Hi… I haven’t posted here in a while.
The last three episodes of DLTDGB (#172, 173, and 174 – go read those now if you haven’t yet) have featured a story that character-Greg wrote, called “August Fog.” The process of writing these episodes was noteworthy, and these episodes, as with much of DLTDGB, carefully blended fact and fiction.
I really did take a fiction writing class when I was younger, and “August Fog” actually was a story I wrote for that class. I really did have to share the first draft with everyone in the class. But I could not find a surviving copy of the first draft. I seemed to have saved just about everything else from that class. I saved a copy of “Try Too Hard,” the other story I wrote for that class. I saved many of the prewriting and brainstorming exercises from that class. I had a revised copy of “August Fog” and the instructor’s reaction to it. But no first draft of “August Fog.” So thus began the process of un-editing my story to make it worse.
Making a story worse does not come naturally to me. What do I do? Do I misspell a few words? Do I make things more wordy and more awkward to read?
Fortunately, I had the instructor’s comments on the revised version, so I could work backward to figure out what was missing from the first draft. The instructor mentioned that the revised version had more of Allison’s character development. So I took out some of the scenes of Dan and Allison interacting in the past, and in DLTDGB, I made this a key part of other students’ critiques of my story. But I decided not to make anything more wordy, awkward, or grammatically incorrect. It seemed unlikely by the time I got to episode 173 that I would include the full text of the revised version; the story arc would be closed at the end of episode 174, where I told the story of what happened for the rest of the class. So, since no one would see the final version, I kept the wording of the final version for most of the reconstructed first draft. I only cut down the interactions between Dan and Allison in flashbacks to justify the instructor’s comment that the revised version gave the reader more of a sense of Allison’s character, which was missing from the first draft.
I made one other change in reconstructing the first draft: the part about praying for the meal. This was not in the revised version, so I put it back in the reconstructed first draft. I remember that there really was a scruffy-looking frat boy who misunderstood that line. However, I do not remember whether or not he was actually so openly mean during class. I just remember him writing “This is hilarious” on his copy of the story when I got everyone’s copies back with comments. So Gary’s reaction to the story was probably exaggerated a bit. The only things I really remember from that day was a general sense of disappointment with the way people reacted to my story, and Tim’s remarks about writing a Christian story for a secular audience and wanting to meet someone like Allison.
Oh, yeah… Allison really was based on someone who went on to marry one of Tim’s best friends, and I’m pretty sure they hadn’t met yet. I don’t know for sure if Tim was a groomsman in their wedding; I was not invited to this wedding, because I had lost touch with them back then. I’ve seen the person Allison was based on (i.e., the real life Sasha) show up on “People You May Know” on Facebook, and although I didn’t click to find out if she was still married, she still uses that guy’s last name. (“That guy” is someone who has already appeared in DLTDGB, but I’m not saying who because spoilers.) I did not send the real life Sasha a friend request because of the awkwardness in our past, but if she were to send me one, I would probably accept.
I did save both prewriting exercises that led to the creation of Allison, and I will transcribe them here, along with the instructor’s comments (labeled “SC” for Serena Chang) before I close this post. Enjoy!
(This assignment was to choose one of three prompts and do a timed freewrite in class; I chose “My parents lie.” I was not mad at my mother as this writing implies; I was going off of the prompt.)
My parents lie. The won’t admit it to me, but they do. My parents say it is okay with them that I have never had a girlfriend. My parents say that they don’t want or try to interfere with my life. But they do. How else can anyone rationally explain what happened last year with Allison?
Mom called me one day at school and said that there was someone she wanted me to meet. A lady who she knows from church has a daughter named Allison. Allison was having trouble in her math classes, and Mom knew that I was going to be home for break and said that maybe I would tutor Allison. I tend to get bored over break, and Mom said she was only trying to be helpful. I got mad at her. She says she never tried to interfere with my life. Way back in sixth grade, she agreed that I could spend time with the most annoying kid in school without asking me first. After that happened, she told me she would never again volunteer me to do something without asking me. But she lied. And tutoring Allison wasn’t the first time she has done this either.
