ghosts crowd the young child’s fragile eggshell mind

When I woke up this morning, the very first thought shouted at me by my brain was, “What if Death rented a room in your house?”
Neil Gaiman says that most of his stories start out with “What if . . . ” or “If only . . . ” so I immediately wrote down my “What if . . .”
. . . and didn’t know what to do next. Normally, when I want to write a story, I take my idea, and just start. Something like:

Dorothy Hansen sat in her living room and did The Jumble. After Loretta went mad with Alzheimer’s the previous Fall, Dorothy vowed to keep her 75 year-old mind sharp any way she could. She wasn’t going to win any Major Awards, but she completed The Jumble more often than not,

Then I get stuck, because that’s shite. But it’s good information for me to use inthe building of this character. I would almost certainly cut that stuff before I even made it to an editor’s draft.
The story really starts when I get here:

There was a knock at the front door. She pulled herself out of her chair and called out, “I’ll be right there!”
The wooden floors of her living room creaked and popped beneath her as she walked. Her steps echoed down the hallway ahead of her.
She turned the deadbolt and pulled the front door open, revealing a tall young man.
“Yes?” she said.
“Do you still have a room for rent?” he asked, pointing to a sign in her front window.
She studied him briefly. He wore a dark coat and a white shirt. His hair was to his shoulders, and he held a small bag in one hand. He smelled nice, like old spices and leather.
“I have two rooms,” she said, and motioned him into the house. “Upstairs, or down?”
“Let’s take a look,” he said, with a smile.
“The downstairs room is off the kitchen, down this hallway,” she said.
She walked into the house, and he followed. The floorboards were silent beneath his feet. His footsteps were like sand blowing across dunes.
“I’m Joseph,” he said.
“Mrs. Hansen,” she said, “pleased to meet you.”
“Likewise.”

That took me about 45 minutes to write, and it’s still a mostly-naked skeleton . . . But there’s stuff in there that I like . . . I think maybe this guy will have all sorts of Egyptian smells and things around him, and I like the way he glides over the floors.
About halfway through that, I thought maybe it would be better to tell it from the perspective of someone who already lives in the house. Maybe a college student, or something. I also don’t know when it’s set — maybe that’s not important.
But the thing is, I don’t know what happens next. Oh, sure, he takes a room, Probably the upstairs one, so I can use the eerie silence of his walking on the staircase, but once this “scene” is done, it’s a mystery to me.
So I guess this is where that outline comes in handy, so I know where I’m going.
I think it’s interesting if a girl who lives nearby falls for him, I think he puts everyone at ease (that’s what Death would do, right?) and everyone likes him . . . but he makes them feel slightly uneasy, and they don’t know why.
Somehow, people have to start dying, and some suspicious neighbors decide that this guy is responsible. He’s not. He’s just Death, so he takes them, but —
OH! I have it!! Someone in the town is a killer. Someone respected or something, like a cop, or a priest, or something, and Death has come to town because there’s going to be a lot of souls to take care of. What if it IS the police chief, so he’s investigating himself? What if Death falls in love with someone in the town? I don’t think I’m going to let Death fall in love with anyone. I think that’s been done to . . . death.
Heh.
But I think I will let a neighborhood girl get a crush on him, and see what happens there.
What if? What if? Well, maybe I don’t have it. But that’s some stuff to build on.
Is that an outline? I still have no idea how the story ends, but now I have enough ideas to make me want to finish it.
I googled for “How to write a fiction outline,” and didn’t really find a definitive answer. However, I came across this site, where I found this very interesting and useful post:
Mileages vary, but I’m really glad I kept my day job. Writers who make their whole living from writing have a couple of problems:

  1. They have to write whatever comes their way, whether it’s interesting or not. On the couple of occasions when I had to write a novel for the money, it was like pulling my back molars with my fingers.
  2. They end up writing novels about novelists writing novels.

