A man and a woman and a dog arrive at a boardwalk. It’s a beautiful Cape May morning, sunny with the promise of unrelentingly clear skies. The beach isn’t quite empty—there’s a few older couples under rented umbrellas, some teenagers boogieboarding, kids burying themselves in wet sand—but there’s more than enough room to spread out a towel on the ground and relax. All in all, a promising beginning to the first day of a weekend vacation.
You read it over once and you know it’s not nearly interesting enough.
A man and a woman and a dog arrive at a boardwalk. It’s a blustery Cape May afternoon, breezy with the promise of cloudy skies. The beach is quiet except for them, with no murmuring couples or noisome teens or squalling infants to disturb the peace. As they spread out a towel on the ground, on the wet packed sand, the man turns to the woman. “The baby’s not mine,” he says. “Is it?”
Patently nonsensical, you realize. And your prose is starting to repeat itself.
A man and a woman walk along the beach. Beside them a dog canters, a small dog, undersized and overfed. It’s nipping at their heels, yanking at the fraying ends of its leash. It won’t stop yapping. Finally the man caves. He digs into a pocket, retrieving a section of jerky, and he tosses the treat to the impatient dog. It spins in a joyous circle for a few minutes before taking a shit on the boardwalk.
Now the dog’s getting too much play. You haven’t even figured out what the dog’s meant to symbolize.
A man and a woman—no, a dog and a man—a woman and another woman sit on a bench on the boardwalk, chatting about the weather and the economy. One of the women is older, with wire-rimmed glasses and a painted-on smile. She’s the mother, yes, that’s right, and she’s rambling on without realizing that there are cracks showing in her daughter’s WASP-y façade. All of a sudden the daughter bursts into tears. “We’re getting a divorce,” she sobs. “I wanted to tell you sooner but I knew you’d be disappointed.” She blows her nose and continues. “I’m just so afraid of failure, of starting over.”
Afraid of starting over. You should get that on a fridge magnet.
When you were in third grade, they sat every student in the class down next to one of those black-and-white children’s book illustrations. You know the ones, you can see them so clearly: two brothers floating above a playground swathed in darkness, a tiger padding its way down onto a grand piano, a fleet of massive blimps cresting up from beneath ocean waves. The teacher told everyone to imagine what was happening in that picture, to piece together a story to go along with it and to write it out on the page. Everyone groaned, but you loved those exercises. You convinced yourself that you loved them. Now you can’t even craft a convincing beginning.
Secondary characters, that’s what you need! Parallel desires and goals. In undergrad they encouraged you to rely on secondary characters. And you need a more fleshed-out arc, anyway.
Two men gamble at casinos on the boardwalk, one with a black eye. The man, not the casino. He’s glued to a slot machine, well, not literally glued but—anyway, he’s at a slot machine and he’s rattling a cup of quarters. His friend taps him on the shoulder and asks him if he’d like a drink, and the man ignores him. They’re both waiting for an apology they’re not going to get. Finally the friend sighs and adjusts his necktie. “Good luck,” he says, and he stumps off to the bar, his peg leg clacking on the faux-marble tiles.
You’ve dived headfirst into caricature. Why a peg leg? Why not a crutch, or a knee brace, or a simple walking stick? Why couldn’t you have just stuck to what you knew and left well enough alone?
Everyone who’s read your work has had advice for you. Strive for authenticity; don’t over-research your material. Focus on what is familiar; use your characters to explore the unknown. Ratchet up the tension while avoiding melodrama. Your writing must be enjoyable to read, and it must also provoke discomfort. Wake the reader up, give them what they expect, trim the gristle and fat from your ideas until they are intriguing, revealing, marketable and unrecognizable. Do not write about anything, ever, unless you are certain you know your subject inside and out. Or do.
A man and a woman step off a boardwalk onto the beach, twenty paces out on the sand, and then the woman stops and she takes out a shovel and she beats the man to death. “Buried treasure,” she says apologetically, and she starts digging.
You’re sick of the boardwalk now, but you’ve staked your entire draft on its existence. At this point if you throw it out you might as well start fresh.
It’s like this, your process: you flip the switch on the garbage disposal that is your mind. You watch the sparks and silverware fly, you root through the wreckage and you pray that what’s left will make some semblance of sense. That’s what writing is to you, now. Praying that something will make sense to someone, that it won’t be just another waste of time.
“Chin up,” she said to you, rubbing your back. “You just haven’t found the right fit yet.” The next girl said something similar, then the next.
A man with a peg leg and a woman and her mother and a small yappy dog all scream at each other on a boardwalk. Their voices intermingle, tangled and twisted over one another into ugly white noise. Around them a crowd begins to form, jostling and shoving and fighting for space until all that’s visible is a trembling crush of bodies. It’s a free-for-all, it’s a mass and a mess, and none of it makes any sense.
You swallow and point and one by one, each of them begins to die.
You recall now why you gave this up in the first place. It’s all been told before, all of it. All your ideas, all your stories. Maybe somebody else could sew those stories together in a way that’s original, that feels fresh and real, but not you. Never you.
A man and a woman and a dog arrive at a boardwalk. It’s gray and empty; it’s about to rain. “Let’s drive away,” the man says, and they get back in their car and they drive away with the top down. They don’t look back.