Writing Exercise #2: Story Form, Plot, and Structure
Revised due date: Monday, 12/18/2006, 11:00 p.m.
Here's an exercise from Janet Burroway's book Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft (Go), which was our textbook for the first writing class I took at UW:
Here's an exercise from Janet Burroway's book Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft (Go), which was our textbook for the first writing class I took at UW:
Write a scene in which a character is in a restaurant and, in going from the table to the restroom, passes his or her old love on a date with a new love.
posted by Lane at 7:37 PM
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As the waiter showed them us to their table, Tom said to his mother, "You go ahead and sit down. I just have to run to the restroom."
He wove his way between the closely spaced tables, and by the time he saw Arvin sitting there, it was too late to try a different route or to avoid detection.
"Hi Tom!" Arvin's voice sounded exuberant, but Tom detected a note of derision. No doubt Arvin was surprised to see how much weight Tom had put on in the last six months.
"Hi Arvin," said Tom.
This was the first time Tom had come back to Chanterelle's since he and Arvin were together. It was their place, and he'd avoided it religiously until now, with his mother visiting from back east. He just assumed Arvin would avoid it as well.
"Tom, this is my boyfriend Reynold. Reynold, this is Tom."
Reynold (Reynold?) stood up, towering nearly a foot above Tom's head, and offered his hand, which practically enveloped Tom's chubby little paw as they shook. "Nice meeting you, Tom."
"Nice meeting you," said Tom to Reynold's bulging pectorals.
"This is our four monthiversary," said Arvin as Reynold sat back down. "We're celebrating. Reynold's asked me to move in with him."
Tom's mind raced. How like Arvin to coin a word like "monthiversary." And four months? That would mean they started dating just three weeks and two days after Tom and Arvin's big breakup, in this very restaurant. While Tom was lying on the couch drowning his sorrows in Chunky Monkey, Arvin was playing Patroclus with this Achilles.
"How nice for you."
"Reynold's a cardiologist. We met in surgery. He said 'scalpel' and I just gave him my heart."
"Well lucky for you he's a cardiologist, so he'll know what to do with it," said Tom. Arvin laughed, but when he saw Tom's sneer, he stopped abruptly.
"Would you like to join us?" said Reynold.
"Thank you but I'm here with my... with a friend."
"Well we'll have to get together some time."
"Thanks for the offer, but I don't think so."
Arvin put his boy-hand on Reynold's and leaned in to speak in mock confidentiality. "I think Tom hasn't forgiven me for breaking up with him."
"Yeah, well I guess it's obvious what he's got to offer," Tom said to Arvin. "Big hands and all."
"Hey," said Arvin, "it's not my fault you weren't any good in bed."
"Yeah, well it's not my fault you were such a slut that you got all stretched out of shape."
"You always were a bitch," said Arvin. "Why don't you go."
"Fine. Nice meeting you, Reynold. Oh, and if I were you, I'd get tested. Often."
Tom made his way toward the restroom. Once inside, he locked himself in a stall, leaned back against the door, and wept.
They arrived at the eatery. Meph gave him the questioning glance with a slight forward lean, Anything else?
"Wait outside". Stin hadn't yet gotten used to Meph's new height. The hair, skin, shape, all these aspects of a person he'd come to know as fleeting, but he'd be damned if he could ever get used to Meph being taller than him. Height was always of primary importance to him. That and age of course.
Stin slid through the entry into a fading phenomenon, a public restaurant. How private and shameful eating had become for everyone. Everyone but his prey. Hunting, a subtle art he was either born with or learned through experience, blended together in a wash of shapes and sounds. Memory. A worthless concept.
At his table, he selected his favorite consumptive indulgence. If he had to eat in public, it was going to be delicious and terrible for his suit. Already he had begun cataloging all patrons within eyeshot.
It seemed his job was becoming increasingly difficult. How recently he had noticed this was hard to say. Centuries were becoming to him as vague as decades had just two hops ago. Already he would rate every patron in his area as ten to one, not a first rounder.
Could he take second rounders? Sure as shit. He'd earned that discretionary power with his last hop, but virgin suits, oh, weren't they a treat. More than their worth, was the joy of dispatching a mind that had never been separated from it's biological body. Weren't they just so surprised?
As he rose, forced to engage in another disgusting public practice: urinating, he located the signs, Men followed every so closely by Women, and wondered how many present noticed the humor in it. Maybe it took a gender hop to get it, that or a relationship with one so hopped. Seems that would suffice.
While continuing with his scan of the flock, he moved towards the restrooms. The place was noisy, rank, dimly lit, in all foul and he preferred not to be there. But hunt he must. The odds weren't getting any better as he scoped out a new portion of the space.
His eyes passed over a young female suit and he paused in eye and foot, head slightly cocked, confused by feelings of familiarity and blurry flashes of imagery. The name escaped him, the exact context as well, but he knew this suit.
Memories of a few hundred years may as well be a thousand for all the feelings of truth he could squeeze from them. Through all his pausing and gawking, their eyes met.
He didn't try and think, just stared and tried to relish the slowed down feeling of time. Blinks taking seconds. Sounds muffled and low-pitched. It was so rare that he remembered anything, he followed it like deja vu, eager but not insistent.
She threw him a polite smile then broke the connection, returning to her party. Time resumed it's typically rushed pace, details again drew back. He continued his scan of the area and his trip to the restroom simultaneously.
He entered and locked the pissroom, he was alone. Stin flipped a switch in his mind, and spoke aloud.
"Meph, fetch our private transport. I have one."
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