Every
now and then I have what I call a Bell Jar Day. I curl up on the couch and
waste space for six or seven hours. My mom used to call them mental health days
and I know I need them. I also know that they’re wasted time.
In stories,
there is no wasted time. The only minutes that appear on the page are the
minutes that relate to the story. It’s this economy of time that turns people
into characters. Real people stumble over words, miss opportunities, and waste
time in front of the television.
Characters
are actors. They do things and say things to push and pull at the plot of their
existence. They enact vengeance and seize power. Characters have no time to
waste.
A
typical Bell Jar Day begins with first breakfast and me queueing up whatever
shows I have DVR’d from the last week. I crawl into my mermaid blanket and
stretch out on the love seat facing the TV. I check my phone for any new
emails. Nothing urgent.
If I’m a
character, the email box has some urgent missive in it. Something to change the
course of my day. Something that makes today different from any other day. But
I’m not a character. I turn the phone face-down on the table and click play on Shadowhunters.
As the
day progresses, hours gobbled up like white dots in Pac-Man, I realize there
are things that need to be done that I’m not doing: Shower, library, grocery
store.
If I’m a
character, I’m well into some hard place now. I’ll have to make a choice that
will have consequences. Others will be affected. It will determine how I spend
the rest of my life, not just the rest of my day. But I’m not a character. I
make second breakfast.
I often
tell stories that juxtapose two different incidents; only after the second one
occurs does the first find meaning. What was a passing conversation becomes a
pivotal moment. My characters are haunted by that past moment in the present.
Their actions now are informed by it, their urgency created by it. Will they
make the same mistake they made before?
Toggling
between the time periods is tricky. I sometimes use spacers and sometimes the
past-perfect tense, depending on how close the incidents are – can they be
confused for one another? I like an intentional confusion in certain places,
being unsure as to when the character uttered a specific phrase.
Economizing
the time characters spend in the story can be tricky, too. Editorial questions
like, “How does this contribute?” and “Can this be learned another way?”
tighten a story’s superfluous scenes into sharp, intentional interactions.
Short
story characters aren’t permitted Bell Jar Days. In films and TV it’s a montage
of laziness, light moving through a room as the character lays on the couch.
But in stories, elapsed time is the spacer. It’s the blank space between
sections of the story, referenced but not shown.
