I stood behind the counter with a bin of clothes ready to go
out onto the floor. I grabbed them one by one and hung them on hangers. It was a dull job, bu a necessary one. All part of working in retail I suppose. It had been a
slow day, most people were probably too tempted by the sunshine to come
shopping. So when the door-bells jingled to announce a customer, I was eager. The
lady who came in had jet-black hair and wore a leather jacket to match. She was
carrying a bucket of clothes.
"Dropping off today?" I asked. I work at a consignment store, which is basically a fancy name for a resale store. People bring in their old clothes and we sell them.
"Yes, I'm dropping off, " was the reply.
"And did you have an appointment?"
The lady came to a stop before the counter and looked down at me
from her heels. "No, I did not."
My heart skipped a beat. Some people are not happy with what I
have to say next. "Oh, I'm sorry, but we are only taking clothes by
appointment right now." Her silence answered me. "I'd be happy to
make you an appointment though....."
The woman's left eyebrow slowly crept halfway up her forehead.
"I've never needed an appointment before."
"Yes, I understand. But since we are changing seasons from
summer to winter clothing we have an excess of things to go through."
"So there's no way you can take these things today?"
I squared my shoulders. I tried not to show weakness, but some
customers can smell it. "No, I'm afraid not."
"I haven't seen you around lately. Is the owner here?"
Questioning my authority always gets me. But I keep emotions inside, and that plastered good-nature on my face. "She's in the
back right now. Would you like to speak with her?"
"Yes," she said and pursed her lips.
So I walked to the back room where the owner was going through
clothes. "Hey there, could you come out for a minute?" I asked.
"Sure, what do you need?"
Some people hate their bosses, but not me. She is just about the
nicest person in the world. "There's a lady here who would like to drop
some things off, but she doesn't have an appointment."
"Did you explain that we can't take it right now?"
"Yes," I sighed, "but she wanted to speak with you
about it."
"Alright," she said and followed me back to the counter.
The woman had not moved, except to put one arm on her hip. I
wondered what it must have been like to be her mother. Though they were
probably twenty years in her rear-view, her teenage years never really ended.
"This girl," the woman gestured to me, "says that
she cannot take my items. I've never had a problem before."
"Well, I'm afraid we are just too busy to take things without
an appointment," my owner reiterated, "but can we set you up with
one?"
The woman tossed her head. "I have them ready today, I
brought them in today, and I expected to be able to leave them with you. I
certainly don't want to hang onto them any longer. I'll take my business
elsewhere." She began to stomp away angrily, but then came back to grab
her tote of clothing. Once she was gone the owner turned to me.
"I think that was supposed to be a threat."
I smirked. "I certainly don't want her business!"
The owner shared my smile and went back to her work.
I turned back to my clothes and began to hang them on hangers. It
was still dull work, but my appetite for customers had been well satisfied.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteYou do a lot of things very well here:
ReplyDelete* good ear for dialogue--does not sound stiff and artificial
* good eye for how and where to begin and end
* "modesty"--you have a simple story, but don't worry about tarting it up; perhaps better than 'modesty' would be 'sincerity'; not tarting things up is a virtue in itself
* focus--you do not get tangled or diverted; side-trips can be delightful in essays, but something this modest probably can't sustain much discursiveness
* negative virtue--you avoid those pesky action verbs and intrusive adverbs
The only thing that didn't quite work for me is your penchant for preceding speech with a quick camera shot; many examples, but here's one of the first: "The woman's left eyebrow slowly crept halfway up her forehead."
Would it be best for me to get rid of these tags altogether, or move them after the dialogue?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDo you watch a lot of tv or movies? Those kinds of tags usually indicate that the writing is visualizing the material in the theatre of his mind, as she writes, which is fine up to a point.
ReplyDeleteWhere is the point at which it stops being fine?
If you ever find yourself writing a movie script, you will be tempted to offer stage directions like "I squared my shoulders." The problem with this is that it's up to the actor (and maybe the director) to figure out how to play the character and convey the emotion and the situation. They are not amused at the writer horning in on their territory. So the writer has to set up situations, stories, and dialogue in ways that push the actors toward their (the writers') own interpretations without being overtly directing. Similarly in creative fiction or nonfiction, the writer has to gently point the reader in the right direction without being overbearing or demanding--writers and readers collaborate, and the writer sometimes has to be tactful about allowing the reader a chance to imagine the character and scene (the way an actor does.)
Of course, this isn't a film script and some of these 'stage directions' work very nicely here. Which ones? I'm not saying!
But what jumped out at me was the pattern of dropping in the stage directions before the speech--that IMO was a problem, not one you can completely solve (though perhaps you can camouflage it) by sliding the directions into other spots.
It seems counter-intuitive for a teacher to withhold information like what works and what doesn't with his student's 'stage directions'....
ReplyDeleteAfter a point it becomes: either a matter of taste, not pedagogy--and there's no arguing taste; or it becomes a matter of the teacher cutting the student loose to think about it without interference.
ReplyDeleteAlright, I'll take that.
ReplyDeleteFurther thoughts: every writer has quirks, tics, habits, characteristics--some good, some bad.
ReplyDeleteBest not to think about either good or bad while composing. You find the bad tics while revising and remember, 'Yeah, I do that a lot. Here goes the clean-up!'
Counter-intuitively: I don't think it's helpful for a writer to be too aware of her strengths either. To be aware of them while writing makes the writer self-conscious and that can only have a deleterious effect on the writing. Best to let one's strengths swim to the surface without any conscious effort.
Another reason one doesn't want to be too aware of one's strengths: once one starts writing to them intentionally, one is less likely to discover new ones or to give up workable but old patterns. In other words, one tends to plateau and stop growing.
Just as writing is a collaboration, sometimes uneasy, between writer and reader, so too is writing a collaboration, sometimes uneasy, between left and right brain, between logic and intuition, between conscious and unconscious, between body and spirit, etc.