A Facet of Human Nature Is Revealed

ALMOST EVERY issue of every slick magazine using fiction
contains one more-or-less off-beat story. If you were to
analyze the average copy of some four-story slick, you'd
probably find one young-love piece ending with marriage
or the prospects of a marriage, one man-and-wife tale with
or without kiddies, one action story, and, for the fourth,
something a trifle unique.
One of these fourth-slot, off-beat stories is not really a
story at all. Nothing much happens in the story in the sense
of the protagonist's fortunes being changed for better
or worse. Quite frequently it is a short-short, a form in
which experimental (by slick standards) writing is most
appreciated. Here's an example.
A certain aging married gentleman gets to thinking about
old times, and especially about how his boyhood friends were
forced to split up when they got married or left the home
town to go to work in other parts of the country. He remembers
that immediately before the parting, they had passed
around a loaf of pumpernickel bread on which all had carved
their initials. He can't recall what finally happened to the
loaf, but he remembers it as a grand, sentimental gesture for
young men likely never to see each other again.
Suddenly, the old man has an idea. He decides to buy
another loaf of pumpernickel bread and send it to the one
member of the old group whose address he knows and exhort
him to carve his name in it and send it on to any other member
of the gang whose whereabouts that member may know. The
old fellow has the fond hope of getting together all the old
friends that remain for one last reunion.
The wife tries to warn her husband gently that starting
such a project will only make him sad, that he had best forget
it. But the man insists, and goes to purchase a pumpernickel.
He brings it home, saying that he is tired and will start the
thing on the next day. He goes to bed. The next morning,
when he sits down at the breakfast table, there, cut into slices
and offered up on a dish, is the loaf of pumpernickel. He
takes a slice, bites into it, remarks to his wife what fine bread
it is, and asks her where she bought it.
When condensed into a few lines of bald language, these
stories cannot seem too effective. But this one-though you
may not realize it-was really a poignant little piece. It was
warm without being sentimental, interesting without relying
on some synthetic suspense device, and, finally, satisfying
without being untrue. Actually, nothing happened in
the story. The reader merely watched a nicely acted-out
anecdote about two old people.
Another one.
A man is driving along a lonely highway. Suddenly, he has
a blowout. Changing the tire does not bother him nearly so
much as the memory of two hitch-hikers about a mile back
who had flagged him for a ride and whom he had passed by.
They struck him as mean looking characters and now he
imagines them walking along the road in his direction. He
can't possibly have the tire changed before they overtake his
car. If they have any criminal tendencies, they undoubtedly
will make it rough for him when they find him changing the
tire.
As expected, the hitch-hikers do come along and are even
tougher looking than the driver remembers them. They indulge
in a little Hemingway-gangster chatter and finally pull a
gun on the driver. The two strip the driver of his wallet and
take his car. The driver then gets out on the road himself and
flags a ride from another driver. Once in the car, the first driver
asks the second if he is not apprehensive about picking up
strangers on lonely roads. The second driver says no, he has
never turned down a hitch-hiker in all his twenty years of
driving, and nothing bad has ever come of it. The cynical
driver thinks to himself that he won't disillusion his guest by
telling him about his recent experience. The story closes with
the good-natured driver exclaiming that people will never do
you any harm if you treat them right.
There are aspects of the "biter-bit" story in this piece,
but, actually, the suspense does not rest primarily on the
question of whether the two hitch-hikers will revenge
themselves on the first driver for having passed them by.
The revenge is accomplished and the story is not half finished.
The revelation of the mean and cynical blind spot
in one man's spiritual vision is the point of the story.
The father of a teen-age girl arrives at his home one evening
to find that his daughter is throwing a gay and noisy party
for some of her contemporaries. The father sees his living
room a shambles, some favorite bric-a-brac is broken, the rug
and furniture stained with spilled soft drinks. The sight of
the exuberant youngsters making a mess of his home infuriates
the father. There have been too damn many parties lately, the
father decides, and stalks in among the young people to demand
that they stop the noise, clean up the mess, and leave.
Shamefacedly, the youngsters rearrange things and go. When
the friends finally leave, the daughter goes with them. The
father is left with the knowledge that she will stay out late in
order to worry him. He also realizes that she will remain sulky
unless he comes to her and asks her to have her parties at
home. His pride will not allow him to do this. He must have
his victory, petty as it is.
This story takes on meaning only in that it depicts in
traumatic terms the child throwing off parental authority,
a usually inescapable aspect both of growing up for the
child and of bringing up children for the parents.
What is it that differentiates pieces like these three from
the mass of fiction that editors reject with the criticisms
"no story content" or "just as anecdote"? Such pieces as
these are not frequently used, and when they are, one
sometimes wonders why. Very general advice would indicate
that the writer should steer clear of this plot-type unless
he feels he has something which is extraordinarily
strong slick-wise on some other score than plot quotient
and which inescapably falls into this category.
category:plot lines