Still, Robert Heinlein did pretty well as a fulltime writer (until he got old and successful and self-indulgent). He also left us his five rules for writers:

  1. Writers write. They don’t wait until they “have enough time” or “inspiration strikes.”
  2. Writers finish what they write. No matter how much they hate the current project, they slog through to the last page.
  3. Writers never rewrite except to editorial order. Writing a novel is like building a deck or renovating a bathroom–you don’t want to rip everything up and do it all over again. So you plan carefully, do it right the first time, and don’t keep fussing with the story.
  4. (Kilian’s Exemption) When you’re starting out, you need your novel in progress to teach you a lot, so it’s OK to go back and revise your ms. on the basis of what you’re learning. (This is actually listed at 3a, but I’m using list tags. Sue me.)
  5. Writers put their work on the market. They don’t just inflict it on friends and family.
  6. Writers keep their work on the market until it sells. So the first 15 or 20 rejections don’t matter; you send it out again.

Heinlein argues that writers fail by breaking one or another of these rules, and he’s right. I wrote my first novel in the army in 1966, sent it to one publisher, got rejected, and never sent it out again. Bad as it was, some wretched publisher would eventually have bought it, and my career would have started a decade earlier than it did.”
I also found Something for nothing: advice for writers, and Ten Rules of Writing.
It’s a lot of interesting stuff, and I laughed out loud when I thought, “Wow, there’s useful information on the Internet, if you can get around the porn and shopping.”

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164 thoughts on “ghosts crowd the young child’s fragile eggshell mind”

  1. This IS some interesting stuff. Sounds like something that could be from “Dead Like Me.” But…aren’t you afraid that someone’s gonna rip this idea off you and use it??

  3. Many, and I mean MANY writers write without an outline. An outline is only really imperative if you’re writing a highly plotted story, like a mystery, that needs all of the organization planned out beforehand. For a story such as the one you’ve started, it’s probably best to get into the characters and let them tell you how the story turns out. Too much plotting leads to stilted, forced writing.
    As far as the advice to never revise, that’s patently ridiculous and contrary to any writing advice I’ve ever heard. As you’ve seen yourself with your work on JAG, the revision process helps sharpen and improve your writing. Sure, too much revision kills it, but your first draft is not usually your best.
    I also disagree that everything you write should be published no matter how crappy it is. If you’ve read the body of Heinlein’s work, it should be obvious why this is bad advice. Some work deserves to stay in the drawer.
    For some excellent advice about writing and the revision process as well as letting the characters take you through a story, read Stephen King’s “On Writing.” If you haven’t already.

  4. And as far as ripping off your ideas–that’s a concern of a weak writer. It’s not the idea that’s important, it’s the way you tell the story. I’ve heard it said that there are really only 7 storylines and everything is a variation on them. If you’re a good writer, and you are, then your telling of this story will be as unique as it needs to be and it won’t matter if some hack tries to write the same idea.

  5. What if Wil Wheaton rented a room in your house?
    Catchy? …maybe not.
    What if Wil Wheaton and his posse rent a room in your house?
    Might be better… Could spin it to some kind of orgy fest.

  6. What if a monkey with a typewriter rented a room in your house?
    oh wait… that’s the same as
    What if Wil Wheaton rented a room in your house?

  7. I don’t know much about writing except what I hear from Neil Gaiman and Harlan Ellison, which meshes with what Heinlein says. Harlan says something like
    “Everybody thinks they can be a writer? Why is that? Nobody thinks they can just be a brain surgeon. It’s because the vast majority of writers don’t put as much work into perfecting their craft as a brain surgeon does and that’s wrong. If you’re a writer, write. Write at least six hours a day, write even if it’s crap.”
    I’m paraphrasing from memory, but that’s basically what he said.
    What I *do* know, however, is HTML. And if you want an “a” bullet after your 3, so it’s 3a, just put a nested OL inside your #3’s LI tags.
    <LI>This is number 3
    <OL type=”a”>
    <LI>This is 3a</LI>
    </OL>
    </LI>

  8. Woah . . . that’s cool, Puck. 🙂
    Joe just e-mailed me my ending:
    “. . .at the end you could have the killer die, and thats death’s cue to head out.”
    I dunno how it will happen, but it’s something to work toward.
    Cool!

  9. This idea reminds me of two things: an episode in Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine and Terry Pratchett’s book, Mort. You might want or might not want to read them to make certain you aren’t just subconscously remembering their ideas.

