Tag Archives: story

10.28.25
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Early Introduction

Being the fourth part of a seven-part series based on Your New Favorite Writer’s recent WWA workshop “A Bulletproof Beginning: Five Ways to Anchor Your Story in Urgency from Word One.”

I can’t tell you how to write a great beginning. But here are FIVE BIG IDEAS—three Dos and two Donts—that ought to help quite a bit:

  1. Engage the reader immediately.
  2. Do not drown the reader in information. 
  3. Introduce important characters and plots early. 
  4. Do not let INFORMATION bog down the profluence of the narrative. 
  5. Shape early action toward later plot points.

This week, let’s look at the third Big Idea: Introduce important characters and plots early. 

Why?

The opening is the most important part of your book for engaging readers and getting them to read the whole book. The main characters and plots are the heart and substance of your story. If they don’t show up early on, the opening is cheated, the characters and plots are cheated, the reader is cheated, and you the author are cheated.

Important Characters

The important characters are the major characters: protagonist, antagonist, leading allies of the protagonist or antagonist, and operational or catalyst characters who trigger main plot points.

The Protagonist makes the story happen. The protagonist is motivated by deep desire and takes actions to realize that desire. The protagonist should be front and center in your opening and, above all, should do something. A protagonist who simply reflects on what is happening, or who meekly follows an agenda set by someone else, may be the leading cause of readers dozing off. The Protagonist must protag.

The Big Bad Wolf. Disney Pictures. Fair use.

The protagonist is not necessarily a good guy. Think of the Big Bad Wolf in the tale about the Three Little Pigs. It’s the hungry wolf who makes the story happen. His fondness for pork is the root of all action. We may not want him to achieve his desire, but we are deeply invested in the question of whether or not he does.

The Antagonist is the chief obstacle to the protagonist’s quest. The antagonist may be an impersonal force, as in Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. More commonly, the antagonist is a person whose interests collide with those of the protagonist. If the protagonist is a good guy, then the antagonist is a villain. Or if, as in “The Three Little Pigs,” the protagonist is a villain, then the antagonist—the wise and doughty little pig who built with bricks—is a hero.

Both protagonist and antagonist have allies or helpers. Some of those allies are minor characters, but the chief allies are major characters. A hero’s allies we call sidekicks; a villain’s allies are henchmen. If one or two of these will play important roles, they should appear in the early pages—at least before the beginning of Act II*, when your story shifts into high gear. 

*It is very useful to know something of traditional three-act story structure. I recommend Syd Field’s book, Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting, a simple, straightforward introduction to story structure. It applies to prose fiction or narrative nonfiction just as much as to movie scripts. 

Uncle Billy realizing he is about to kick the movie into Act III. Paramount Pictures. Fair use.

Important Catalysts—characters who may not be main plot drivers but who do something that injects a key plot point—should also be introduced early. Is a catalyst character is important? Well, how important is that character’s action to the plot? Think of Uncle Billy, portrayed by Thomas Mitchell in the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, which almost everyone has seen. Uncle Billy doesn’t do much in the film, except at a key point his action or inaction triggers the major crisis of the story. I won’t say more, in case you are the one person who has never seen the film and you still want to be surprised. Suffice it to say that Uncle Billy’s one major contribution to the plot occurs rather late. It’s really, I believe, the thing that kicks Act II into Act III. But because that contribution is critical, director Frank Capra makes sure we know who Uncle Billy is, and what kind of a person he is, by giving him little bits of business that build his character all through the movie, from Act I on. 

Go thou and do likewise, Gentle Reader.

Important Plots

All stories, or almost all stories, have a Main Plot, also called “the A Plot.” If you cannot discern a main plot, it’s either a failed story or an “experimental” narrative. You probably want to have nothing to do with either. You probably want your story to have a clearly delineated main plot. 

The length of the main plot defines the duration of the story. The main plot shows up early by definition. It is that sequence of causally-related events that reflects the struggles of the protagonist and the counter-moves of the antagonist, and that results in the protagonist getting his or her desire, or not. If a plot does not start to show its face in Act I, it’s not the main plot. 

Most good stories also have one or more Secondary Plots, sometimes called subplots, sometimes referred to as “B Plot,” “C Plot,” and so forth. These plots involve secondary, but still important, characters; or they involve another aspect of the protagonist’s quest. Secondary plots develop alongside the main plot, complement it, sometimes mirror it, and add interest and complexity. Think of a romantic comedy. The main plot brings the leading romantic characters together; and there’s almost always a subplot that unites the secondary romantic characters. 

Such plots, like the main plot, tend to last throughout the story. They start early, usually in the first act, and are often resolved along with the main plot in a sort of neat bundle. For example, the main romantic couple and the secondary romantic couple may celebrate a double wedding. Check Shakespeare.

There is no rule about secondary plots, but most good stories will have one, two, or three that stand out. That is, a B plot, a C plot, maybe even a D plot. These develop in tandem, weave around one another, and add to the strength and meaning of the main plot. For example, the Scarecrow, the Lion, and the Tin Man all have secondary plots alongside Dorothy’s main plot in The Wizard of Oz.

