three examples (car dinger, basket lady, penicillin man) ... it wouldn't take much for me to flesh them out into something worth reading. They involve interesting characters, and readers are drawn to interesting characters "like white on rice in a glass of milk on a paper plate in a snowstorm," as Major Payne would say. Sometimes all it takes is adding a dash of experience/memory/overheard conversation to a pinch of something else--a photo prompt, for instance--and Voilà! A story is born, as was the case with my short story "The Game."
In June of 2008, I was honored to meet David Morrell, author of the famous John J. Rambo novels, at a writing conference. Someone in the crowd asked Mr. Morrell where he got the idea for Rambo. David said, "I was watching the Smothers Brothers television show and Glen Campbell came on singing Gentle on my Mind. It was like a video, and Glen was walking down a remote railroad track with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. I thought, What if he was a Vietnam vet? and the story evolved from there." (See my complete newsletter about this conference here: "I Ate Lunch With Rambo" .)
When you see something, experience something, read about or overhear something interesting, ask yourself "What if?" You might be surprised by where your muse leads you.
"Anytime you write something, you go through so many phases. You go through the I'm a Fraud phase. You go through the I'll Never Finish phase. And every once in a while you think, What if I actually have created what I set out to create, and it's received as such?" ~ Lin-Manuel Miranda
Have you written a story based on personal experience, a memory, or an overheard conversation? Send me your thoughts, comments, and links to your work and I will include them in next month's newsletter.
P.S. Everyone who shares their thoughts about this week's topic will receive an exclusive trinket. I will retire this month's limited-edition trinket on April 19, 2017, when my next short stories newsletter goes live.
Thank you for reading.
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I hope you enjoy this week's featured selections. I occasionally feature static items by members who are no longer with us; some have passed away, while others simply aren't active members. Their absence doesn't render their work any less relevant, and if it fits the week's topic I will include it.
Thank you, and have a great week!
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The following is in response to "The Horror"
Boulden Shade (fka Jeff Meyer) writes: Thank you for a great outline on some of the fundamentals of horror writing.
I would also offer some comments of my own on writing horror.
Contrast: "It's always darkest before the storm" is a true phrase because the black storm clouds are contrasted starkly against the blue sky. It makes for a dramatic, captivating picture. Similarly, in writing horror, contrasting the terrible, the grisly, and the shocking against the normal everyday stuff lends it an impact and a context that is invaluable for the reader to judge just how horrible the horror is. (Stephen King is a very fine example of this.)
Gore: With Grand Theft Auto, Resident Evil, and Left 4 Dead (among others), many societies have become numb to blood and guts. After all: it's just blood. The truest terror is what the mind can do. The Blair Witch Project, often lampooned, was nonetheless a perfect example of letting the audience's mind create the horror. My stand on gore: only what's necessary.
Resolution: While I agree that a resolution is often most satisfying, I find that horror often satisfies when the bad guy wins. The devil tries, the human fights, the devil wins. What could be more horrifying than such an ending as: "He loved Big Brother?"
Thanks for the notes, again, and for taking a look at my own comments and (perhaps) short story.
Have a great day!
Beacon's Light  writes: Hi there
I want to learn and write more stories but I really enjoy reading Books like Stephen King which I have some of his books. we need to encourage one another.
thank you
Beacon40
willwilcox writes: You did good, Shannon, real good.
paddy1 writes: I've started dabbling writing scary stories lately, for the Daily Flash Fiction contest. I like having the three words prompt and 300 words limit, as I never quite know where I'll go from the prompt. My latest was actually based on components of a real-life spooky experience.
Osirantinous  writes: I agree that that poem is a little on the creepy side but I suppose he's talking about an imaginary friend???? Which could, frankly, be just as creepy!! I was a huge fan of Grimm's fairy tales growing up but it wasn't really until I was adult that I took notice of how absolutely nasty some of them are in terms of cruelty and fear - really makes me think that kids and adults have a different view entirely or... as a child I just read the story for the story's sake and didn't think much outside of the story. In any case, I didn't find them scary back then!! Re what am I afraid of? Drowning - or rather suffocating, I think, or of being in a deadly situation and not being able to escape. In any case I attach one of my favourite horror/scary - and there's nothing really gory. I like self-made/psychological fear. Blood and guts is blood and guts, but a self-made psychological fear - well, that can grow and grow and grow. "Under the Bed"
Jade Amber Jewel writes: Hey Shannon!
Nice newsletter! Makes me want to try my hand at some horror.
