I’ve been thinking about “Hello?”, the story I’ve dropped from my 10 Pairs of Shorts collection. It was described as “garbage” by someone who has offered feedback on other stories of mine and while I don’t think it’s that bad, it is a rather half-baked (if lengthy) writing exercise that would need multiple drafts and some major work to make it live up to the potential of its high concept. In the end I decided it would be more effort than it was worth vs. writing a new story from scratch.
But I like the high concept, enough to at least give some thought to how I would fix the story, if I decided to do so. The concept is something that’s been used many times in books and films: someone finds him or herself the last person on the planet (seemingly), and tries to learn what has happened to everyone else while simultaneously dealing with the inevitable crushing loneliness.
When I wrote the exercise I framed the plot in fairly simple terms: What would be the mental progression of someone who finds himself truly alone? I took a scattershot approach, with the protagonist having good days and bad days, spending some days in despair and others conducting methodical scouting expeditions looking for others. He made some efforts to survive but was clearly no doomsday prepper. I enjoyed exploring these things but in the end the result was unfocused and had some logical inconsistencies that were never addressed because I never did further drafts on the story (I had planned on finally doing this when preparing it for the collection).
What would I do if I decided to fix the story instead of scrapping it and starting over? A few things come to mind:
- I’d switch from first to third person. You lose some intimacy going to third person but gain a certain frisson by making the outcome of the story less certain–does the protagonist make it? You’re no longer sure because he’s not directly recalling events to the reader.
- I would make a flowchart outlining the protagonist’s mental and physical trajectory. This would be similar to a plot outline while also serving as a combination journal/itinerary of the character. The purpose would be to create a logical flow for his behavior, to pinpoint where he might switch from shock/inaction to initial searches to planning for long term survival and so on. This would eliminate the scattershot approach the story now has.
- I would flesh out the protagonist before writing/rewriting. In the current version of the story he is a bland everyman, with no distinguishing characteristics or notable personality traits. He could be anyone or no one and as such isn’t that interesting to follow. I would also determine how capable he is at basic survival.
- The opening scenes may be too short to properly serve as a foundation that gets undercut later when everyone else disappears. I’d probably expand on it.
- It goes without saying that I would clean up logical inconsistencies.
Of these things, the flowchart intrigues me enough that I am tempted to give it a shot. It would be a lot of work and something I’d probably not do without committing to a full rewrite. But it’s tempting, like a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie.