There are smaller subplots—but enough with the capital letters, already! These minor subplots may involve a minor character and last for a brief time. They may intersect with a key part of the main plot, like Uncle Billy’s fateful action late in It’s a Wonderful Life. Or maybe they may be a brief distraction—comic relief, for example—in the otherwise long, unrelieved tension of the second act. When one of these little bitty subplots works well, and stays within its limits, it is like the sparkle on a diamond. 

Next week: Do not let INFORMATION bog down the profluence of the narrative.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

10.07.25
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A Bulletproof Beginning

Last Friday, I had the good fortune to present a workshop titled “A Bulletproof Beginning: Five Ways to Anchor Your Story in Urgency from Word One” at the annual Wisconsin Writers Association Conference, held in Stevens Point. 

I say “good fortune” for several reasons:

  • I got paid.
  • I heard the sound of my own voice—sweet music to my ears, indeed.
  • Most of all, I was with 175 friends of the Writing Persuasion—folks who have an itch they can scratch only by setting pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard. These friends understand one another’s need. About sixty of the 175 attended my breakout session.
Some of my good friends relaxing just before my workshop last Friday.

A lot of people have told me they got something good out of it. 

So, why keep it to myself? For readers who did not have the opportunity to attend, I will try to encapsulate a 50-minute talk in the next seven weekly blog posts.  

Here goes:

A Bulletproof Beginning

What’s the big deal about a beginning? Why the fuss?

Aristotle, right, argues with Plato (strongly resembling Leonardo da Vinci) in this detail from “The School of Athens” by Renaissance painter Raphael (1483-1520). Public Domain.

Dear Reader, a philosopher named Aristotle said, about 2,400 years ago, that every story has a beginning . . . a middle . . . and an end. That may seem obvious, but apparently nobody before Aristotle thought to write it down. 

And nobody since Aristotle has gone much beyond that simple observation in explaining story structure. If you want to hassle me about Joseph Campbell’s/ Christopher Vogler’s Twelve Stages of the Hero’s Journey, or about Blake Snyder’s Fifteen-Beat “Save the Cat” structure—sure, let’s have that argument someday. But in the meantime, consider:

Of the three parts of a story, the beginning is most important. Why?

Because if your beginning is no good, no reader will experience the joys of the middle and end. They won’t stick around.

More so, if the reader is an agent, editor, or publisher considering your story for publication or film production. Typically, such mandarins want the first ten pages included with a cold query. But that does not mean they will read ten pages. 

No. They will read maybe one page. Or maybe just the first paragraph. And if that doesn’t knock their socks off, they’re done. They have a lot of scripts to read. You must earn your way to the second and subsequent pages. 

Most of all, the beginning is important because it establishes the conditions under which the rest of the story plays out. The break into Act II, the many twists and turns thereafter, the great change of color and tenor at mid-point, the swiftening action as you move into Act III, the exciting climax and final denouement—all are present in embryo in the beginning of the story. If they’re not, it won’t work.

Studio publicity photo of Billy Wilder and Gloria Swanson on the set of Sunset Boulevard, ca. 1950. Public Domain.

Billy Wilder—the great German-American film genius responsible for Ninotchka, Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity, Some Like it Hot, and many other classic movies, said, “If you have a problem in the third act, your real problem is in the first act.” If you go back and fix the first act, the third act will work better.

By the way, Gentle Reader, did you ever notice how many lectures, workshops, or articles about story construction for prose fiction rely heavily on movies for their examples? Here’s the reason: Owing to the format and function of film scripts, the screenwriter has nowhere to hide from the need for STRUCTURE.

A seasoned scripter can sit in a darkened movie house, discern the arrival of the Great Change at Midpoint, look at his watch, see that 58 minutes have elapsed, and predict—with dead accuracy—that the film’s total run time will be 116 minutes. It’s really that cut and dried. It’s all about structure. 

The beginning is the first great pillar of structure in any story, filmic or otherwise. That’s why it’s important. 

As I told my friendly audience last Friday, I cannot tell you how to write a good beginning. It’s your story, you figure it out. 

But here are FIVE BIG IDEAS—three Dos and two Donts—that ought to help quite a bit:

  1. Engage the reader immediately. 
  2. Do not drown the reader in information. 
  3. Introduce important characters and plots early. 
  4. Do not let INFORMATION bog down the profluence of the narrative. 
  5. Shape early action toward later plot points.

Now, Dear Reader, go ponder these things in your heart. Come back at this time next week, and we will consider Point 1: How to engage the reader immediately.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

02.18.25
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Huzzah!

I may have mentioned before now, Dear Reader, that the writer’s life is a lonely one.

Oh, sure, we are celebrated among our friends . . . if we have friends who are kind enough to celebrate us.

Gerrit Dou, Scholar Sharpening a Quill Pen. Public Domain.

We also confer among ourselves at writers’ conferences. We sit at the feet of masters and learn, if we can, a kind of self-mastery. We even may tip a tumbler or two, on such occasions. 

We have the usual allotment of spouses and children and dogs. 

