The road to the Project Brief 1 short story was fraught with challenges. In addition to Story Lab I am also taking a Short Story Writing class, and the readings and discussions in this class opposed that of Story Lab. In Short Story Writing, we were given readings that were more open to interpretation, and provided a more thought provoking experience. The first class of Story Lab focussed on linearity and the readings backed up the ideas more closely aligned with screenwriting, where there must be causal links between events, a clear cause and effect for every action. I first worked on the short story for the Short Story Writing class, as I had put my hand up to receive feedback in Week 2. I wrote a draft of a story “Kharon” which was purposefully open-ended and abstract. This was achieved through the use of memory, and a person in a hospital room remembering very specific events in order to understand their current situation.
This assignment for Story Lab was fraught with false starts. It was difficult switching between cause and effect story outlines and abstract writing and I began writing the short story, Body, to spite not liking the original concept. The first idea that came to mind was the story of a bride that found a dead body in a closet, only to discover that it was the body of a passed out drunk who slept the night in the wardrobe. I wrote the story, mainly because it sounded interesting as an initial concept, however when I wrote out a dot point plan I didn’t like the idea. I did however, force myself to write out the story, based on the initial story plan:
- Sharon’s anticipation for marriage
- Fascination with the corpse
- She doesn’t call anyone/ stares at body
- Thinks about her own mortality for a second/ takes off her wedding ring
- Then the corpse wakes up and leaves the room
- He reveals he got drunk at a Halloween party at the same venue and passed out in the closet
- She puts her wedding ring back on
Suffice to say the first draft was fraught with story holes and weak causal links and I have learnt to trust my instincts and if I don’t like the story plan, I should come up with a new plan. I then returned to the Robert McKee reading for the week, contained in his book Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the principles of screenwriting, and studied it carefully. I focused on what McKee calls the “gap” in what the character expects to happen, and what actually happens in the reality of the story world. I then re-thought out the story and wrote “The Bride”. It begins with a bride finding a corpse in the closet, but what is her goal? I determined that she was desperate to get married, that was her sole purpose or goal, and a dead body in the closet would destroy her chances at having the perfect wedding. I then thought about how to “raise the stakes” as McKee puts it, and make it a life or death situation. Therefore, I made the man in the wardrobe near death, not actually dead. I added in the gap in expectation, after the bride decides not to call the police for fear of her wedding being ruined, she then closes the wardrobe door getting her dress caught in the door.
I then raised the stakes again and had someone knock on the door, creating more tension. Her father is at the door and is hurrying her along and eventually moves into the room, this heightens the excitement and fear of discovery. She makes an excuse, and her father goes outside and wait for her. She then frees her dress from the door, making her way to the aisle and as she is about to get married, a maid discovers the body and gestures to the room where the bride emerged and to her shock, another gap in expectation, her dress had a large blood stain on it, therefore implicating her in the murder.
This simple exercise of adding in gaps in character expectation, and raising the stakes from a simple “I won’t report it just yet” to “I could actually got to jail” creates more interest in the story.
