Some Notes on my recently published short story, "Help Wanted"

Have you read my short story in the

Craig Clevenger

edited Diner Noir

Outcast Press

anthology: Turn Out the Lights and Cry?

They posted it free to read as a sample of the noir delights within their anthology, so click the link below and read it before continuing to some of my quick reflections on the piece below.

Help Wanted

A couple years ago, when Craig Clevenger tweeted out the submission call for this anthology, I jumped at the chance to submit. Okay, I didn’t jump. I sat down and typed. But in my heart, I hoped that whatever words I wrote would make you jump.

Craig Clevenger being an author whose work you should read and whose craft essays you should study. Fans of Chuck Palahniuk turned me on to Craig, who in turn turned me on to so many of the authors I recommend today. You’ve heard me rant about how much I love

Sara Gran

’s Come Closer or her Claire DeWitt mysteries? Craig introduced me to her writing. Sara taught me the trick that when writing a big story, write the most interesting part first, and fill in the filler later, if you really need it.

The big fiction trick that Craig taught me?

Status play.

Basically, charge a dialogue by having the characters’ power in the scene pass back and forth. Here’s a quick example.

Dad storms in and asks, “Why isn’t your room clean?”

Son slowly puts his pencil down, stays in his seat, says, “Why aren’t you at work?”

Dad takes a breath. Pauses. Peers at the misshapen pile of laundry on the son’s desk and wonders what is underneath. “It’s a holiday.”

So, through words, through gestures, tennis match who is in charge, who is controlling the action, who is dictating the direction of conversation. Reveal character by letting the status of your characters be taken and reclaimed. Increase tension as influence is lost and won.

The other big writing trick that Craig introduced me to was: MEN! BEWARE WRITING ABOUT WOMEN! Specifically, he recommend all aspiring male writers follow Meg at https://twitter.com/menwritewomen, who at the time, would regularly post egregious texts from male novelists where they inevitably described breasts as fruit¹ or maybe that grew or shrank in response to arousal, and yeah, haha, don’t do that, but also, oh shit, have I done that? I’ve definitely done that. Am I writing that way now?

So, those two ideas - 1) status play and 2) can I write from a female POV a body-centric story without objectifying my fictional characters in my descriptions? Those were the goals when I sat down to write Help Wanted. That and the noir elements of “who’s the bad guy?” and “no one is coming to save you.”

I’ll let you judge if I succeeded. Me? I don’t know. Re-reading it now, some parts make me cringe, knowing my sister, my girl cousins, my mother, my daughter may hear my voice when they read “clown-nose areolas!²” But, still, [shrug emoji], every story is an experiment.

I want to thank

Maegan Heil

for being my beta reader and critique partner, who thankfully advised I trim a page and a half about the horrors of menstruation to a single sentence. “Everyone knows periods are the worst,” she said, “You don’t need to explain.”

Please read Help Wanted. Please share and review. I hope you enjoy it and want to read more of my stuff. Please let me know what you think! Please, please, please comment and let me know if you think I failed and should stick to writing arrogant, objectifying male protagonists.³ This is now my third published story!⁴ Feed your noir cravings and support Outcast Press by buying the book.

1. Under her profile, click on Media and scroll down to read some of the many, many, many, MANy, examples. Before you protest, it’s the describing men by their accomplishments and women by their breasts to which she objects, not necessarily using fruit similes for plot necessary bosom details.

2. I take full responsibility for every word, but here and elsewhere, I was mostly repurposing bodily descriptions I had heard from women I love!

3. So much easier for me to write.

4. Time to write! Submit! Repeat!