So writers, as a group, are not existentially lonely. Most of us are not, at any rate.

But when it comes to writing—when we need to plot and craft and draft and re-plot and re-craft and re-draft a novel or any large work of fiction—that we do all by ourselves, in mental if not physical isolation. We may share a work in progress with colleagues: give glimpses, get feedback, gain perspective. But the actual doing of the thing is a solo gig. It’s just you and your keyboard in a room somewhere.

Thus, any victory merits a celebration. 

So it is with pride and joy I announce: Your New Favorite Writer has reached Mid-point on his current WIP (work in progress). Sorry to burden you with technical jargon, but nonetheless—HUZZAH! Please feel free to huzzah along with me.

What’s the Big Deal?

Thanks, I thought you’d never ask.

Aristotle. Public Domain.

Mid-point in a work of fiction is not merely halfway. It does not mean fifty percent of the work has been done. Perhaps the second half of the book will be much easier to write, or much harder, than the first half. 

Syd Field. Photo by thedemonhog, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Rather, the Mid-point, which always falls very near halfway through the pages, is where Something Momentous Happens. There is a major plot turn, visible or invisible, that makes the whole thing deeper and more important. The story shifts, the way a batch of fudge changes color in the pan just before it sets up into a new, delicious thing. 

This is not my imagination, Gentle Reader. You could look it up. Any number of gurus have told us about it, from Aristotle onwards. Pick up a copy of Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting, by Syd Field (1935-2013). Mr. Field was one of the first to put the how-to of screenwriting into a book, so that anybody could do it. 

Charles Dickens. Public Domain.

Well, not just anybody. You have to also be a certifiable lunatic.

Actor-director Roberto Benigni, creator of Life Is Beautiful. Photo by Harald Krichel, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

But I digress. The point is, there is a fundamental dramatic structure that almost all good stories have. A beginning, a middle, and an end. Sometimes we call them Acts I, II, and III. There are vivid plot points that kick off the action (Inciting Incident), shift it into gear (Break into Act II), change the whole picture (Mid-point), set up the final confrontation (Break into Act III), and resolve the story (Climax). There are numerous lesser turns as well.

The all-important Mid-point signals a shift in tone, emphasis, and import of the story. That shift can be quite stark, as in the Italian film Life is Beautiful (1997), or more subtle, as in Charles Dickens’s novella A Christmas Carol (1843). But it has to be there, or the story resembles an uncooked fish, several days old.

Therefore I celebrate the conquest of the Mid-point.

So What?

Your New Favorite Writer has written two novels that are currently in print, The Price of Passage and Izzy Strikes Gold! Both were very hard to write. I have been at work for some time on my third—a twentieth century historical novel that goes by the working title Brother’s Blood. It’s about two brothers who find themselves at odds but have no opportunity to fully reconcile before the Second World War sends them off in different directions. 

This one is hard to write, too. But writing the first two, as well as several unproduced screenplays, taught me a few things. Especially how important the first act is. Famed writer-director Billy Wilder said, “If you have a problem in the third act, your problem is in the first act.” What he meant is that you need to set the stage fully and exquisitely in the first one-quarter of the work (Act I), so that all kinds of situations and relationships established at the start can then pay off in satisfying ways as the rest of the story (Acts II and III) unfolds. 

Writers often talk about a character coming to life and taking the story off in an unexpected direction. It is delightful when this happens. But in a way, it’s even more satisfying when the underlying logic of the story—the line of development that flows from all the details you have packed into Act I—forces an unavoidable realignment of meaning at the Mid-point, and the rest of the story snowballs to an irresistible end from that point. 

I’ve been laboring mightily over Act I: Writing, re-writing, changing, re-adjusting to get a number of rather ordinary yet secretly powerful ingredients into the story. And I’ve launched into the wilds of Act II, grinding away at just marshaling the facts of the characters’ lives, when ALL OF A SUDDEN, SHAZAM! A major plot event, one which I did not see coming, elbows its way into the story. Right at the halfway point. It’s an event I’m not at all happy with—and you Dear Reader, may not like it either—but it shoves the invisible river of narrative into a swifter and deeper channel. There is no help for it. We must go there. 

I can’t wait to write the rest of the book.

Note: It would be very helpful at this point, no doubt, to give you a more specific idea of what happens in the book. I can’t do that. Major SPOILERS would be involved. All I can say is: look for it in a year or two, possibly by a different title, wherever fine books are sold. 

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

04.23.24
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Story

Storyteller near Cairo (1878) by Wilhelm Gentz (German, 1822-1890). Public Domain.

What is a story?

A story can be almost anything. We are so much accustomed to telling stories, stories are so ingrained in our psychic and physical makeup, that storytelling and storyhearing can be said to be an essential component of human-ness. 

What is a good story? Ah, thereby hangs a tale.

Second Thoughts

“Where there is no vision,” observes the Book of Proverbs, “the people perish.” 

Vision. Jewish Rabbi Reading The Bible To His Family (1816), by Alexander Lauréus (Finnish, 1783 – 1823). Public Domain.

But vision is hard. 

Revision is easy. At least, I find it so. 

