Writing Exercise: Debt Crisis of 2013

We are on our fourth day of the DEBT CRISIS OF 2013 and, guess what, everybody is reading:  The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post.  The stock market may be tumbling and our credit rating may go down the tubes, but the silver lining is that literacy is on the rise.  Even if folks are not reading, they’re focused on the one thing that matters: the story.

stock market crash

And this got me thinking about a writing exercise based upon a what-if:  What if that well-oiled plot you’ve been polishing like a souped-up week-end sports car suddenly hit a snag?  Wouldn’t that make for a better story?  Wouldn’t that keep your reader chugging along?

Of course it will.

But that’s not how we learn to write.  We are taught to care for our characters whom we often think of as our own children.  Plots, we are taught, are well-oiled machines that our children simply glide through as they make their way through the stages of life.  Aren’t all children gifted and perfect and sweet?

child-care

Henry Fielding, arguably the first English novelist, gives us the prime example of the great plot: his hero Tom Jones moves from adventure to adventure as if he were a literary hobo hopping trains.  But we often forget how well he gets out of snafoos.   And this comes from the fact that he gets out of them so well.

Tom Jones

More contemporary:  McGyver—that guy is consistently put into a jam and somehow extricates himself from a ticking time bomb with paper clips and a toothbrush.  There are reasons why both of these narratives are serialized—doled out in installments.  Their plots must always involve a major fuck-up.  And we love to see (with a childish pleasure) the way a knot becomes un-kinked.

Let’s bring this closer to home and talk about my favorite subject:  myself.  I’m at the point in putting to bed the great adventure of this mystery novel and, as part of this process, I am starting to think about the design of another project—a travel narrative based around my time bumming around third world countries:  it’s a narrative that will allow me to cover a space of roughly 5 years, three of which are spent gallivanting abroad. And as I cast about for interesting material (there is just not enough space to include it all) the incidents that rise to the surface come in the moments when I feel I am trapped, when I have nowhere out, when I have to make do with my wits.

The time I ran out of money in Rio:  I showed up to a bar in the bohemian quarter, stood a few strangers a few drinks, and boldly asked if anybody would rent out a spare room.

The time my wife was turned away as we crossed the border from Peru to Ecuador:  we simply smuggled her in a secret compartment of a chicken bus among similar fugitive souls—young, undocumented Peruvians praying on their rosaries in a darkness illuminated only by lighters that stayed on only long enough to burn their fingers– and, a month later, threaded our way through the Kafka-esque immigration authorities in the capital, Lima, Peru.

The time I was cheated by a tourism agent in Bangkok:  I simply showed up to the office (where everybody covered up for her denied any knowledge of her whereabouts or any relationship to her business) and, taking them at their word that they did not give a rat’s ass about her business, I called them on their bluff; I walked off with the credit card machine, holding it hostage until I got my money back.  Yes, the police were involved.

credit card

These are moments that present a problem and demand a fix.  They also say many revealing things—both flattering and damning—about who I am:  my character.  And they will keep a reader more interested than a description of a mountain or a harbor.

So here is the task:  if you are living under the sequester and have any empathy for the deep inconvenience it has wrought in the lives of the very real humans across America who now cannot get the most basic things done, design a scenario that is equally as shameful, equally as terrible, equally as degrading.  Then sit back and watch how your character gets out of that one.

6 thoughts on “Writing Exercise: Debt Crisis of 2013

  1. Khanh – No doubt about it; adding roadblocks and challenges to a story is a highly effective way to keep readers engaged. It also keeps the writer engaged (i.e. ‘How am I going to get my character(s) out of this mes? Or will I leave the mess as is?’). And it’s realistic too. After all, we all get into messes…

    • Margot–What a smart way to put it. It’s also really interesting to the writer: kinda like when you put peanut butter in a hole in one of those toys for bears at the zoo…a vexing little problem is compelling and can keep you occupied for hours, days, months…

  2. Yes – we are not our characters parents. We are in fact their malicious, vengeful gods!!!! And as such, we shall reserve the right to f*ck with them as much as possible. After all, it’s good for them. One could say it’s…character building. Huh? Huh? (Sorry…)

    • Thomas–the writer who is really good at mistreating his characters in that manner (as if he were God playing with little ants) is Jonathan Irving. People get scratched up and dinged for no real reason. There is a cruel streak in that guy that I find a bit harder to swallow. Whenever I try to permanently maim a character, I think of John Irving…

  3. Most of my writing courses told me to put my characters through the wringer — you must have had incredibly kind creative writing teachers.
    As for theme – there is the woman who tried to drive through a barrier and was shot dead dead dead. I keep thinking about the one year old they “recovered” from the car. Can it get more harrowing than that?

    • Audrey–the story deepens. The woman in question believed she was stalked by President Obama…and this revelation can make it go so many directions: an episode of 24, a tabloid scandal, a twisted story of espionage in the manner of John Le Carre–these immediately come to mind. I also hear somebody set themselves on fire in the capital…gosh…

      Regarding my writing teachers and the question of plot: most writing teachers focus on short stories, which are relatively plotless, because the single moment is what the artsy story is all about. When I have mentored students at the college, I get two kinds: 1) the experimentalist: “I don’t think stories should have plots because plots are bourgeois.” 2) the autobiographer: “This is about me but don’t you DARE ask me if it is about me.” Both types don’t generally want to put their characters through your proverbial wringer.

      For the first, it is bourgeois because they are writing experimental fiction and grand works of art. For the second, they don’t want to be unfaithful to lived experience and, since the story is usually about them or someone close to them, they don’t want the characters to suffer.

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