I am just going to say this, but I listen to an awful lot of Pink Floyd. This is primarily because of the long instrumentals without interrupting words in such productions as "Atom Heart Mother" or "Interstellar Overdrive". By putting a lot of these on a playlist together you can go for hours and that's pretty much what I do. Oh there is other music I listen to, but Pink Floyd get slightly more than their fair share mainly because they deserve it.
Now it isn't only the instrumentals I listen to but those do hold the bulk for my writing just because sometimes words can influence and while sometimes that is good, at others it distracts. One particular album that I was listening to a what at this time was the Piper at the Gates of Dawn. It was also getting a lot of play because my daughter discovered it in my playlist and beautiful things happened. For example, she spent a month at her mother's at summer and I had loaded this music onto her mom's computer. Her mom doesn't turn off anything that my daughter is listening to. She also absolutely abhors anything that I like, especially music. I find out, after coming back for a 2-week visit during the mid-month that my daughter had "Interstellar Overdrive" playing on eternal loop 24/7 for two weeks straight... loud. It just filled my heart with joy.
Now while that is all heart-warming and such, it doesn't seem to be bearing anything upon these stories. Trust me, it does for that album with its regular play at that moment served perfectly as an inspiration in structure as I was contemplating the next Tale to write. I had a submission invite to a collection focused on celebrations or festivals or carnivals, some type of community celebratory gathering (like we all remember used to take place). Now I have a little ghost town up in the mountains and there really isn't but two decades time in all of my writing availability which features a possibility for some type a festival for that is only the time that the town existed. Lucky for me, I had written a ridiculously sized sonnet series a couple of years before titled "Henry Pickett's Home Brew" which gave an overview of the towns decennial celebration. I had my moment.
What I needed was the story. Nothing at this point had pulled itself up as to what to do so I started going through the lists that I have of Sultan's who I have not dealt with and whom I might bring life to. I already knew, thanks to "There is Clearly Something Amiss", which Sultan's were alive after 1878. With the exception of George Franz, and since I already knew his fate he was exempted, I had my potential primary but I just needed identify him. I settled on Simon Atterley because his name had been dropped a few times and always in some way that hinted he did something really, really bad. I figured I better get this out of the way so that I have it at least in the background, so that I know where he's going.
I knew this story would not end with his demise because that has already been stated, that he was hung for the murder of a fellow Sultan. I also knew this was not the time for him to kill the Sultan who he was hung for. I was basically coming in completely blank. I wanted to establish Simon's crimes and as I begin writing, they came clear. The story itself and how it developed, the histories revealed and the crimes hinted at all pretty much flowed forth. As I wrote and the more I wrote the more the story solidified and the revelations that came clear through it actually astonished me. I was not expecting Vidak Ivkov but that also has cleared up another Sultan's death and giving me a new story to write, including a story hinted by the hint of that story. I also did not know that is what happened to Henry Pickett. In the poem I knew he was found lying beneath his wagons but I did not know how he got there.
As for where Pink Floyd comes in and specifically the Piper at the Gates of Dawn, it is in the structure. Now please bear with me and I will try to make this as clear as possible. I have found in writing some of these stories that there are structures that I return to over and again. One frequent form would be a switching back and forth between a current sequence and a flashback sequence throughout. In other words, you are telling what is going on in the immediate while alternately revealing what has gone on to get to this point. It works and works pretty good but I discovered a refinement.
In the stories that I have used such a structure before there is just that back and forth as needed with the resolution taking place as it may. Well, "Chapter 24" was the song that was playing and the primary line within got stuck in my head.
"A movement is accomplished in six stages, and the seventh brings return".
That right there was a light bulb going off in my head because I hadn't been sure how to structure this story and I was staring at the blank screen. I knew I should use that alternating structure but I wasn't sure how to set it up. With this advice, you're getting three quick sections of current and three sections of past. It was perfect because you don't really need anything further and that 7th section is the resolution, whether it be short or long. Now this may not seem like any Grand Revelation to anyone else but for a 5,000 word short story, this has given me a solid template that I can go back to time and again. With that set structure, and with other set structures that I have found comfortable, it is easier then when you have a story idea to be able the hold it up to the different story structure concepts you have to see which one it fits in. This one I call Simply the Chapter 24.
The next element to this story is the song "Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk" from the same album. This is structure influence, not content, and the structure I was looking for is in the opening of this song. Let me explain: it starts with two Beats, a quick dadump followed by a space followed by dadump-dadump followed again by an empty space before dadump-dadump-dadump and one last moment of silence before the song breaks into its whole. In other words...
short beat - break - double beat - break - triple beat - break - rest of story.
Being that I needed the first break to be longer in order to build up some of the backstory needed I focused it as follows:
Current Time - 1 paragraph -intro to action
1st break - backstory - paragraphs as needed - set up scene
Current Time - 2 paragraphs - raise specter of conflict (kind of literally here)
2nd break - backstory - modest number of paragraphs - describe scene dynamic that influences action
Current Time - 3 paragraphs - false climax to heighten stakes
3rd break - backstory - climax of existent conditions establishing story opening scene
Current Time - continue with primary tale in order to seek full resolution with all elements now in play
As for how this worked and this story, it allowed me to start immediate into the action of the story in order to build the suspense. Then it gave me a good section for to establish what the day was and why it is and why there is a gathering for this celebration what the celebration is all about. Back in the current space, still confused, the progression continues as to the mystery of his affliction. The next backstory introduces the outré elements which appear to influence the celebration beginning. Back in the current time we now have our primary conflict fully defined. The last backstory sets the stage for explaining the absolute madness going on before we get to the 7th movement and the current events, now fully informed by the back story, bring us to resolution.
I have not used the "Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk" bit again but the "Chapter 24" breakdown is actually a very comfortable format. I said I wanted to use this blog to explain some of the things that I was doing and this is exactly what I mean. The way this story came about insofar as the structure is emblematic of how some of my thought process works when writing these. This one I was just able to capture and hold. I was able to identify it and I was very aware of its development. I was taking permissible license with the tools I had as a writer at my command. My history with structured poetic forms has played a large role in my writing as well as the music I listen to and the books that I have read. This is just an example of it coming together. Also, it gave me the title for this story. Now I did have to find a justification for using permissible license within the story but my primary use of this title was because I was taking permissible license as a writer to do what I would.
I'm going to say it worked. Every time I go over this story I find myself extremely pleased with it. It was also not alone because as I was finishing this another even more insane idea crept into my head. I was still thinking about this celebration, this 10-year anniversary in Baird's Holler. That one was also inspired and amplified by music only this time it was RUSH and a delightful little discovery. That story is titled "Dance of Skins" and that is the next post.
As for "Permissible License", it was completed September 2, 2019 at 4,983 words. I submitted both it and "Dance of Skins" to that anthology and both were accepted. Their arrangement within that anthology, A Celebration of Storytelling by Dark Owl Publishing, places permissible license at the beginning and dance of skins, an exercise in malevolent, towards the end, nicely book-ending the section on horror.
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