Once there is something substantive down on paper, I can see that something is wrong with it, and I can fix that. Then, I can see that something else is wrong with it, and I can fix that. Eventually, by a painstakingly iterative process, I can get it down to where it’s pretty good.

But getting something substantive down on paper in the first place: that’s the hard part.

Where does that first thing come from?

A Deep Well

Some people believe that inside each one of us, there is a deep well of creativity just waiting to be released as a bubbling fountain of expression.

I find that is true, but it’s hard to get it started. The more I write, the easier it comes. But the pump needs priming.

Writing every day helps, because then you can just continue whatever you were in the midst of writing yesterday. But sooner or later, you finish that project—at least, you finish the first draft. Then, it is ever so tempting to lose yourself in almost endless revisions. That’s a lot more fun.

Red Smith, sportswriter. Fair use.

Red Smith said, “There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.” 

Perhaps you wonder, Gentle Reader, why Your New Favorite Writer bores you with all this drivel. 

Because I have to write something. That’s why. 

I keep telling myself that once I get the first draft out on the page, then I can revise it and revise it to the point where you’ll find it noble and inspirational. Or at least acceptable. 

Fellow writer Percy Dovetonsils. Public Domain.

“Aha! I’ve caught you out, O New Favorite Writer! You’re admitting, in black and white for all to see, that it’s all in the revision. In other words, writing the first draft is a mere formality. Perfectly trivial.”

Well, perhaps so, Dear Reader. But let me point out that if it were not for the every-Tuesday-morning character of this blog, I would not have written anything at all. Then where would my much-vaunted revision chops be, O Reader?

And it is the same across the board. I would not write this blog except for the deadline. I would not write a short story except for the need to prove I can write a short story. (The jury is still out.) I would not write a novel except for having gotten some screwball idea about a story I could tell in long form, and then feeling compelled to stick it through to the end.

“So, what are you kvetching about, O Writer? You impose all these deadlines and burdens on yourself.”

Yes, but complaining is half the joy.

Enough, Already

I’ll see you next week Fair Reader. After all, I’ve got a deadline.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

04.18.23
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Shooting the Curl of AI

A Writer’s Nightmare

Suddenly, it’s upon us. 

We stand unprepared, all thumbs and fumbles, wondering what to do. Like always.

It’s AI, artificial intelligence, and it’s coming to get you. Elon Musk said recently that artificial intelligence “has the potential of civilizational destruction.” Never mind that he might have had selfish reasons for saying that. You’ve got to consider the possibility that he told the truth.

Photo by Andrea De Santis on Unsplash.

We’ve known for decades that someday machines would learn to think. I once read a futuristic short story in Playboy magazine, back in the days when we all read Playboy for the articles (nod, nod, wink, wink). In this story, a worldwide group of computers had been connected with one another. Their pooled intellect gave birth to an über entity which took over the world, cutting biological humans out of the picture. 

I don’t remember the story’s title, or who wrote it, but it appeared in the 1960s. 

So we can’t say we didn’t see this coming. 

But now, it’s here, arriving on our doorstep last week, in a COVID-style sneak attack. Remember March 12, 2020, when they canceled March Madness?

It now seems the second full week of April 2023 will be remembered as When AI Became a Serious Matter.

Playing Around

People—not scientists necessarily, but the kind of dreamy folks I hang out with, i.e., writers and philosophers—now report playing around with something called ChatGPT. In their playing around, they have discovered that ChatGPT can write prose that seems remotely like something a human being might have written. 

Enrico Fermi in 1943. U.S. Government photo, public domain.

Let me assure you, Dear Reader, I am not among those who have played with ChatGPT. I would not have been among those playing with nuclear fission in 1942, either. 

The first nuclear reactor, in the West Stands section of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago. Drawing by Melvin A. Miller of the Argonne National Laboratory, public domain.

But I gather, from what those others are saying: The problem is not that one cannot detect the output is computer-generated. Rather, it is that for the first time one can imagine that in the future—for example, later this afternoon—ChatGPT or a similar program will get good enough that one can no longer tell the difference.

Never mind the potential end of world civilization; AI could impact writers. 

This is serious.

Colloquium

I took part in a recent colloquium of concerned authors. Scores, maybe hundreds, of authors attended. Many of these authors, unlike Your New Favorite Writer, earn all or part of their income by writing. 

I started out puzzled but eventually caught the drift. Or, rather, drifts. 

  • 1. AI programs will soon start writing better than we can . . . or almost as well as we can . . . and we’ll all go broke. Publishers will no longer need human authors. They’ll just push a button on a machine and get a book, ready for release. No royalties will be owed to any humans. The AI machines, we assume, will accept their wages in electricity and silicon.
  • 2. Since AI is already quite useful at discharging the kinds of tediosities with which we writers are burdened, some of us hunger to use AI programs or bots—or whatever they are—in our own writing practice. Not for writing, you understand. Oh no, never!! Rather, we would use them as slave labor for menial tasks—up to and perhaps including the elaboration of trial texts which the writer may then modify. Thus we would reserve the higher functions of authorship for us who so richly deserve royalty checks. This would be, I suppose, something like the way research professors use graduate students. In this sense, AI is merely a tool, like a dictionary or thesaurus, clearly beneath the mystical heights of creative writing.

