I write like I pack a suitcase

I write like I pack—I take whatever I need and stuff it into story or suitcase. This is good for writing, but not for packing—or the trip I’m going on. I recently attended Crime Bake, our annual systery writers conference in New England, and I arrived with the same suitcase I used for a recent three-week vacation overseas.

The conference runs two full days, which is really one full day and two half days, the latter being Friday afternoon and evening and Sunday morning. Saturday is a full day, and runs well into the evening. Do I really need a full suitcase for this? 

My wardrobe for Friday night is settled because I drive down with a friend, and I’m fully prepared. It’s like the opening scene in a short story—I include all those details that tell the reader exactly where she is. No wondering if this story is set in India or along the Eastern seaboard or on a farm. No wondering if the year is now or the 1950s. No wondering if that thing I refer to is sci-fi madness or just a bizarre way of describing the most ordinary things. I know what I’m wearing to the conference on my first appearance and plan to stay that way throughout the day because the arrival is well choreographed. But the rest of the time (and the story) . . . is a problem.

I want the reader to slide into the story and immediately be engaged in the surprises and developments. This is no time to get lazy. Or sloppy. With my wardrobe, I want to be comfortable and informal, so that means regular clothes, but my regular clothes are boring. There they sit in my suitcase, so I toss in a brighter sweater and nicer black pants (you can never have enough pairs of black pants). I can’t wear the same kind of outfit I wore on Friday for the same reason the story after the opening has to be more, something more than the opening, something surprising, different. I really have to “up my game,” or more simply, “something has to happen.” My main character is a middle-aged woman faced with upheaval in her life, lots of change—not very original. The ordinary needs work, so I introduce a compelling secondary character who tosses in a complication, a character who cheated on all his university exams and is now applying for a job in the CIA. Riveting? Hardly. But who knows about this? My main character remembers the guy from school. So the complication is good for my story, but my suitcase is filling up with more attractive options for Saturday (because, just like the story, I don’t know where I’m going during the day while I pack). And I haven’t yet gotten to Saturday night.

In preparation for my recent three-week trip overseas, the organizers made a point of telling the attendees that this was mostly walking in neighborhoods, woods, rural areas, etc. There was nothing fancy about this trip—very casual outdoor clothes were all that was needed. Great, I thought. Except, of course, someone added in small type, you might want to dress up a bit for a night out for dinner. I looked at the schedule, and there were several nights out for dinner. I loaded up my suitcase with several more pairs of black pants.

By now in my story I’ve come to the middle, which often sags. I don’t like sagging in fiction or in clothing. So worried that I’ll look dull Saturday night I rummaged through my closet for something dressier than a plain turtleneck sweater. But my brain was stuck on the sagging in my main character’s ability to tackle the threats and problems facing her. She has to do something to show she deserves to be the main character—break out of her dull pattern of living safely. Since she often works with hunters—issuing licenses, reporting on weather in the area, and the like—in her quiet Town Hall job, I make her familiar enough with weaponry to know which is the business end of a gun or rifle—just enough information to make her dangerous. And she responds by shooting one of the applicants for a hunting license (this is the CIA hopeful). She’s about to get away with it all—until it turns out she knew the man from college, and he “done her wrong.” So, is she guilty—the once demure lady now in a flamboyant see-through blouse—or the steady dull neighbor in the beige turtleneck? My suitcase is filling up and now I have to press down to make sure I can close it and I’m not done yet. I have to get through Sunday. My story isn’t doing any better. I’ve tossed in so many possibilities that I’ve probably overdone it.

My main character has to prove herself. She’s either guilty of murder or she isn’t. Which is it? Or is it something else? She makes bail—after all, she’s a known quantity, a longtime resident of the town, steady employee, spotless record (very plain wardrobe)—and sets about proving her innocence or at least figuring out a way to get off, one or the other. That means she’s no longer exactly the same person she was at the outset. It’s like Sunday at the conference—we have to be different from the first day; I can’t wear the same thing as Friday. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know, but I have an idea.

Sunday is a step up from Friday, something to show I’m more accomplished than I was at the beginning, that I’ve learned something over the last day and a half, that I’m a better writer, my money well spent. Just like my main character, I have to demonstrate I now have the needed abilities and good sense that I’ve been hiding. I’m different—black pants, yes, but a brightly colored blouse with a spiffy vest.

My main character is different too and has to demonstrate this in her explanation of what happened. And lordy knows I can do this because I’ve gone back and planted clues, changed clues, added a character or an incident—I’ve restructured the story to end up wherever I want. This means a lot more words and a lot of rewriting and adding and rearranging. It’s the same for my conference wardrobe. I now have the extras to pack in—underwear, jewelry, scarves, toiletries, all those things that are almost more important than a pair of black pants. 

My suitcase is close to too packed to close, but close it I must. I have so much folded into it by the time I’m ready to zip it shut that I can make anything work, any outfit, for any event, any contingency. This is the skill of the writer—I can pack whatever I need into my story, move it around, match it up with anything anywhere, a small detail about a character’s hearing or missing an appointment, and I have a plot (like an outfit) that works. My story ends up a marvel of subtle misdirection and character revelation, a neat perfection with an unimaginable twist and not a single unnecessary word. This is where my suitcase and story diverge, and I’m glad to leave both as they are. Time to move on.