So today I am stuck with a major dilemma. I told my parents that I didn’t want to go through with the whole Allison thing. Mom said I didn’t have to if I didn’t want to, but this wasn’t true. The way she set the whole thing up, it would appear extremely rude if I didn’t. So I decided to go meet Allison one day. Now I wish I hadn’t.
Allison is of average height. She has long brown hair and those funny glasses that get darker in bright light [SC: good detail]. She reminds me of a friend of mine from school. She was really friendly. We never did talk about math, though. We talked about school a lot, but not math. Allison had applied to Jeromeville and had a lot of questions about it.
Since then Allison has decided not to come to Jeromeville. Every time I go home Mom tells me I should get to know Allison better, that I should call her and hang out. Wihch brings me to the next lie. My parents won’t admit it, but I think Mom was trying to set me up with Allison. For some reason, God has chosen to bless me with the gift of celibacy at the time, and my parents don’t seem to like it. To be honest, I don’t like it either. But I know Allison is not the woman for me. For one thing, there is the age difference. At the time we met, she was 17 and I was 20. Then there is the distance; although she was thinking about coming to Jeromeville at the time we met, she isn’t here now. Hmm… hmm… lies… Mom always said that she wouldn’t interfere with my life, but this didn’t work out that way. My parents lie.
Yet for some unexplained reason I find Allison strangely fascinating. I do call her sometimes when I am home from break. I always remember her birthday. I don’t know what it is about her. Yet I still can’t seem to get to know her. Usually she never is home and never returns phone calls. Once we had this awesome forty-seven minute conversation [SC: good, shows character of narrator], cut short by call waiting. She said she would call me and we could hang out before I went back to Jeromeville, but that never happened. Oh well. And I think she has a boyfriend too, so there is no point in getting to know her that way.
Sometime I wish that day had never happened. Sometimes I wish Allison and I had never met. Sometimes I wish my parents would keep their word and just stop interfering with my life and mind their own business. Once when I was really mat at Mom I told her that I knew she was trying to set me up with Allison. Mom denied it, of course. But I could tell that it was true by the look in her eyes. And, although she gets a lot of practice, Mom is a terrible liar.
I don’t know what it is that so fascinates me about Allison. I seem to get unusually interested in people that I meet in unusual ways. My meeting with Allison certainly qualifies as unusual. And she isn’t bad looking by any means. But I barely know her. We live in different worlds; she is a 17-year-old high school student, just starting to think about college, and I am a college student already making plans for when I leave. (Correction. Allison is 18 now, and she attends community college. Actually, I don’t know. That isn’t consistent either [I really wrote this, this is not a modern-day correction or comment]). But when I see that face, the long brown hair, the darkened glasses, the scattered pimples, I just feel like I don’t know what is inside it. I struggle with this. I don’t know if I want to know what is inside or not. She seems like a nice person, but just not my type.
And there’s the taint I will forever have, associating Allison with my lying, intrusive mother. Mom says that if Allison and I want to be friends, she will stay out of it. Yet her badgering to me to call Allison not only contradicts this statement, but makes me feel both guilty for wanting to forget Allison and makes me want to call her. I don’t know what more to say. I feel like my relationship with my parents, especially my mother, is strained because
[time ran out here]
[SC: Greg – This narrative brainstorming seems to have taken off for you. It might be worth it to explore this voice and this Allison character more.]
(I believe this assignment was to describe a setting, and it was typed, so it was homework, not an in class assignment)
Allison’s bedroom begins with a short entryway, opening into the left side of the room with the closet protruding a couple feet on the right. The closet, behind and to the right of someone entering the room [SC: don’t need this directional detail], contains Allison’s many clothes: shirts, shorts, jeans, and dresses that give a faint odor of laundry detergent. Nine different pairs of shoes occupy the floor. A Candy Land game, stuffed animals, and other long-unused toys line the shelves above the clothes, gathering dust.