But you’ve already seen, have you not?—It’s so hard to get ahead of you, Astute Reader—how in some vague way this second concern is already at odds with the first?

  • 3. So, to reconcile the first and second concerns, some participants declared we authors ought to embrace AI to whatever extent is warranted, so long as the publishers are required to attribute each published work to a specific human author—one who gets paid. 

It would take at least an act of Congress to make this happen. But a squadron of intellectual property lawyers is already cranking up its engines to bombard publishing contracts and book copyright pages with model provisions—“guardrails,” they call them—protecting authors’ rights to control the use of their product, and importantly, to get paid. 

This drafting of guardrail language, all by itself, strikes me as a Herculean task. But it may be necessary work, because as you know, what people can do, they will do. 

There is no holding back this tide of AI. It’s a giant wave, and we shall either find a way to shoot the curl or be crushed in the collapsing pipeline.

  • 4. Beside the three areas of concern already mentioned, there is another. It seems existing AI platforms already incorporate the output of human authors as a training aid. The chatbots are learning to write better because their creators feed them sample text from published books that are the copyrighted property of authors—without acknowledgment or compensation, as far as I can tell. 

It may be possible, through legal action by authors’ groups, to prohibit the use of authors’ works as training materials for AI bots, or even to claw back some form of payment for the unauthorized uses that have already occurred. 

It’s yet another messy area for the lawyers to sort out. But I take it as a mere corollary of two more basic questions: 

1. Who’s going to do the writing, people or machines? And,

2. Who’s going to reap the benefits, authors or publishers? 

Pardon my chutzpah, Gracious Reader, but I suspect we’re still missing the Big Picture. 

Story

It’s all about the power of narrative. I once heard a lecturer say that when it’s time for bed, kids ask for stories. They don’t say, “Mommy, please read me the telephone book” or, “Daddy, I want to hear a grocery list.” They say, “Read me a story” or even, “Tell me a story.”

Authors are storytellers. Even technical writers owe their jobs to the particular skill of stating scientific or technical facts in a way that allows readers to understand those facts as a sequence of events including a chain of causation. In other words, they tell stories, no less than novelists or playwrights do. What’s true for technical writers is even more obviously true for freelance journalists and for the authors of narrative nonfiction books. 

So, if we storytellers are afraid that publishers will gain access to computer programs that allow them to cut us out of the profits, ought not the publishers worry that they, likewise, will be cut out of the profits?

If AI can write as well as human writers, will there not come a day (perhaps next Tuesday) when you can pull a cell phone from your pocket and command: “Tell me a story.” And the phone will make up a story on the spot and either speak it or type it to you. Maybe it will even assemble a complex dramatic video for your entertainment. 

And—get this, Dear Reader— the product will be first-rate. It won’t be merely grammatical. It will be tense and compelling. Maybe not hilarious—humor is notoriously difficult, and it may exceed the capability of machines to learn. But they’ll be able to assemble great suspense and action films. They’ll do it all by themselves. You can order up an original story at the touch of a thumb.

Originality

Oscar Wilde in 1888. Photo by Napoleon Sarony, 1821-1896. Public Domain.

Oscar Wilde is supposed to have said, upon viewing a flawless forgery of an art masterpiece, “It has all the virtues of the original, except originality.” The same may be said of these future machine-generated stories. Readers, however, will still gobble them up.

BUT SO WHAT?  What difference does all this make? 

If we can get stories concocted instantly by our phones, what impact will that have on literature?  Surely it will mean authors and publishers as we know them will no longer exist—at least, not in any traditional framework.

Yet story will survive. 

If we look to our phones for stories, that’s only because story is a basic requirement of the human race. You might even say the capacity for story is what makes us human. 

One can easily imagine machines telling stories. 

One cannot imagine machines needing stories told.

Only humans need that. And those who hear stories can also invent other stories. In fact, some of us can’t help ourselves. 

So story will survive. Humanity will go on. There will still be human storytellers.

I’ll still be here, writing the old-fashioned way, regardless what the machines may be doing. Whether I’ll be paid is another question; but then, I’m not being paid now. 

It’s not about the money. It’s about the story.

Keep reading. Keep writing.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

09.27.22
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Mountain Climbing

I started to climb a mountain, but I did not know how high it was. 

Denali. National Park Service photo by Albert Herring. Public Domain.

I wrote a story when I was in third grade. I’ve always been good at words, at ease with grammar, fascinated by the process of converting thoughts into sentences.

When young I thought it would be swell to be a writer. I made a few attempts at writing novels and short stories, but do you know what? 

It was too hard. I moved on to something else.

Besides, there was life to be lived. There was a war. There was college. There was marriage. There was a child. There were dogs—an endless parade of dogs, down to the present day.

At length, I ran out of excuses.

#

I began to look again at writing a novel. I’m a talented writer. How hard could it be?

At first it was great fun, tramping steadily uphill, writing page after page, chapter after chapter. 