  10. Dude, check one of your links (Something for nothing).
    It opens as:
    http://www.esva.net/~davidpoyer/seven.htm%22
    which includes the obligatory “%22” because you included and extra space. Firebird barfed on it, until I actually looked at the address bar to see what was wrong.
    By the way, I like the idea. I’m always intrigued by the concept that Death isn’t evil, since everyone has to die eventually. People always talk about cheating Death, and I wonder if the Angel of Death would really feel cheated if someone escaped him, or if he would be relieved?

  13. wil, have you ever considered trying “national novel writing month”? it’s every november, where novice novelists try to complete a short one in a MONTH. crazy, i know, but it’s pretty fun, actually. i did it last year. unfortunately, you’d have to wait ’til 2004 (and you’ll prob. be busy w/ your many projects)… maybe sometime in the future: http://www.nanowrimo.org/

  14. mother fuck.
    I hate it when I have an idea, and it turns out that someone else has already done it.
    I’m not familiar with any of the stories listed above. Maybe there really *are* just 7 stories after all.

  15. hey wil..
    yeah…it’s a cool idea..but unfortunately someone else (actually a few) beat you too it..
    long before Brad Pitt was walking around running his fingers through his hair, the story was called ‘death takes a holiday’
    wich may or may not have been a feature film or a twilight zone episode..
    (at any rate, the twillight zone version starred a very young robert redford, and he totally freaking rocked in it…
    brad pitts was of course ‘meet joe black’
    anyhow, don’t take it bad…it’s a great idea, and no one said you couldn’t spin your own take on it…
    matter of fact..some of your ideas sound pretty freaking cool..
    just explore your own story

  17. Hey, I’m intrigued. I especially liked the “spices and old leather” smell, which is very vivid but, you know, doesn’t feel too overpowering. And it’s an actual smell, which is a relief in a world where writers try and get away with “the smell of rain” for a person, and other such things. What’s the smell of rain? Is it dead worms? Why do you want your character to smell like dead worms? Anyway. What I was trying to say is, I really like that imagery.
    Incidentally, I’m not sure how much you’re planning to keep of what you have, if anything, but “His footsteps were like sand blowing across dunes” was a sentence which completely lost me, until you actually said afterwards that he was gliding. Maybe I’m just dense, I dunno. I thought I’d point it out. Am I being too nitpicky?

  18. 1. There’s porn on the internet???
    2. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the BBC’s Mulberry from about 15 years ago, but it has a very nice take on this kind of story. When I watched it I thought it was really well done – although I was 13 at the time so my judgment might have left something to be desired…

  19. I thought ‘Meet Joe Black’ too, but like, don’t listen to any of us who are naming other stories with Death in. Just listen to Shelby (“It’s not the idea that’s important, it’s the way you tell the story”). You should try to write *your* story about Death.
    Your story isn’t the same as any of these others (as far as I know). The only similarity to JoeBlack was that he moved in to the house, so you shared the original thought, but you took it in a very different direction. That film was based around how someone coped with knowing who he was, and it didn’t actually have any deaths in most of the film. Your story’s clearly headed somewhere very different to that.
    So I say just keep writing at it for a bit, and see if you like what you come up with 🙂

  20. Yes. It does remind me of “Meet Joe Black”, which was a damned fine movie as far as I am concerned. Especially the incredible car hitting incident in the beginning. Totally excellent piece of film editing right there.
    But Wil’s story isn’t about Death taking a holiday. Death is there to do his job, and the overall idea so far sounds like quite an interesting murder mystery.
    To me, I personally like the idea of Death falling in love with someone, a local girl, or even a second renter in the house. In fact, not only have Death fall in love with someone, but also have that someone be on the “List of Souls” that he must collect.
    What if you were Death, and you fell in love with someone whom you discovered was next to die?
    I think that would be quite a story.
    I have some pretty wild dreams sometimes…dreams that I think would make excellent books. Unfortunately I have very little writing talent. It is a shame too since I so often remember some of the stranger dreams that I have with some incredible detail. If I could get that stupid digital email encryption stuff to work right, I’d even send short synopsis your way Wil, and just let you fly with them!
    Besides, isn’t that how many novels start? With a dream? :}

  21. Oh, one other thing Wil. Don’t ever, *ever* worry about whether or not you are writing a store that someone else already did. It happens all the time.
    In fact, I’ll I can give you proof of that fact: The movies “Volcano” and “Dante’s Peak”. Both good movies, based on a similar concept. Now the better example: “Armageddon” and “Deep Impact”. Both were good, but they were almost the same damned movie if you ask me. The only reason that “Armageddon” was more popular, was because it had LOTS of big-name stars, a waaay bigger buget, and Liv Tyler ;}
    So I say run with it! :}

