News You Can Bruise for 2005 September 9

Permalink [Comments] (7) Fri Sep 09 2005 22:01:

In Bakersfield for Susanna's birthday. (It's also Sumana's birthday! Happy birthday! Incidentally I saw a fan of Sumana's on the freeway: the license plate said I LUV CES). Tomorrow I go down to LA to hang out with Adam and Kris, and for the first time in about ten years, Gabriel Koerner, who the New York Times once called "Gabriel Koerner", and then referred to on subsequent reference as "Mr. Koerner". Don't thank them; they're just following their style guide.

Hey, you know how you're supposed to start stories in the middle? I thought I was starting my story in the middle, but it's actually pretty close to the end, and I never noticed this basic fact until today. I've never been a fan of stories told almost entirely in flashback, like "As he wrote the end of this sentence, he thought about what life had been like when he'd first started writing this sentence." Maybe real writers don't like them either but they just come up on you all sneaky-like.

I wonder what's the shortest possible story told mostly in flashback. There must be one that's only one or two words.

Comments:

Posted by pedro at Sat Sep 10 2005 04:35

Leonard, I live in LA now! I know you're a man about town and need to rub shoulders with the big hootchie cootchies (and hootchie cootchies of bygone eras), but if you find yourself on the beach without a quarter, give me a call. 773.318.forty-three-forty-two. Let's do lunch, babe. (I'm trying to learn this West Coast Lingo.)

Posted by Anonymous at Sat Sep 10 2005 08:37

"Yesterday I sat down and wrote this."

Posted by Leonard at Sat Sep 10 2005 10:13

Pedro, I forgot you live in LA now! I will call you and hopefully you can join our jamboree.

The standard flashback story has a cliffhanger, a flashback, and a resolution. I was able to reduce each of these to one word. It doesn't fulfil the requirement that the story be mostly told in flashback though.

"Lather. Repeat? Rinse."

Posted by Brendan at Sat Sep 10 2005 11:39

"I had jumped off the bridge, in hope, wrongly."

Posted by Susie at Sat Sep 10 2005 13:51

Church Educational System.

Posted by pedro at Sat Sep 10 2005 22:29

I can see how "Church" for some people might be a shocking cliffhanger in this day and age, and I can see how "Educational" might be a related flashback, but I think the non-sequitur "System" resolution might lose readers. Thanks, but I think we'll pass on your manuscript. :)

Posted by pedro at Sun Sep 11 2005 03:39

(just kidding!)

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