Then, it was challenging—revising, rewriting, and refining those early drafts. 

I finished the book and rejoiced. That hadn’t been so hard after all. The mountain was only a hill. 

#

But I wanted it published. I wanted a traditional, royalty-paying publication contract from a traditional, royalty-paying publisher. How hard could it be? 

I sent it to agents. I sent it to independent publishers.

No agents responded. One independent publisher offered a contract; but it was a poor contract, and the publisher’s emails put me off. I turned it down.

Two more publishers agreed to read my full manuscript. Both of them sent back polite rejections, each with two or three sentences of what was wrong with the book. Triangulating their comments, I achieved a sudden, shattering insight. 

My book was not good enough. 

The mountain was higher than I thought.

#

I could see a way the book might be improved to meet the objections of the two publishers who had given me comments. But it would require another year or more of work, because the story had to be completely rewritten, turned inside out, major sections added and formerly important material subtracted.

I was not sure I could do it. An angel (Christine DeSmet) whispered in my ear, “Yes, you can.”

A year later, Dan Willis of DX Varos Publishing bought a vastly improved book.

Finally, it was good enough.

The mountain had been higher than I thought.

#

Why do I tell you this?

Because I learned a lesson, and it is one you might take to heart, whatever personal challenge it is that you are facing. 

The work needs to be really good. You must reach down deep inside yourself and use all your resources. The mountain you must climb is higher, and more difficult, than you could have imagined when you started out.

But the thrill of achievement when you reach the summit is worth every bit of effort and courage that it took. 

Immediately, you are given another mountain to climb: A mountain of publicity and recognition. A mountain of public indifference that must be overcome. 

If the first mountain was worth the climb, so the second mountain will be also.

But higher. 

You will never get to the top if you don’t start.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

06.15.21
by

Patience

My old friend Jay came up from Chicagoland last week, with his lady friend Harriet. We chatted over a very nice Italian dinner at a local restaurant. At some point, Harriet inquired about my quest as a would-be book author. 

I told her I had the complete manuscript of a historical novel, but by submitting it to various agents and publishers I learned the story needed a complete, tooth-to-tail revision. A daunting prospect, but one I undertook bravely. The problem is that, even though the writing is a lot better in the new version, the many changes of plot and character made me fear that by the time I got to the end, the story would be an incoherent mess. But I was plugging on, regardless.

At this point, Jay made the obvious comment: “Well, at our age, you don’t have that much time left to finish this thing and get it published.” 

Jay was, of course, correct in his assessment. But I shared with him this amazing secret: The older I get, the more patient I become.

It’s hard to account for. Against all rationality, I look forward to thirty or forty more years of productive life. Therefore I can afford to spend time getting my manuscript right. 

Just when time is running out, I have learned patience.

#

The manuscript is another matter. Since the conversation with Jay and Harriet, it has become clear that I have two separate stories—a Norwegian couple making their way in 1850s America, and an African American slave in the deep South struggling for freedom and meaning. I am not creative enough to make the two stories mesh.

My spouse observed long ago that I was writing two books at once. She was right.

For now, I’m laying it aside. Maybe I can sort out the separate strands of story at a later date. I have a lot of other work “in the hopper,” no end of things to write about. 

One avenue of expression is these blog posts. Until getting bogged down in the rewrite project, I was posting here weekly. I now hope to resume that habit.

And I would like to pick up where I left off in what I call “the Bradbury Challenge”—writing a short story a week for a year.

And my daughter recently suggested an excellent setting for a screenplay. All it needs is a story to go with it.

So never fear, Dear Reader. I’ll keep busy. Someday, I’ll get back to the historical novel. Patience.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers, Your New Favorite Writer

Author of Price of Passage—A Tale of Immigration and Liberation.

Price of Passage

Norwegian Farmers and Fugitive Slaves in Pre-Civil War Illinois

BUY NOW

(History is not what you thought!)

11.24.20
by

A Story

Read Time: 10 minutes.

Below is the first draft of a story. You can help make it better by commenting on what you liked or what you didn’t. Feel free to make suggestions. How could the story be better?

#

My Own Special Touch

© 2020 by Larry F. Sommers

SHE SQUANDERED HERSELF IN PROTEST and fell to the ground, undone.

“Damn!” Roger set the inner cover, sticky side up, on the grass. He flicked her sting from his wrist with his steel hive tool. You’ve got to scrape them out quick. One time his whole hand had swollen hard and red like a red lobster claw for half a week, from a sting left too long. 

“Italian Honey Bee in Goldenrod” by steveburt1947 is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

He felt bad for this little darling, who had been squeezed as he laid the cover on the top box, whose alarmed response had spelled her doom. Workers are sacrificial creatures, not built to survive long. Any sting is a suicide mission. 

“Damned bees,” Roger grumbled. “Don’t know why I put up with them.”

Well, there’s one reason, staring me in the face. Melvina Foster stood by her clothesline, there across the fence, sour as a crabapple. She grimaced as if in pain. A bit of a wasp herself.

He gave back her stare, then turned away sublimely indifferent, picked up the inner cover, and placed it back on hive number six. 

