Tag Archives: outside the tower

November 16, 2012

…and they lived happily ever after.

On Monday, I did a post on first lines in literature, and today I’m going to look at the last lines of stories. The first line of a story does not have to be brilliant, but it is important as the reader’s first impression of the story. The last line is even less important, of course, because the reader has already read the entire story and the last line is not going to make much difference either way. The only exception is a writer like H.P. Lovecraft, who often revealed the twist of the whole story in the very last sentence.

Still, I am interested in last lines. Most are nothing special, but some of them sum up the whole story very beautifully and leave the reader with a lasting impression of things. Here are some of the ones I really like, but first an explanation and caveat: first lines are often very quotable because they don’t rely on any context. They can’t; they’re the first sentence. But last lines only make sense when taken with the book as a whole. And there are often spoilers. I couldn’t tell you the last line of “The Wasp Factory” by Iain Banks without giving away the major plot twist. Anyway…

“We look forward to getting you back.” Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk. This is so perfect because it has a hint of foreboding. The main character escaped and you thought the story was over. It isn’t…

“The creatures outside looked pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” Animal Farm, by George Orwell. This is the perfect ending for this, since that’s the whole point of the book, that the pigs eventually become exactly like the thing they tried to get rid of.

“And, feeling better, fixed herself at last a cup of black, hot coffee.” Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. I like this because I think a cup of coffee is a good end to anything.

And probably my favorite ending to a book for sheer poignancy and summing things up is from Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien.

“‘Well, I’m back,’ he said.”

Do you know any good last lines? Do you put much work into them in your own writing? Share your thoughts in the comments.

14 Comments | tags: last lines, literature, outside the tower, writing | posted in Uncategorized

November 12, 2012

It was a dark and stormy night…?

By David Stewart

I love working on the first line of a story, especially a novel. The first sentence sets the tone for the whole book. It’s the first impression and if it’s off, it can sour the rest of the book for the reader. The first sentence will always be more memorable than the 100th sentence, so it has to be better.

So, what’s important to say in the first sentence? Many writers introduce their characters, since they are central to the story. Some introduce the landscape. A commonly held no-no is to start with the weather because usually the weather is trivial. One of my novel’s first lines is: “The air in the room felt close, like a cave, and the darkness smelled like baby powder and diaper rash cream.” There, I was trying to introduce the setting, but also set the mood and also give foreshadowing for the story to come, since it’s about babies and darkness. Another, where I introduce the character right away is: “Jonah liked being a hunter.” That also is trying to give a setting for the whole story, since the whole story in one way or another, is about hunting.

Here are some books that I have in my house and their first lines:

“The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring cleaning his little home.” (The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame). This introduces the character and gives a tone for the rest of the book. It’s a domestic story about domestic problems, and also about animals.

“A mile above Oz, the Witch balanced on the wind’s forward edge, as if she were a green fleck of the land itself, flung up and sent wheeling away by the turbulent air.” (Wicked, by Gregory Maguire). Another character introduction. This is actually in the prologue of the story, I think. It introduces the Witch as solitary and disconnected with the rest of the world, a problem she has through the whole story.

“Marley was dead: to begin with.” (A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens). Dickens was wonderful at first lines. This just grabs you and throws you into the story.

“Coraline discovered the door a little while after they moved into the house.” (Coraline, by Neil Gaiman). This first sentence introduces the character and also shows right away what is important in the story by saying “the door” instead of “a door” as if we should already know about it.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” (Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen). I think this is another of those classic first lines that lays out the whole book in a single sentence.

And then, the first line that I read and just laughed and laughed. Good or bad is for you to decide, but it definitely grabs you: “It was a long day, the day Axis tried to kill Azhure, then married her.” (Starman, by Sara Douglass).

Do you have any favorite first lines from novels? What are some of your own? Let me know. 🙂

23 Comments | tags: first lines, literature, outside the tower, writers, writing | posted in Uncategorized

November 9, 2012

Things Never to Tell Your Mother

By David Stewart

Sometimes I’m surprised I survived to see adulthood. I think that about a lot of kids actually, especially after seeing Youtube fail compilations.