  22. And please forgive me for posting three times in a row, but I noticed a typo in my last post that is just aggrivating the crap outta me. I said “writing a store” and it should be “writing a story”! You know what I meant of course but dang I hate typos like that! :}

  23. just an idea–
    if death is in town because there’s a killer on the loose, it would be more interesting for the killer to be an ambiguous figure– someone doing ‘the wrong thing for the right reason.’ you could use that to compare and contrast the characters of Death and the killer.
    for example, the killer could appear to be the brother of the girl Death falls in love with. the brother finds out from a videotape that the girl has been gangraped by the son of the mayor & his fratboy buddies, and goes to the police chief abut it, but no one is willing to help out of fear of retaliation from the mayor. the fratboys die one by one in deaths that seem like freak accidents at first.
    after a couple of deaths, people get suspiciious, and a murder investigation begins, but things don’t add up. the murders just can’t be pinned on the girl’s brother.
    instead– it is actually the girl who is the killer, instead of her brother.

  26. Even better have Death fall in love with the killer. The great thing about this, is that the person that he falls in love with can be any age/race/person, because this is Death and he really doesn’t have the same boundaries that we would have when it comes to stuff like that.

  27. I don’t think I’m going to let Death fall in love with anyone. I think that’s been done to . . . death.
    Heh.
    But I think I will let a neighborhood girl get a crush on him, and see what happens there.

  29. Will I gotta tell you… you’ve got me hooked. And congratulations, not only are you the first ‘blogger’ i’ve begun reading religiously (beyond Michael Moore’s links to sensibility), and pretty much every time I read something you’ve shared with we creepy internet lurkers, I feel better knowing i’m not the only one at least attempting to share their noodle with who-knows-who-from-where. My site has become more of a place for me to vent my frustration for the way things are today, probably because my life isn’t nearly as interesting as yours to report the ‘normal’ stuff…
    Regardless…keep it up, and something tells me, if you and yours were ever to meet me and mine, we’d probably be on the same page about a lot of things..probably that whole same place at the same time in life thing… (of course mine lacks that whole celebrity stigma, but you know what i mean)…
    -cw

  30. damn brain adding extra letters to my words.. any other Internet junkies find their fingers typing words before their brain can tell them to type the correct word? (ie. sometimes shot comes out sh!t, etc)

  33. “Wow, there’s useful information on the Internet, if you can get around the porn and shopping.”
    Pretty funny — it’s going in my Email Signatures file.
    k.

  34. I immediately thought of Meet Joe Black (an excellent and somewhat underrated film) when I read your story premise, but there’s no reason for you to abandon it. – Especially if you avoid having ‘death’ falling in love with some local girl. And I think it would be interesting to see a characterization of death that is complicated and ambiguous, without humanizing him.
    Think of someone like T’Pol on Enterprise. They screwed her up by trying to make her human. But it could have been far more interesting to see people reach out to her without having those feelings reciprocated.

  35. Ugh. If you decide to have Death fall in love with someone, please, for god’s sake, handle it better than Meet Joe Black!
    One of the most painful movies I have ever had to sit through. I’m convinced Brad Pitt did it because it was every actor’s wet dream: a three hour long death scene.

  37. Yeah, I here what you’re saying about the porn thing. Almost every search I do, something porn comes back. Then after clicking on it, I loose track of what I was searching for, and all is lost.
    Ok, mostly kidding there. Mostly. *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*
    When I start writing stories, I often run myself into a wall, and usually end up dropping it completely because I don’t know where to take it next. I have often thought that a writing partner would come in quite handy in these situations. Someone that you can toss the started story to and then talk back and forth about what could come next or how it might end. You could do the same for him when his story is stuck.
    Ok, I’ve rambled on quite enough.
    I’m out…

  38. You already have me wanting to read more, you definately need to develop this..
    I wouldn’t worry too much that the Death story has been done before, because I honestly think you can make it your own and take it in a direction that has yet to be done.
    If you are interested there is a great book called The Novel Writers Toolkit written by Bob Mayer who has written several Best Sellers under various Pseudonyms.
    You can find it here.
    http://www.bobmayer.org/fiction.html