He was dead sure that Melvina had authored the anti-bee ordinance proposed last week in the town council. “Bitter, vindictive old bitch,” he muttered under his breath.

“You! Roger!” An eldritch screech. Did the old bat have super-hearing, too?

He approached the fence with all the swagger he could muster, which he had to admit was considerable. His smooth, untroubled stride pleased him no end. 

She pointed at a lump of wood in his yard. “I see you steer a wide berth around that old stump. I should think you’d have sense enough to remove it.”

“Tain’t a stump, it’s a log. I’ll move it when I’m good and ready. Was there something else you wanted, Miz Foster?” 

She stood sideways, laundry basket under one arm. She shifted to stand a bit taller, winced as she did so. Maybe she was in actual pain.

He pursed his lips. “You all right, Melvina?”

“I was just wondering how many more of those death traps you plan to install.” 

“You mean my apiary?” He scrunched up his face and scratched his chin. “Well, let’s see, I’ve got plenty of fresh cedar boards for new boxes. I do enjoy the woodworking. Keeps me out of mischief all winter, you know? Who knows how many new honey factories I’ll be ready to deploy next spring.”

Her mouth set in a firm line. “You’re baiting me, Roger Fjelstad. I won’t rise to the bait. But consider yourself warned. Some day your bees will attack a small child or somebody with an allergy and put them in the hospital. Or worse.” She clucked with concern for her purely imaginary sting victim. “How will you feel then, Mister Honeycomb?”

“These are the gentlest little Italian honey bees in the world, Ma’am. Don’t bother them, they won’t bother you.”  

“That’s what you always say.”

“Because it’s always true. Listen, Melvina Foster, you’ve got no idea what honeybees are about, how they work, or how to coexist with them. Why don’t you come over some time? I’ll introduce you.”

#

He spotted her as soon as she turned the corner. Since the fence between their backyards had neither gate nor stile, she had to scuttle around the block. Roger couldn’t help but notice she looked more off-kilter than usual.

When she turned up his front walk, he rattled his newspaper. “And how are you today, Melvina?” He leaned back in his wicker chair and looked down his nose at her.

“I’m calling your bluff,” said Melvina Foster. “I’ve come to meet your bees. Bet you thought I wouldn’t.”

He laid down his paper. “Ain’t you scared you’ll get mobbed to death by a swarm of African killer bees?” 

She threw him a spiteful look. “You said yours were from Italy.” 

He sighed and stood. “Benvenuto alla nostra domee-chee-lay.” He spread an arm in welcome.

Limping through the house en route to the backyard, Melvina said, “This looks just like it did when Doris was still with us.” 

Roger stopped and stared at her. “Yeah?”

“I mean, you haven’t changed one thing.”

“Maybe I like the way she had it.”

“Except you’ve let it go to seed.”

 “There, you see? I have changed things. Added my own special touch.” He gave her a grin that he hoped was savage.

#

In the backyard, she wouldn’t go near the hives.

“Come on, what’s to be afraid of?” Roger asked, standing smack dab in the flight path of a hundred foragers. “They’re just bees.”

“I can see them fine from over here.”

He lifted a hive lid, removed the inner cover, pulled a frame partway out.

She raised a hand to shield her eyes from the sun. “Don’t you have one of those veils? Don’t I see you over here sometimes in a regular beekeeper’s outfit?”

“Veils are for sissies.” 

She made a wry face.

He pinched a fat drone between thumb and forefinger. “Yes, I do have protective gear. I admit I’m a sissy sometimes. Mainly when I do something invasive, like collecting honey or giving mite treatments. The girls can get a little tetchy.” He carried the drone over to where Melvina stood.

As he came near, she poised for flight, like a sprinter on the starting blocks.

“Relax, he can’t hurt you. No stinger. This one’s a drone.” He opened his hand to let the bee crawl around on his palm. “Go ahead, you can pet him. See how fuzzy he is?”

Eyes open in wonder, she leaned over his hand, within a foot of the confused drone. 

“You might spare him some sympathy. He’s an orphan.”

Her jaw dropped in disbelief. “An orphan? You’re pulling my leg.”

“I would never pull your leg, Melvina.” Heaven forfend. “All drones are fatherless. They grow from unfertilized eggs.”

“Is that a fact.” 

He flicked his hand and the drone flew off toward the hive.

She looked uncertain. “I guess I could stand closer. If you’re sure I won’t get stung.”

He gave her a frankly evaluative stare. “There are no guarantees in life, Melvina.” He led her back toward the hives. 

Halfway there, she stopped and looked down. “Just a rotten log, didn’t you say?”

She gave it a sharp kick. Dozens of insects flew out from underneath.

“Ow! Help! Oh, help!”

“Run, Melvina!” He sprinted away from her but still felt a couple of nasty stings. “Come on, quick!” 

Waving her hands in panic, she flung herself crabwise into the screened back porch as he held the door open for her. 

Roger slammed the door shut behind her. He swept his hands around her face and shoulders as she swatted at her bare legs. He grabbed a magazine, rolled it up, and chased down a couple of mad aggressors. 