Upon walking into the room, one can detect a faint perfume-like smell, the result of many fragrant hygiene and beauty products Allison has used over the course of her life. The bed, along the far wall across from the entrance, appears unmade from the previous night; a person who sat on the bed would find it lumpy and somewhat uncomfortable. The two blankets, one of which was knit by her grandmother, are pulled back just a little, revealing white sheets underneath. A freshman English book lies on top of the pillow. To the left of the bed is a dresser with a lamp and alarm clock on top [SC: extraneous detail].
Above the dresser on the left wall hang two very different posters. One is a print of Monet’s painting of the woman holding the umbrella, one of Allison’s favorites. The other poster shows a can of Spam [SC: nice contrast]. Allison’s best friend Shannon got her the Spam poster as a joke for her 16th birthday. Allison laughed loudly upon opening it.
Above the bed is a long window with the blinds shut. In the far left corner is a calendar. This month’s picture portrays many brightly colored spring flowers, with Psalm 118:24 printed on it: “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
To the right sits Allison’s desk, facing the right wall away from the bed. The desk is about six feet long with drawers underneath. A general chemistry textbook sits open on the desk with a partially finished problem set next to it and a notebook underneath. Other textbooks used by first year community college students like her, such as mathematics and public speaking, lit stacked in the corner of the desk, against the far wall, to the left as one sits in the wheeled desk chair. On the right side of the desk is a portable AM-FM “boom box” stereo with a tape deck and a CD player. The newest Jars of Clay album, Much Afraid, plays in the CD player. Allison left the CD player while she went to use the bathroom. The song “Five Candles,” upbeat but not joyful, plays at low volume. Papers, letters, and flyers of all sorts cover much of the remaining desk surface. [SC: condense – these details tell us facts about the person, not character]
A telephone with an answering machine blinks the number three next to the stereo. The messages open with Shannon’s voice, familiar to that machine. The second is her boss at the department store, asking if she can work all day Saturday. Third is the trembling voice of a shy person who does not like phone calls. Dan, a friend of Allison’s family who goes to college in another city, wonders if she got his message three days before; he is home on break and wants to say hello. Allison, regretfully, has not had time to return the calls [SC: This is good! some tension].
Above the desk is a shelf, containing a framed portrait of Allison, her parents, and her three younger sisters. Next to it is an empty space. After Allison’s last boyfriend broke up with her for not spending enough time with him, she removed his picture. Next to the bank are [SC crossed this out and put “There are”; I don’t know what this “bank” is, I probably mentioned a piggy bank and cut it out] four infrequently used bottles of nail polish and a compact; the rest of what little makeup she wears is in the bathroom. Compact discs and tapes lit stacked on their side like books across the rest of the shelf, an eclectic collection with everything from Jars of Clay to Alanis Morrisette [sic] to Abba.
To the right of the desk is a small bookcase, two shelves high. The mostly full shelves hold a mix of literature, popular fiction, and her four high school yearbooks. Her Bible lies on top.
A bulletin board spreads along the wall above the bookcase. It is covered completely with photographs Allison has collected over the years. In the center is one of herself, Shannon, and a little girl named Lupe. The three girls met Lupe last spring in Mexicali with their youth group. Allison hoped to return south of the border to see Lupe again this year, but the trip did not fit into her schedule [SC: This is explaining, i.e. “telling,” not “showing”]. Below the picture, tacked to the board, is a letter Allison began writing to Lupe, expressing in Spanish regrets for not seeing her this year. The letter has sat there for two days, unfinished [SC: interesting tension].
[SC: Greg, The details in this room are fine, but they tend to tell us facts about this person rather than character. Details like Jars of Clay, chemistry, textbooks, makeup, etc. read like a résumé, unless they are contrasted with seemingly conflicting elements – as in Monet and the can of Spam. The most interesting element I found was in the ending – there’s a nice tension in the fact that Allison, apparently goody two shoes, has left this letter to Lupe unfinished.]
Greg Out Of Character 