The following is a true story. There was a large river near our house when I was in high school. Parts of it went through a high gorge just below the big waterfall our town was named after. I would go down and climb on the rocks by the water and have a great time. One time, I decided to climb up the cliff face right under the bridge that went across the gorge. It was over sixty feet high and I didn’t have any ropes, but I was a good climber, and if there is anything teenagers have, it’s recklessness confidence.

The actual river, just down from where I climbed up.

I got about two thirds of the way up and ran into trouble. The rock became friable, breaking off in my hand. There were no solid handholds. I couldn’t go back down and directly below me were sharp rocks and the fast, swirling water of the river. Also, no one knew where I was. I started praying hard for God to get me out of there safely.

There were obviously guardian angels clocking some overtime, because I managed to get around the hard area and get up to the top. I’d like to say I learned something from the experience and maybe I did, but what I should have known was this was not something to tell my mother. This is the sort of thing that gives mothers (and later, wives) heart attacks.

So, later that evening: “Guess what, Mom? I almost died today.”

What a bad son.

9 Comments | tags: climbing, danger, outside the tower, river, true story | posted in Uncategorized

November 7, 2012

What I learned about writing from Cambodian children

By David Stewart

If you’ve ever visited Cambodia, you know that the whole country has an entrepreneurial spirit. People offer you rides on their scooters for a price, men sell cut sugarcane, and children mob you selling postcards, handmade crafts, books, and pretty much anything and everything else.

The competition is beyond stiff and you see a whole range of tactics, from super aggressive to friendly. I was the most impressed with the children. The best ones immediately told you their name, asked your name, where you were from, told you facts about your home country, and anything they could to make an impression and develop a rapport. They did it fast too–they had about ten seconds maximum to make you want to buy their products and not the next person’s.

It worked too. I was much more likely to buy something from Jentha who had two brothers and a sister at home and called me by my name and could name the capital of my country, than I was from some random little girl offering me five postcards for a dollar when I already had all the postcards I needed.

I realized that this is a little like fiction, especially short fiction and especially blog fiction. People are more likely to give a novel a chance to develop the plot and characters, but on a blog, people who are clicking around randomly have half a million other blogs to choose from, so why do they choose mine?

The title, of course, is important to draw people in, but also the first paragraph. With blog writing, the currency is not money, but time, and I know for myself, it is often the first paragraph, that part that shows up in the summary, that determines if I’m going to read more or not.

Of course, there is another aspect. For the children this process is all about selling. They learn the names of perhaps hundreds of tourists a day and probably forget them almost instantly, but it was also easy to tell those who were only after the money and those who were also truly friendly and engaging. Blogging is not just selling our blogs, it’s also about building relationships. We should be engaging and attractive, but we also have to be honest. People are attracted to authenticity and can tell if it’s not there.

11 Comments | tags: blogging, Cambodia, children, outside the tower, writing | posted in Uncategorized

November 5, 2012

Good Idea, Bad Idea: Milk

By David Stewart

Hello friends of blog, greetings from upper chamber of the Green-Walled Tower, where I’ve been busy with Nano for the last few days. It’s been going well and I just passed 12,000 words. Hopefully I can keep that momentum going and keep the story flowing.

Now, as Monty Python said, for something completely different:
Did you ever watch Animaniacs? It was a Warner Brothers cartoon in the 90’s that had a segment called Good Idea, Bad Idea. If you’ve never seen it, or want to watch it again, here’s the complete compilation of all of them.

Here a Good Idea, Bad Idea from my own life.

Buying milk: good idea

Putting milk in the trunk: okay idea

Forgetting about milk: bad idea

Leaving milk in trunk for several months: very bad idea

Discovering milk when it finally eats through its plastic container and then eats through the metal of the trunk and drips on the ground: very very bad idea

Yes, that actually happened. Early in our marriage, my wife and I went grocery shopping at night. We got home and said, “Didn’t we buy milk? Oh well, I guess not.” Literally months later, I noticed something white dripping on the ground. I opened to trunk to find the milk jug mostly empty, a hole in the bottom of it, and a hole in the bottom of the trunk. I guess we hadn’t opened our trunk much, since I’m sure we would have noticed the smell. So there you have it: in case you were wondering, milk can eat through a trunk.

(By the way, if you’re anywhere applicable, Happy Bonfire Night/Guy Fawkes Night. Go burn something for me.)