  39. I’m not sure Neil Gaiman’s idea about “what if…” beginning a story is a very common practice among authors. But I suppose it’s a matter of whether you regard the “what if” as providing the basis for the beginning of your story, or whether question truly resides at the story’s end. If you begin the creative process with sense of the conclusion to your story, then the question becomes “if this is my ending, then how did I get here?”. I believe it is a more useful thing to begin writing with a sense at least of the parameters of a story, than to write blindly. Plot holes form where no structure resides. And while the creative process might divert from a basic structure, it is the consciousness of an impending end that provides the true relish of the narrative. As readers we are given a taste of a life. To have no sense of an end to that delicious morsel, is to render ourselves to a feast that eventually becomes dull and indistinguishable from the tedious conventionalism of daily life. To hold in your mind the sweetness of a tale’s end, is to provide the very texture of the tale.

  41. Wil,
    I didn’t realise that Americans used the word ‘shite’, so thanks for that.
    As others have said, I think you need to take the premise you have and make it your own, and not worry if the same idea has inspired other writers. It won’t have inspired them in the same way.
    On the subject of writing, I agree with Shelby that you should read Stephen King’s On Writing, if you haven’t already. I think it should be compulsive reading for anyone interested in the process of writing fiction.

  42. “I met, not long ago, a young man who aspired to become a novelist. Knowing that I was in the profession, he asked me to tell him how he should set to work to realize his ambition. I did my best to explain. ‘The first thing,’ I said, ‘is to buy quite a lot of paper, a bottle of ink, and a pen. After that you merely have to write.'” (from ‘Sermons in Cats’ in Music at Night) ALDOUS HUXLEY

  44. Other people have mentioned Terry Pratchett, but not specifically the book which comes to mind for me, which is ‘Reaper Man’, in which Death takes up residence in the barn of an old lady, helps her with the harvest and such, and ultimately grows fond of her and takes her off dancing and such, the catch being, she hasn’t realised she’s actually dead at that point. The ‘Death’ novels are my favourite of Pratchett’s discworld series, and I recommend them unconditionally.

  45. if you change “death” to “the devil”…or just add “the devil” to the scenario you open up additional possibilities…like who would the devil entertain in his room…and what price would they pay for his favors…maybe “cheating death with the devil” would be a good title.

  46. Gidday Wil,
    I just love writers who can evoke full senses descriptions, especially new spins on the olfactory.
    >He smelled nice, like old spices and leather.
    MMmmmmm …
    This link might also be of interest to your good self and others who aspire.
    http://www.abc.net.au/writers/
    Cassy

  47. The Death of cuddly kittens, puppy dogs, and everything in between. The Death that rips the heart out of little kids.
    If this were Hollywood, the little girl would be played by Natalie Wood, the mom by Sandra Bullock, Death by Steve McQueen, music score by Randy Newman w/vocals by Streisand, would be directed by Sam Peckinpaugh, would bankrupt the studio, and replace “Cleopatra” in the annals of film lore as the biggest bomb in film history, causing the
    writer of the original story and film script to move to France and take up wine making, with a few yearly appearances on Letterman, where he launches into drunken profanity filled rages against those @$#&^@ bean counters who re-wrote the film behind his back.

  48. you know…not only is your blog extremely entertaining (I get crap daily from the man I live with for being addicted *g*), but I have to tell you that reading about your writing trials and tribulations makes me sooo much better about my own. thank you for that, and for the great links :):)

  49. ADVICE FROM INTERNET FRIEND #237
    Again, I urge you to pick up a copy of “The Art of Fiction” by John Gardener. No, it’s not as easy as looking stuff up on the Internet. Yes, you MAY have to leave your incredibly clean home to get the copy, but I’m telling you it’s worth it.
    I realize you don’t know me from a knot in a Christmas tree, and you really have no reason to take my advice… for all you know, I could be one of those people who sits at the local Barnes and Noble on a laptop finishing their “NOVEL”–
    Luckily, I don’t own a laptop.
    Take a chance. Take my advice. And if getting out to the local bookstore seems too daunting, you could always ORDER IT ONLINE.
    Marlene.

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