{"id":9263,"date":"2021-10-04T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-04T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9263"},"modified":"2021-10-03T18:18:29","modified_gmt":"2021-10-03T22:18:29","slug":"where-stories-come-from","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9263","title":{"rendered":"Where Stories Come From"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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If you write short stories, you know that typing \u201cThe End\u201d is really the beginning. From there, it\u2019s often a long haul to find just the right spot (i.e., appreciative editor) for your tale. And, you may end up re-working it a bit; as time passes, you may hear a few shortcomings crying out for revision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even when a story is written in response to a request for works of a specific type, or on a specific theme, or in a specific time period, acceptance isn\u2019t guaranteed. I insulate myself against the pain of possible rejection by keeping track of the next <\/em>place(s) I should send a story. If it comes back to me, I send it right out again, maybe with some revisions. Like they say about the state lottery, \u201cif you don\u2019t play, you can\u2019t win.\u201d Or, perhaps more appropriate, our state lottery\u2019s new motto, \u201cAnything can happen in Jersey.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My story \u201cDuplex\u201d has logged a lot of cyberspace miles, and I\u2019m delighted to say it has now been published online (available free to YOU) on the website, The Green Shoe Sanctuary<\/a>. This good news prompted me to think back to the story\u2019s origins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you live in the northeast, you\u2019ll know that here, at least, duplex houses (one above, one below or side-by-side) are fairly common. Driving home one day, I passed a duplex on a sharply angled corner lot that required one half to drop back a few feet. Immersed at the time in Little Dorrit<\/em>, in which Arthur Clennam\u2019s dismal family home is like another character, I thought, \u201cIf Charles Dickens saw that house, he\u2019d make it part of the story\u2014the withdrawn, unprepossessing side and the proud, thrust-forward side.\u201d (At the end of Little Dorrit<\/em> you read with relief that Clennam\u2019s malignant house collapses.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDuplex\u201d begins by explicitly stating this contrast and evoking Dickens. Only in the second paragraph does it move into the situation of the main character, Cordelia Faye Watters, a young Vietnam War widow in the 1960s. Here\u2019s that opener:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If only a perceptive social commentator like Charles Dickens had dissected the significance of a particular two-family house in Pinterville, Virginia! Anyone could describe its remarkable physical appearance, divided down the middle like a discordant married couple, the two mismatched halves physically split. But only a Dickens would appreciate the possible impact of this arrangement on the house\u2019s occupants. The disheveled half, on the left, hung back some twenty feet or more, while its tidy neighbor, porch painted white as good intentions, sat primly forward. This isn\u2019t my usual crime\/mystery story, clearly. Cordelia\u2019s challenge is to open her eyes to the variety of riches and responsibilities of the world around her. I hope you\u2019ll read it and let me know what you think!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you write short stories, you know that typing \u201cThe End\u201d is really the beginning. From there, it\u2019s often a long haul to find just the right spot (i.e., appreciative editor) for your tale. And, you may end up re-working … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Where Stories Come From - newly available online, my story \"Duplex\" and where it came from. (Thank you, Charles Dickens.)","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[366,40,126,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drama","category-fiction","category-reading-2","category-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2pp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9263"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9265,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9263\/revisions\/9265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}