“Sit down,” he said. “How many times you get stung?”

“Hundreds!” She lowered herself onto a battered hassock.

He frowned. “No. Not hundreds. Breathe slowly. Can you do that?” Pink blotches had blossomed in several places on her face and neck. 

He kept an epi-pen in case one of his bees should ever sting someone with a real allergy. He wondered if he should get it now. 

She took a deep breath, in and out. “It hurts, you . . . degenerate!” 

“Nobody said it didn’t. Couple of ’em got me, too—I just run faster than you. Listen, can you breathe okay?”

“Of course I can breathe.” 

“I mean, your airway isn’t closing up, is it?”

She opened her eyes wide. “Airway? Am I in danger?”

“That’s what I’m asking. Do I need to get the epi-pen?”

She concentrated on her breath. “No. I just hurt all over. My heart is fluttering a bit.”

“You maybe took thirty or forty stings. Once they start in on you, all you can do is run. Each one of those little bastards can sting you over and over again.” 

“Well, you and your damned bees owe me a big apology.”

“German Yellowjacket (Vespula germanica) worker” byFutureman1 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

He bridled. “That’s defamation. Wasn’t my bees. Them were yellowjackets that stung you. Not bees. That’s why there’s no stingers to remove from your hide.”

“Yellowjackets?”

“German wasps. Ground dwellers. They’ll attack anything, anywhere, any time. You uncovered their nest. Now you see why I haven’t moved that log.” 

She bolted up from her hassock. “I see that you’re a menace, is what I see! Bees, wasps, whatever, they’re a danger to the neighborhood. We’ll put a stop to it. Good day, Mister Mayhem.” 

She marched out of the house, down the street, around the corner.

#

From his front porch he watched her go. She steamed down the sidewalk straight up-and-down, nothing off-kilter now. Propelled by righteous indignation.

His bees were threatened, through no fault of their own, by a vindictive bill on the council’s agenda for next week. It was sponsored by Matt Grosswisch, one of the five council members. But Matt never had an original thought in his life. Melvina had put him up to it.

She had not always been this way. Roger remembered when Melvina had been a vivacious, even daring, young woman. Sociable, too. It was her husband, Jack, who had been the town’s chief pain-in-the-ass in those days. Self-important, officious,  hidebound, and narrow-minded—he had it all. 

When Jack died of a heart attack at age 50, Melvina seemed to have been passed the torch of self-righteousness. She lost her amiable qualities, traded them in for the responsibility of making others’ lives miserable at every turn.

He sighed and went inside. 

As he stood in the center of the living room, looking all about him, he had to admit that Melvina was right. He had let it become shabby. It would not have gone downhill like this when Doris was here. She, and she alone, had made this a home to live in. 

Oh, God, how he missed her.

Well, at least he had his little Italian darlings. Until next week.

#

Roger stood on Melvina’s front stoop. He rang the bell. Having heard no sound of a chime inside the house—and his hearing was extraordinarily good for a man his age—he banged on the screen door. He knocked again, scuffing his knuckles in the attempt. He began to fear that she had come home, gone inside, suffered a delayed allergic reaction, and died. Maybe I should have brought the epi-pen.

The door swung open. There stood Melvina. Frowning, as best she could with her nose and lips distorted and swollen. 

He presented a pink bottle with a flourish and burst into song: “You’re gonna need an ocean . . . dum, da-dum, da-dum . . . of calamine lotion—”

“Have you gone crazy?” She bunched up a fist and shook it in his face, but he did not flinch.

“Take it, Melvina. Right now it only hurts, but in a day or two those stings’ll itch like crazy. You’ll need this. Plus all the Benadryl you can tolerate.”

She uncurled her fist and took the bottle. 

With his other hand, Roger presented his second gift—a heavy jar of golden liquid. “Here. This comes from the bees. They want you to know there are no hard feelings.” 

She snorted. “That’s big of them. Seems to me I’m the one who should harbor a grudge.” 

“God dammit, woman! Are you going to go around that way all your life?”

Her mouth fell. “All what way?” 

“Chip on your shoulder.” He stood, holding the jar of honey, in what amounted to a posture of pure supplication.

She let out a sigh. “Well. To tell you the truth. It seems I may owe your bees a little gratitude after all.”

He resisted the urge to ask.

She looked almost shy, like a school girl. “Ever since, I would swear, almost since the moment of the attack, my knees have been free of pain. First time in years. I’m at a loss to understand it.”

“Funny you should say that, Melvina. Exact same thing happened to my knees when those yellowjackets stung me last month. Instant pain relief. And long-lasting.”

She smiled, nodded. “That’s good to know.”

“It’s such a benefit,” Roger said, “I’m ashamed to admit it was those damned yellowjackets done it, not my bees.”

“Whatever,” she said. Her hand closed over his offering of honey.

Larry F. Sommers

Author of Price of Passage—A Tale of Immigration and Liberation.

Price of Passage

Norwegian Farmers and Fugitive Slaves in Pre-Civil War Illinois

BUY NOW

(History is not what you thought!)