Story #9: Meta

Kelly Hanken

“Analyzing a Real Life Story As if it Were Fiction”

This is a story. It has a beginning:

{Joseph was a teenage boy with a girlfriend. His parents, having kicked him out of the house at sixteen, are no longer a problem.} or, alternatively: {It was a dark, cloudless night in the early spring and Joseph was making the long trek to his friend’s house in the dark, after dropping his girlfriend off at her parent’s house.}

The beginning sets the scene, though this story does a poor job of it; you’re introduced to the main character, given a general setting and a back-story that leads up to the opening.

It has a middle:

{Suddenly, out of the dark, three figures appeared, dressed in black hoodies, baggy denim shorts and white socks up their calves. Joseph knew that the rule of thumb was to act as though he didn’t even notice them, but the problem with that was that they noticed Joseph and they stopped him. They spoke in the foreign tongue of inner-city slang; it was awkward and out of place on the dark road in the middle of suburbia and Joseph didn’t know how to respond.}

Here is where the story generally takes a turn – usually for the worse, though you can occasionally get away with a happy twist if you’re very careful about it.

{He tried to respond in the same language but the words were awkward and clunky in his mouth. They tried to take his wallet; when he pushed them away, one brought out a knife. The fight was short and sweet and when the three finally left Joseph alone, he found himself minus his wallet and plus a fairly severe stab-wound in his side. It was dark, and there had been no cars on the road.}

We’ve gone the traditional route here, giving the story a downward turn. Feel free to imagine that Joseph’s wallet wasn’t stolen, if you want to give him some kind of victory here.

Now, we have the finale, the ending to this that will wrap up Joseph’s unpleasant night in some way. I prefer to cop out here, with something like:

{By the time Joseph got to his friend’s house, he was bleeding profusely. When his friend saw him, he offered him a joint and told him to walk it off. Some friend.}

You may prefer to, at this point, drive some kind of meaning into the story with a hammer. Whether you give Joseph a good ending or a bad ending, keep in mind that the ending needs to wrap things up. For example:

{Joseph stood on the street for two hours, flagging down cars that would slow down, swerve around him, and drive off into the night twice the speed they had approached at. Fifty cars passed him by until one, a car that had been circling a few times like a wary animal, slowed to a stop and asked what was wrong. When he told the driver the story, they immediately let him in and took directions without comment. They said that they were sorry for not stopping the first time, but you really have to be careful nowadays, never know what’s going to happen. Joseph responded that he understood – after all, there were a lot of dicks in the world.}

There’s a little bit of irony there, a comedic twist – of course there are dicks in the world, Joseph’s had his own personal encounter with some just a few hours ago.

{When the driver asked for his friend’s name, maybe because they knew them, he told them he didn’t want to say and they respected it. They smoked a cigarette together and then Joseph was dropped off a block from his friend’s house, the good Samaritan leaving without even accepting the five dollars in Joseph’s outstretched hand.}

And there’s your meaning. There are good people in the world, just keep waiting for them to show up and give you free rides. A good ending, if premature. (You may, personally, want to discuss how Joseph goes to the hospital later and dies from blood loss, or how he finds the three gang members and beats them up with a gang of friends, or some other extended ending. But, for our purposes, this is where the story ends for us.)