[As a writer you get used to some readers thinking everything you write is based on your personal experience, or on your desires. For most writers this is not quite true. It’s a common misunderstanding of how fiction comes into being. But there are strands of our lives in everything we create, and it may be of interest to a few readers to see where my stories “come from” and how they develop. With this in mind, I’m breaking my long-standing, sort-of rule against story notes. For each of the creepy tales in my first collection, STRANGE IS THE NIGHT, I’m providing a blog post. Not to explain (or excuse) them, but to give curious readers a sense of how an idea turns into a work of fiction. You’ve been warned.]
“A.G.A”
A theme I’ve often toyed with is revenge. I have never sought retribution for damages real or imagined, going out of my way at times to avoid further conflict. But I’ve seen some crazy behavior in my time. It’s always shocking to me when someone chooses to inflict harm instead of walking away. Shocking and difficult to understand. Any writer will tell you: we tend to obsess over the things we can’t comprehend.
I’ve chosen to explore the nature and consequences of vengeance within the relatively anodyne realm of storytelling. “A.G.A.” is an example, inspired by a comment that was itself intended to cause an emotional reaction.
Once upon a time I was working as the editor of a weekly paper in Seattle when an actress took exception to a theatre article we ran. Note: The show was not one in which she appeared, and the piece was not a review per se. Full disclosure: It was written by my future husband as a humorous take on a big budget theatre’s traditional, annual production of Peter Pan. The actress’ response was a rage-filled letter typed almost entirely in capital letters.
It’s always been my view that a strongly held opinion (however skewed) is best expressed, whether verbally or in writing. Stifling and ignoring people only creates frustration, and we see the results everywhere today. The daily screaming on social media demonstrates how wound up and impotent people feel. A disagreement over the most innocuous and trivial matter can spiral out of control.
I should also note that the actress’ letter was exactly the kind of thing the paper was likely to publish. Inflammatory, nearly hysterical, and easy to mock. But I didn’t intend to mock the sender. I wanted her to have her say.
After careful consideration, I contacted the actress and told her I would be glad to print her letter to the editor (me) in the next edition. Also, I was giving her a couple of days to revise, if she wished. This was not standard practice. So, why did I grant her the privilege of rewriting something I could have run as it was? Because some of her negative statements criticized local theatres and their management in such vehement terms, I thought she might never be cast again.
The next day I received her second draft. All of the capital letters were still there. Ditto the negative critique of the paper, as well as my many ethical and editorial shortcomings. Gone were the insults to local theatres, artistic directors, and managers. Her career was safe, and I was her main target. I ran the revised letter.
Jump forward almost a year. I was talking with an ex-boyfriend on the phone—not the author of the theatre piece but someone I had lived with briefly in another life. At some point, he mentioned he was working in the same downtown office as the actress who had written the letter about theatre. He said she was a temp at the company where he’d been based for a while. The actress was going through cancer treatment. Then he said something that still gives me a chill.
“I told her she shouldn’t have sent you that letter.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Come on,” he said. “Every time someone crosses you a bad, bad thing happens to them.”
Granted, this was a terrible thing to say. Especially involving someone who was struggling to stay alive. But I wasn’t surprised the person on the other end of the line was saying it. His sense of humor had always been bleak. Actually, it was one thing we had in common.
I should point out, I’m not a great believer in the supernatural. I think we get this one stupid and spectacular life, and that’s it. Make it good because it’s a limited edition. I’m not superstitious. I’m not religious. I hope but I don’t pray. What my ex was saying to me sounded like a hideous cartoon—or a story. Especially when he started listing examples.
It would be in bad taste to repeat the list. These were real people who had encountered some horrifically bad circumstances. No decent human being would wish those circumstances on anyone. I had not, and I didn’t buy the theory my ex was spouting. But the idea stayed with me.
This is where I explain a bit about the fiction process. An idea, or the needling sense that an idea might yield a story someday, is a thing to write down and save. Especially when the initiating element, the idea, is more of a theme than an image or a scene. I might not know the action of the story, or the characters, or the setting. When a story starts this way, I have to wait until the idea, or the theme, takes shape. I wait for it to stand up and walk around.
This particular idea was pretty lazy. It lingered for years without an adequate means of expression. Until one day, years later, I suddenly pictured two men sitting at a table in a bar. They were co-workers and friends, having a couple of cocktails in late afternoon. Outside, the kind of rain Seattle is known for—and something else. Something indefinable, with wings.
Who were these young men? What was the history between them?
I would discover the answers by writing. I would find the mysterious atmosphere of the bar, the muffled quiet of plush carpeting, the delicate clink of glasses in the background, the bartender whose attention seems ominous, and the limited-view windows offering only glimpses of a wet street and gray sky beyond.
“You have an avenging guardian angel,” my ex had said with a laugh. All those years ago.
What was conveyed by that laugh? I tried to delineate the elements like the contents of an unidentified cocktail recipe. Bitterness, yes. Amusement at the cheap cruelties of life, maybe. Hope that his imaginative assessment was wrong? No, not hope. Something sharp, something a tiny bit shameful, perhaps. Fear.
The concept of an avenging entity was there all along. My imagination provided the most frightening question. What if the person, whose every perceived slight is avenged, were someone petty and spiteful? What would such a person dream of, to get even?
I wrote a story about fear. Dread sneaking up on someone from the far corners of a dimly lit room. Hints of vanity and strains of anger underlying the apparently casual conversation. Suspicion. And a sudden, tactile warning. Wings smashing against window panes.
“A.G.A.” relies heavily on small clues revealed through dialogue. I wanted to create the sensation that this world is not a place to seek liberation from the fear engendered by a conversation. The world is full of beautiful, desirable things—and terrors so great, we can barely describe them. If this is how the reader feels, however briefly, at the end of the story, I’ve done my job.
Suggested reading:
Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales by Yoko Ogawa
Confessions by Kanae Minato
S.P. Miskowski 