6 Comments | tags: car, funny, good idea bad idea, milk, nanowrimo, outside the tower, true story, writing | posted in Light

October 6, 2012

When Life Intervenes (aka “Where’s Isabelle”?)

By David Stewart

Tragic news, everyone. Part 4 of Isabelle’s Story is not ready yet, even though I said it would be up today. The good news is that it should be ready tomorrow. I really try to post things when I say I will, but as the title says, life intervenes sometimes.

In this case, I went rafting today with my friend. It was kind of a last minute thing, but if you know me in real life, you’ll know I’m adventurous and spontaneous. If you don’t know me in real life, well, now you know.

The river is known as the Mangyeonggang, which is practically unpronounceable when written in English. In Korean, it’s 만경강. I didn’t take any pictures, since I didn’t want to get the camera wet or damaged but here is a picture of the river by someone else.

As you can see, there are large masses of vegetation, as well as frequent breakwaters built across the river to slow the water down in the rainy seasons. We had to portage around four of those, but on the other side of them, the water was fast and went through corridors of tall grass and reeds, often in convoluted S-shapes. It was very fun. Here’s an aerial picture.

So that’s why the story isn’t ready. Unless I go sky-diving tomorrow, it should be up then. (In the meantime, you can catch up with the first story, Isabelle’s Island, or Part 1, Part 2, or Part 3 of The Other Side: Isabelle’s Story, if you haven’t read them yet.)

In the spirit of sharing, what are some times when life intervened on your scheduled writing?

8 Comments | tags: Korea, outside the tower, rafting, river, writing | posted in Uncategorized

September 22, 2012

Let the Cast Assemble

By David Stewart

If you read my blog regularly, you know that I tend to write a wide variety of stories with many different characters. However, if you were really paying attention, you know that a few characters have come up more than once.

The first of these is Klista. She first appeared in the story See the World Through a Cardboard Tube! and then recently in The Recruitment of Bruce Riansson.

Klista is a mysterious character. She is a woman who apparently has no trouble traveling between worlds or even quickly in space. Where she comes from is unknown. She often wears a red cloak and carries a bag of strange, possibly magical, items. As for what she does, she tells Bruce Riansson to “think of me as a type of guide. I show secrets to people who need them and who are worthy.” What this actually means, will be explored in later stories.

Joining her is Bruce Riansson, a former innkeeper who was exiled from his home country of Indrake for harboring a fleeing traitor. Because The Recruitment of Bruce Riansson occurred first, Bruce is actually the unnamed male assistant in See the World Through a Cardboard Tube!

The second recurring character is Horus Vere. He was the main character in The Mermaid’s Kiss and I Was on Trial Once… He come from the same world as Bruce Riansson and is a professional traveler, who seeks adventure and whatever profit he can make along the way.

A third character who will become a recurring character is Edward “The Squid” Morrison, who appeared in the recent story Saturday, 4am. He is an extortionist and scavenger in post-apocalyptic England who is out to find what he calls “hidden pearls” of the old world, the time Before. He is accompanied by his recently-acquired android follower, Droog.

I will still write unrelated stories, but I will write more stories to expand these three story arcs. Let me know if there is one character whose stories you particularly enjoy and I will try to do more with them.

7 Comments | tags: Edward Morrison, fantasy, fiction, Horus Vere, Klista, outside the tower, science fiction, writing | posted in Uncategorized

July 20, 2012

Outside the Tower: Update on “It Only Takes Once”

By David Stewart

As you had probably guessed (by the “fiction” tag), the story I wrote a while back, It Only Takes Once is fiction. However, as I mentioned in the comments, it does take place in the apartment I’m currently living in. As I sit at my computer, I can look into the bathroom and see the window where the hand appeared. This one:

The following is true, by the way. Just so there’s no confusion. A few minutes ago, as I was sitting at my computer, alone in the dark, the light went on in the hall. The motion-sensor light. I suddenly heard this “squeak, squeak, squeak” over the sound of my music and I looked into the bathroom. Through the frosted glass window I could see my neighbor’s door moving back and forth really fast. Maybe it was just sitting in the dark alone like this, but it reminded me of the rapid, jerky movement of the haunted rocking chair in the movie The Woman in Black.

After about 20 seconds, the door slowly closed and the light went off. I’m sure there is a perfectly natural explanation for it all, but it made me really excited, because what if there wasn’t?