3 lines of thanks

We started 2008 curious about how Felix Feneon made three-line "novels" work. Then we did some of our own, did some more, and created the Year in Three Lines. To all who were in on it, thanks.

Another fascinating take on micro-storytelling

Joan spotted "One sentence: True stories, told in one sentence."

I think I'm of two minds about this.

One, as many of you know, I like short, spare storytelling and I like to try to see if we can do it well. I think doing it can be fun, is a treat for readers and sharpens skills we need to be effective reporters and writers -- like distilling the focus of a story, choosing words carefully, making every sentence count.

But:

Lately, I'm a little worried that so much focus on micro-writing -- and by this I mean Facebook, Twitter, story-commenting and other ways people communicate these days -- will create generations of people for whom a story is, "OMG! That bank that was robbed -- I was there 5 minutes before that! I'll never be able to go there again!" Or: "Scott Blanchard is enjoying playing Legos with his son."

Those are statements, not stories. There are, however, engaging stories behind each of those statements. But will people -- our future storytelling subjects -- be willing to tell those stories, so we can share them with our community? Or will they say, "I already told you what happened. It was on my Facebook entry."?

So -- this is admittedly picky, maybe a reflection of my mood right now -- my first thought when I looked at the "One Sentence" site was, these are one-sentence facts, or situations, or maybe even set-up lines for a standup comedian, but mostly, they are not stories.

For example, not a story: "When he said, 'Hey, beautiful,' I thought he was talking to me, until I saw the Bluetooth in his ear.'"

This, however, is a one-sentence story, I think: "I got married at 16 because I was pregnant, at 21 because I was rebounding, at 29 because I was in love, and at 45 because I was an idiot, but this time, at 56, I'm marrying for money." It has character, plot, even a little tension. Something happens in that one sentence -- the writer shows us that something is different.

We've been talking about Felix Feneon's three-line stories and doing some of our own this year. Doing that is tough enough. To take a real story down to one sentence is a challenge that isn't easily met, as I think this site shows.

And it's worth our while to remember that many people might think that's all there is to their story. We're the ones who have to understand there's more, and assemble the thinking and interviewing skills it will take to draw out those stories.

How many kinds of narrative are there, anyway?

With Robb Montgomery in here yesterday talking about all kinds of narratives -- graphics narratives, voice narratives, etc. -- and us talking fairly regularly about true narrative stories, here's my take on the differences:

This is not a definition to exclude all others, but, as we've learned over the past two years in our storytelling focus, true narrative is a story with a beginning and end ... a conflict that is resolved ... a story told over time, usually chronologically, which allows the story to unfold as it actually did ... and a story that is reported so that you have the dialogue, scenes, action, tension, timeline and so on that you need to effectively tell the story.

A true narrative story is not a passage of descriptive writing, or an anecdotal lead that contains six grafs of narrative writing, or a piece of dialogue within a broader conventional story. And a true narrative story is most certainly conceived, planned, reported and written differently than news stories or feature stories or profiles or any other type of story we do.

They are emotionally and intellectually pleasing to read and experience, because human beings love stories, and in fact have used them and relied on them for centuries as a way of recording what happens in their lives and communities, of recording history, of passing on culture, and as entertainment; and because it is satisfying to have an experience in which someone you like or can identify with faces a problem you can see yourself facing, and finds a way out of it.

When Robb about other types of narratives -- say, graphics narratives, voice narratives, video narratives -- he's broadening and stretching the meaning of the word to include snippets of stories, or complete stories that aren't necessarily conflict/resolution, or layers of stories (like the text that would accompany a video.) Ideally, those 'other narratives,' say, text in a video, would not simply be for the convenience of the video's producer or just haphazardly included; the text would be written with the aim of telling in a different way, or reinforcing, the story being told by the visuals.

Robb is also talking about inviting readers/users to create their own narratives ... which can mean nothing more than information on a topic they discover by fooling around on your web site for an hour one day. In other words, he's not saying readers/web users are going to write our Sunday enterprise narrative story. He's saying that by using the info we put out, and that others contribute to our site, they essentially create a personal story.

For example, we could do Utterz at the fair and we could ask fairgoers to do them too. Then someone goes on their computer and listens to, say, half a dozen. They've just created their own personal narrative of the fair. It's not a true narrative, and it's not necessarily the story we offered them, but it's their story nonetheless.

One big thing to remember, I think, is that there is not only room for both kinds of narratives in what we do, there's a need for both. People are going to want to create their own stories by using bits of information we give them in various forms (the soldier death map, or posts on the biz blog, or fair Utterz). But people also are going to want us to make sense of things -- major events like the guy who got stuck on the spike fence, daily-life events like the woman who lost the scarf her dear friend had given her, and so on -- through storytelling. They want and need us to, in a paraphrase of something Hoover said yesterday, go out and find stuff out and come back and put it in a story to tell people things they didn't know before.