Then again, I don't think my dad would let me try.
Maybe when I'm older... 
Though those elementary books you described, Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs, I didn't really think of those as scary, I even acted out The Three Little Pigs when I was in kindergarten, and Hansel and Gretel a few years ago.
Though those parts would scare a lot of other kids, just not this kid, when I was younger at least.
Though you needed to give me something that was completely horror, and then I would get scared, and some other things scared me that others would laugh at, so I won't tell. 
Sum1  writes: Shannon,
To me, this story is very real. Even today, at the ripe age of 62, I will not dangle any part of my body over the edge of the mattress. "Monsters Under Her Bed" [13+]
Princess Megan Rose 22 Years writes: I think we love watching scary movies and being scared. We don't live it. That is the beauty of it. What am I afraid of? Getting sick, kidnapped, raped, murdered, lost in a foreign country or being locked in a cage. These scare me more then supernatural things. Supernatural isn't real or is it? Supernatural intrigues me. Reality is scary. Good newsletter. Things to think about.
BIG BAD WOLF is hopping  writes: Always something going on.
Sally  writes: Thank you, Shannon, for another excellent newsletter. The Stevenson poem is so creepy - the difference 100 years make! I wonder if folk in 100 years time will read 'The Gruffalo', and think it really creepy and odd? I rarely read or write horror, but your ideas and information here have fuelled by imagination. Thank you!
Jacqueline writes: not my type of poem,
Moona writes: Hi Shannon,
I am not a horror fan, but read your piece because of a line in Leonard Cohen's song 'Amen' where he sings: 'Tell me again when I've seen through the horror.....'
You observe poignantly that there is a lot of horror in children's stories and fairy tales.
C.G. Jung and his colleague Marie-Louise von Franz (Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales) have tried to analyse this.
It is a long time since I read that book. In psychoanalysis the archetypes are actually inner states of the human being.
Maybe the passage through the womb into this world is so painful that children are naturally drawn to horror stories?
Or do parents swamp their children with tales of evil to keep them close by and meek?
Thank you for sharing the animation!
Jeff  writes: The two horror stories I'm most proud of in my port are "Evermore" and "Penance" . Interestingly, I think both of them are really an exploration of one of my greatest fears, which is having my own choices/ambitions/dreams twisted and then being forced to live with those consequences forever.
Bikerider  writes: Hi Shannon, and thanks for another informative newsletter. I think nearly all writers have struggled with the Show Don't Tell concept. While it can be difficult to grasp, learning and using it is probably one of the best things some of us can do to improve our writing. Showing emotions, fear, love, anger, etc., can be difficult, but worth the effort.
As always, I enjoyed your newsletter and I'm looking forward to the next one.
Bikerider
eyestar~* writes: Wow! This is really something to ponder--- I enjoyed the poems that I have not read in a long time. They really illustrate your theme. Your point about how even in children's lore there is a fascination with creepy is thought provoking! Your tips on writing the genre are interesting as well. I do not read much or write in that genre though I have done. Spiders creep me out---but I wrote my one and only scary piece about them some time ago and seem to have a more detached attitude toward them as totems. Still... ! Silence of the Lambs movie freaked me out and I wouldn't watch the next one. LOL I really appreciated this edition! I always learn something from your work. Thanks Shannon.
Hannah ♫♥♫ writes: Hi, Shannon, I enjoyed reading your newsletter. I definitely think in the past we used horror to keep kids in line, which is scary in itself! I like to writer milder horror tales such as the one I submitted. I never tell people what I am afraid of or they might use it against me! I know as a kid other kids did just that!
Mare ~ extended hiatus writes: It's funny that you highlight "show don't tell". I was reviewing a piece and talked about that. It was a huge obstacle for me when writing my memoir. It really does make a huge difference in the whole feel of the story.
dragonwoman writes: I love the Shel Silverstein poem called the Skin Stealer. Really creepy and not like anything else I've read of his.
Dragon is hiding  writes: I highly dislike horror, although there was period in freshman year of uni when that was all I would write. I think it was a way of coping with the stuff we were learning in humanities, because I definitely wasn't comfortable with the material.
Brooklyn  writes: I love your newsletters! Can you believe I had never heard of The Gashlycrumb Tinies or Edward Gorey? You always share the coolest things! Poor Olive. I jumped when it struck her in the face!  I can't imagine learning the alphabet to that. I missed out! Great NL!
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Short Stories: March 22, 2017 Issue [#8148]
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