Start with a Line
"You're not who I thought you were."One of my friends whispered this in my ear as he gave me a hug. He had waved, and done a bit of a double-take as I approached. It struck me at the time as a double-entendre about identity. He's a clever friend, so it may have been. I'm a big fan of the Mad Men series, and (spoilers) it reminded me of the end of season five, when Don is at the bar and a woman asks him "Are you alone?" (spoilers) A whole story can be built around that sort of line.This exercise is taken from a book called Naming the World, by Bret Anthony Johnston. He's a professor of creative writing at Harvard, and the book is a collection of exercises that he has curated. In the interest of protecting his copyright, I won't post the entire description of the exercise, but suffice to say that it's taken from a section of the book about the most daunting of literary skills: "Getting Started."With that, I'll begin.***He sat at the dim-lit counter, without a drink or a cigarette, hands in his pockets. The wood of the bar had warped where the finish had worn off, and he watched as the bartender carefully slid drinks past the uneven section to customers. He hadn't taken off his coat or hat. He wasn't sure that he would stay.The guys at work called this place a dive. When it had come up in conversation, the silences had lasted a few seconds too long before a chorus of helluva place went up and the subject changed neatly. That evening he had wandered past its dingy windows and tried to see what kind of place it was. He couldn't see faces in the shadowy booths and had continued on his way before he was spotted.The next night, he couldn't say why, he had called his wife and told her he would be working late. She sounded exhausted and through a yawn told him she'd leave dinner in the oven for him. He could hear their infant son crying in the background. After dawdling behind his desk until the janitor had emptied every trash can but his, he wrapped himself in his overcoat and put on his hat and found himself in the bar they called a dive watching the bartender slide drinks along the counter.At the corner of the bar, a woman with long golden hair smiled at him. He kept his eyes straight ahead. He had to be sure. Her smile opened further, and she cocked her head coyly. He took his hands from his pockets, pushed himself up from his stool, and crossed the room to where she sat. She watched him approach, her chin raised toward him, but when he came close her face fell."Oh!" she said, clutching the large purse in her lap, "You're not who I thought you were."***This approach to a line may work best with TV shows, and less for short stories or novels: TV can display the emotion in the character's face when he or she hears the line. In written form, it's possible for readers to miss the double-entendre and be left wondering what the point of the whole thing was, whereas a double-entendre is harder for the ears to miss.To keep score, I'll be using the sections of Bret Johnston's book as categories in which I'll "level up" my skills. The exercises will come from multiple sources, but I'll stick to these groupings. So after today:Getting Started: 1Character: 0Point of View and Tone: 0Plot and Narrative: 0Dialogue and Voice: 0Descriptive Language and Setting: 0Revision: 0Overall: 0My goal - Overall: 100.Tune back tomorrow for work with character!