Behind the scenes: a memoir UPDATE! -- comments are now open to all
Can you see what I've done here?
I'd love to be able to think of ideas for short stories, but fiction is not really my forte (unless you count my to-do list). Therefore I've done the next best thing. What follows is a true story, but I've done something you're not really supposed to do. What is it? I will let you know at the end of the piece -- after I've given you a chance to comment.
As well as giving your thoughts on the story itself, please say what you think the technique is, and whether or not you liked it. Is it something you'd like to see more of in my articles? Can you see yourself using it? Is it a technique better suited to fiction?
My glorious autumn
Now here’s a strange thing. It wasn’t until I arrived at university as an undergraduate that I finally started to feel confident about approaching girls with a view to making a date. Before then, if I saw a girl I fancied I’d become frozen, unable to smile, speak or do anything without feeling hideously self-conscious. But that all changed, as I say, and I suspect it was probably --
Hang on. I’ve just realised that everything I’ve written so far comes firmly under the heading of “exposition”. Now, exposition, or explaining everything in great detail, also known in science fiction stories as infodumping, that is giving loads of back story and other kinds of persiflage, is bad enough in a novel. But in a short story it’s positively lethal as far as keeping your readers onside is concerned. Once you start expositing all over the place, it won’t be long before half your readers fall asleep, and the other half decamp to one of those writers for whom the advice “show, don’t tell” is second nature. So, if it’s alright with you I’m going to start again, this time putting in a bit more narrative and drama. Here goes.
~
When I saw my friend John sitting in the student union café I did not go up to him as I usually would and say “Hello”. The reason was that he was having a conversation with a beautiful student I’d seen several times around the campus, but not in a situation where I could start chatting to her without coming across as a human ten tonne truck careering out of control.
I am using the word “conversation” rather loosely. He was conversing, and she was just nodding and grunting every so often. After ten minutes, John got up and left. That was my chance.
I immediately slipped in and took his place opposite the girl in question.
“I see you know John”, I said.
It seemed as good a conversation starter as any. I mean, I could have said “Hot for this time of year, isn’t it?” or, “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”, but the John connection was, to my mind, much safer.
“Who’s John?”, she replied.
“The bloke you were just chatting with.”
“Oh him. No, never seen him before, and he was talking while I tried to look interested.”
“Oh right.”
Well, we did have what I thought was a pretty decent conversation, but after fifteen minutes or so Jackie, as her name turned out to be, said,
“I ought to be getting back. I have to write an essay this evening.”
“Where do you need to get back to?”, I asked.
She told me she lived in the Sefton Park area.
“Me too! Would you mind if I accompanied you?”
Reader, I have to tell you at this point that my reply happened to be true. I really did live in the Sefton Park area. But had she said “Oh, I’m here on a day trip from the Outer Hebrides”, or “I have to catch the 4:15 flight back to Innsbruck”, my reply would have been exactly the same. “Over from Helsinki? What an astonishing coincidence!” The lengths that young men will go to in these situations is indubitably the eighth wonder of the world.
Jackie and I chatted away on the top deck of the bus headed towards Liverpool 8, when she said, “I could really do with some weed.”
I didn’t touch the stuff myself. Not only do I have an emotional attachment to each of my marbles, I’d noticed that all the people I knew who imbibed seemed to live in hovels, and spend their time shuffling around mumbling witticisms (I speak in jest, of course) like, “Far out, man”. Hardly a great advert.
Nevertheless, one of my friends had mentioned that a friend of his was hoping to buy some weed from a friend of his in the next day or two.
“I might be able to get hold of some later today”, I said to Jackie.
Strictly speaking this was true, just the same as it was true that someone might have run up to me in the street and thrust a wad of fivers into my hand. But both of these potential scenarios were highly unlikely. And in the case of the weed-related scenario so unlikely as to be impossible as I had no intention whatsoever of doing anything about it.
“Tell you what”, I said. “How about if I come over to your place tonight if I can procure some.”
“OK”, she said, “but how will I know?”
“Why don’t I come over either way, to let you know?”
She laughed good-naturedly. Quite clearly, what I thought was a clever ruse made me as transparent as a sheet of plate glass. But like I say Jackie laughed , and said “Fine”.
And that is how I came to start going out with Jackie, enjoying a wonderful autumn term with a beautiful, intelligent and articulate young woman.
And with no stammering or shaking to be seen.
Your thoughts
To repeat: as well as giving your thoughts on the story itself, please say what you think the technique is, and whether or not you liked it. Is it something you'd like to see more of in my articles? Can you see yourself using it? Is it a technique better suited to fiction?
There’s a big reveal after the picture.
The reveal
As you can see, what I've done in effect is to break the fourth wall. In a play or film, the fourth wall is the one on the side of the audience. You're not meant to be aware of the audience, much less address the people in it. Doing so badly or accidentally can break the spell. But used purposefully it serves to let the audience into the secret, and can be quite amusing. I saw a production of Richard the Third with Anthony Sher, and each time he voiced the next evil deed he intended to perpetrate he confided in the audience, causing us to laugh against our wishes. Edward Woodward created exactly the same effect when he played the part of Flamineo in Webster's The White Devil.
Thus my breaking off mid-paragraph to discuss my technique is the written equivalent of breaking the fourth wall. Borges does something similar in several of his stories, making it clear to the reader that this is fiction. Wodehouse does it to wonderful comic effect in Right Ho, Jeeves.
Breaking the fourth wall in writing is probably a technique best used sparingly. But what do you think?
I love the Fourth Wall.
It was used to wonderful effect in Enola Holmes. Rightly or wrongly, I really enjoyed that series.
It has the capacity to draw me right into the narrative, giving me a far more subjective view. Great reading, great viewing.
Yes, excellent. If done well, I do enjoy some fourth walls being broken.
Good work, Terry. I like it. Do more.
Cute story, too. So was this true? Or conjured up purely for the purpose of the exercise? (I'm assuming true because of memoir title.)
Immediate (non-book) version that comes to mind is Fleabag on TV. Her chats and asides to camera, often in the middle of specific moments, gave it real edge.
Off the top of my head, I can't think of any books that I've read that do this. Although in Lolita (just read), Humbert Humbert does address the reader, but that's because he is specifically writing an account of events from his past that he expects to be read at a later date. Not sure that's quite the same, though.