Plot? Characters? Conflict? HOW!?

How do people come up with this stuff? Honestly? 

I made the decision to work through this textbook and I've not gotten very far. There are seven exercises at the end of chapter one. My last two posts were exercises three and four:

• Exercise three: Write a short paragraph outlining the conflict between two characters. Then write the crisis scene for this conflict, a scene in which one of the characters “changes his/her mind,” or realizes something, understands something not understood before, moves from one emotional state to its opposite. Make sure the internal change is shown in, or triggered by, an external action.

• Exercise four: Write a short story that is a short story in exactly 100 words. Notice that if you’re going to manage a conflict, crisis, and resolution in this short compass, you’ll have to introduce the conflict immediately.

Exercise four took four times as long as exercise three. Partly because it's so short. Partly because it took me ages to figure out exactly what the conflict, crisis, and resolution were in concrete terms even once I had a topic in mind. Partly because my entire personality as a writer is setting the scene, apparently.

Anyway, I hated it. The next exercise is to write a short story under five pages where the protagonist seems weaker than their opposing forces, but they have one balancing strength that leads them to triumph.

The problem is, where do the characters come from? Where does the plot come from? Let me paint an atmospheric picture all day, but when it comes time to populate it and pull the little puppet strings... where does that stuff come from? I don't have a shop full of puppets and play scripts rattling around up here.

I wanted to tackle the next exercise while I'm here at the library — I can't write at home, my laptop died. But, I finished the final 45 words of Talia (last week's library time netted me 55 words), read the next prompt and promptly wanted to exit the building. I figure at least if I can't bring myself to write more fiction, I could at least write a blog post and complain about the whole thing.

So here we are. I need this textbook to tell me where these ideas are supposed to come from. I'd really like to say, "Well, I completed 5 out of 7, that's not bad. Time for the next chapter!" But the whole point of this is to really challenge myself and to actually practice things I'm not good at. So I'M GOING TO DO ALL OF IT.

Or eventually give up out of dread and the misery of self-imposed pressure.

The conflict? Me vs. me, trying to create something out of nothing. The crisis? Facing this next textbook exercise. The resolution? TBD.

Ghostwriting

The backspace key has a distinctly shameful sound, whether you’ve noticed or not. Talia has. Her middle finger salutes her idiocy again as Talia taps another useless paragraph into the void.

Clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack. Talia remembers the train, and the passive progress of being carried.

Eyelids in slow motion, Talia leans back and lets muddled memories, impressions, and associations tunnel up and out her fingertips. Talia types.

The library closing announcement wakes her. She is ashamed. Ashamed she slept. Ashamed she didn't write anything. She moves to turn off the machine and freezes. On the screen: the best work she's ever done.

Charles, Gary, and a Taste of Salt

Charles was desperate for a bite of popcorn shrimp. Salty, succulent, shrimp. 

He tried staring with the intensity of a thousand dogs. His owner looked away. He tried whining. His owner pretended not to hear. Finally, driven to desperation after seeing another precious shrimp disappear between his owner’s bearded lips, Charles committed the ultimate sin. He barked. And, for the first time in days (Charles was a good dog), Charles heard the hated word: “no.” 

“Lie down,” commanded Gary, in his sharpest, most authoritative voice. Gary believed pets, as a rule, shouldn’t have “people food,” and they certainly shouldn’t pester you while you’re eating. He watched as Charles slunk across the room, back to his bed in the corner. 

Gary almost didn’t notice the regular tapping of Charles’ nails on the hardwood, a sound he’d heard a thousand times. But the tapping paused, replaced by a skittering scrabble. Charles’s hips gave out and his rear end thumped on the floor. 

“Oh, Charles!” Gary gasped. 

Charles looked back at his master, his friend, embarrassed. He stood and finished the short journey. 

Gary was shaken. Charles was his only friend and such a good dog. He so rarely broke a rule. And, Gary had to face the truth: he also broke a rule. He always took meals in the kitchen, not the den. And he broke his own rule because he was too tired. His legs were too dang sore today to sit in the kitchen chairs. 

He wasn’t as resilient as he used to be. Neither, he realized, was Charles. If Gary could bend the rules for himself, why not for Charles. 

“Come here, boy,” Gary said, pulling a piece of popcorn shrimp from the red-striped cup. Charles looked up, his eyes jumping from the shrimp to his master and back. He rose, but remained standing in his bed. 

“It’s all right, Charles,” Gary crooned, “you’re a good boy, and we both deserve a break. Come and get a little shrimp, friend. Matter of fact, I think you deserve two.” Gary held a breaded shrimp between his fingers and extended his hand toward Charles. His eyes began to moisten. 

Charles saw the tears forming, and smelled the growing sadness (although it was harder to detect than usual, due to the popcorn shrimp). 

It was the grief that drew him to his master. He padded, slowly, to Gary’s knee, pausing with his face a respectful distance from the shrimp. But, when he sat, he was surprised to find his owner gazing deeply into his eyes, and offering the treat — there could be no mistake — bringing it to his very lips. 

Tenderly, Charles took the shrimp, and, if a dog can savor, that’s exactly what he did.