There is always going to be an audience for that.

And a P.S. -- Robb Montgomery says "the web is about small talk. Small talk leads to big talk." That fits right in with our focus on Felix Feneon this year -- essentially, the narrative story in three lines. That's one way to think about writing for the web -- make a little say a lot.

Feneon's three-lines archive

A compilation of the left-rail blurbs about Felix Feneon's three lines and what we can take from them to apply to our own writing:

3/12/08 -- Rhythm
"After a misstep, then tumbling from one outcropping to another, Rouge, a mason, of Serrieres, Savoy, who was picking herbs, fractured his skull." -Feneon
Comment: The commas and sentence lengths create such a rhythm that you can almost see poor Rouge falling and feel it every time he hits an outcropping. -SB

4/1/08 -- Understatement
"Scratching himself with a revolver with an overly sensitive trigger, M. Edouard B. removed the tip of his nose in the Vivienne precinct house." -Feneon
Comment: The first 10 words have you anticipating what will happen, and the payoff is then serenely delivered to great effect. It also, importantly, implies that the man was not gravely hurt. --SB

4/08 -- Word choice
"Weighed down with bronzes, with china, with linens, and with tapestries, two burglars were arrested, at night, in Bry-sur-Marne." -Feneon
Comment: The repetition of the word 'with' before each new item adds a sense of piling on -- of weight -- to the sentence. Without that repetition, the sentence would be lighter, just a regular sentence. --SB

5/08 -- Chronology
"Under a series of pseudonyms, a young woman finds employment as a maid and then leaves, quickly, emburdened. Her take: 25,000 francs. No arrest yet." -Feneon
Comment: He's told a story in which something benign turned into something not so benign, and told it in the order it happened, in 25 words. (Bonus on word choice: I love the use of the word 'emburdened' to describe a thief making off with loot.) --SB

6/08 -- Dialogue
"An irascible conversationalist, Convest, of Thiais, struck with an iron bar the head of his interlocutor, Milot, of Choisy-le-Roi."-Feneon
Comment: A simple thing, said with style: They were talking, and the conversation went bad. --SB

7/08 -- Word choice
"Delalande's tender feelings for his maid were such that he killed his wife with a pitchfork. The Rennes assizes sentenced him to death."-Feneon
Comment: 'Tender' highlights the brutality of the murder. Without that word -- or even with a different one -- the sentence wouldn't have quite the same impact. --SB

55 words is awfully close to three lines

This morning, Scott received an e-mail from the Virginian-Pilot's Lon Wagner, always a friend to narrative writing. Lon saw our three-line exercise and sent along 55 WORD stories, taken from the journal Literature and the Arts in Medical Education. These are closer to personal essays but they work as complete stories.

Think Feneon meeting Raymond Carver.

Here's one example:

9th and Carson

Twelve patients in a waiting room small enough for four. A young man whispers his sexual history while a makeshift partition away another man tries hard not to listen. A free medicine cabinet, expired lidocaine, a psychiatry consult in a closet, falling plaster. The United States spends over $1.7 trillion on health care.

Try not to be intimidated.

Looking around online, I found another 55 word story page. I'm pretty sure they are not related. In fact, I think most of these are fiction. But they can still be good.

Here are the rest from Lon:

55 WORD Stories from the journal Literature and the Arts in Medical Education. They were written by fellows at the University of Pittsburgh in a class called "Teaching Care of the Underserved." I guess there is also a book called "The World's Shortest Stories."

I Had No Idea

He said the Zantac helped his heartburn. The house was quiet when she came home. He had no other complaints. The steps to the attic were lowered. His exam was normal. He was on a rocking chair. He thanked me and shook my hand. He put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

i have Saved the world

stars have aligned themselve above in the Cold nigHt. The presIdent knowZ who i am...so i camOuflaged myself by the dumPster. as the conspiracy grows, my mind connects tHem all together. i am the key to a fRagmented ExistenNce. I must hide to sAve the world from its own destruction.

Alone

Elderly, frail; thinning gray hair in cornrows; quietly dignified. No diagnosable malady, just old age. Her time had come and we both knew it. They told me to order another test. She just wanted to go home. But, she endured our unwillingness to give up, only to die on the transport stretcher. I wept alone.

Missionary Medicine

Every six months the people come to see El doctor Americano. They share their pains from the prior 6 months and those they fear in the next 6 until el doctor returns. I am el doctor. I heard these complaints six months ago. I hope to make a difference. I fear it's a revolving door.

Fighting the god fight

Struggling less and less and less. Praying none, for fear God would help her. Dreams gone of liberation from her white master she hates, but has elevated. She bows: genuflected-head down-eyes closed-nose open "Sell all you have to follow me," he beckons. "...i...will..." she snorts her all-powdered god.