While working on this week's Post, I've been keeping abreast of the latest with the help of the ever-present Twitter. A remarkable event happened in the UK Parliament today: while the Prime Minister was speaking, a Member of Parliament ostentatiously arose from his seat, crossed the aisle, and sat down with the other party, thus changing the balance of power. (We can't do cool things like that in the US.)

Now, whether or not you think this was a good thing, depending on your personal politics, you have to admit that it was a dramatic thing to do. Which made me think, not about politics, but about writing.

No matter what the screenwriters seem to think, fiction shouldn't really be a breakneck rush from one action scene to another. Sure, if you're writing for Jason Statham, you have to write like that. If you pause too long between stunts, someone in the audience might realise that he can't act for toffee. But most of us hereabouts aren't writing pure action: and I'm glad. I think pure action is the most boring kind of writing there is. Personally, I like stories to be about something other than car chases and head-butting. Car chases and head-butting are all right in their place, but you want to have other elements in your stories: emotional states (other than sheer terror), philosophical reflections, moods, ideas. You see where I'm going with that.

But stories aren't just mood pieces, either. Something has to happen in them. And it's a very good thing if you can manage to make your action moment significant. If you can, make that moment stand out in a special way – one that will convey to the audience that this action moment is meaningful.

In other words: we should set up stories that work at least as well as Phillip Lee walking across the aisle in the middle of a parliamentary speech.

In the short story 'The Cop and the Anthem¹', O Henry shows us how it's done. Soapy is a homeless man in New York City. Winter's coming on, and he wants to be incarcerated in order to have a warm shelter and food at government expense. He tries various dodges, such as breaking a store window, but doesn't succeed in getting himself arrested. Where's a cop when you need one? he thinks. Then this happens.

But on an unusually quiet corner Soapy came to a standstill. Here was an old church, quaint and rambling and gabled. Through one violet-stained window a soft light glowed, where, no doubt, the organist loitered over the keys, making sure of his mastery of the coming Sabbath anthem. For there drifted out to Soapy's ears sweet music that caught and held him transfixed against the convolutions of the iron fence.


The moon was above, lustrous and serene; vehicles and pedestrians were few; sparrows twittered sleepily in the eaves – for a little while the scene might have been a country churchyard. And the anthem that the organist played cemented Soapy to the iron fence, for he had known it well in the days when his life contained such things as mothers and roses and ambitions and friends and immaculate thoughts and collars.


The conjunction of Soapy's receptive state of mind and the influences about the old church wrought a sudden and wonderful change in his soul. He viewed with swift horror the pit into which he had tumbled, the degraded days, unworthy desires, dead hopes, wrecked faculties and base motives that made up his existence.


And also in a moment his heart responded thrillingly to this novel mood. An instantaneous and strong impulse moved him to battle with his desperate fate. He would pull himself out of the mire; he would make a man of himself again; he would conquer the evil that had taken possession of him. There was time; he was comparatively young yet; he would resurrect his old eager ambitions and pursue them without faltering. Those solemn but sweet organ notes had set up a revolution in him. To-morrow he would go into the roaring downtown district and find work. A fur importer had once offered him a place as driver. He would find him to-morrow and ask for the position. He would be somebody in the world. He would –


Soapy felt a hand laid on his arm. He looked quickly around into the broad face of a policeman.


"What are you doin' here?" asked the officer.


"Nothin'," said Soapy.


"Then come along," said the policeman.


"Three months on the Island," said the Magistrate in the Police Court the next morning.

The moral of this story is obvious: organists should be careful with their instruments. Those things are dangerous weapons and ought to come with warnings. 'Attention: has been known to cause violent mood swings and possible religious conversion in susceptible individuals.'

The moral for writers is equally obvious: learn to do set-ups like O Henry. Your story will be the better for it.

Some years ago, I committed an essay on this site, called 'Prince Hershey of Kiss Encounters Nature, Somewhere on Top of Old Smoky'. It was about our dog Ariel, who is gone but never forgotten, a very dear friend of mine who used to sit underfoot while I wrote and follow me just about everywhere. There's a build-up in that essay, all about nature and Rousseau and dogs raised in cities and such, but the main point was that Ariel thought grass was a rare and exotic plant. He wouldn't pee or poop on it, ever. And we were on holiday in the Appalachian mountains, in a cabin, and he wasn't happy. There was no pavement. Here's the payoff.

At first he was puzzled. Where are the sidewalks, the urban canine's lavatory? Ariel refuses to 'go' on grass, which he apparently considers sacred. On a recent walk, I followed him and Elektra and discovered how Ariel – child of nature by birth, sophisticated urbanite by circumstance – coped with the problem. Straining at the leash, he doggedly hauled his human friend along the path beside the neighbouring cabin, up the hill...

...to the gravel, where, in the exact middle of the deserted road, he calmly conducted his business.

Now, I like that little story, because it makes me think of Ariel. I miss him. But it also illustrates my point: when you use an action or event in the course of your story, try to set it up so that the significance of the event is clear to the reader as it happens. That way, you've framed the event nicely, like a jewel in a setting. You've given your narrative more depth. You've also subtly helped the reader meet you halfway in the tale. It's a win/win strategy.

If that parliamentarian can do as much, we might be in for some surprises.

Writing Right with Dmitri Archive

Dmitri Gheorgheni

23.09.19 Front Page

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