life

Make Sure You Aren’t Ending Your Stories Like This

Daniel MadisonLeave a comment

A strange thing happened to me the other day: an old lady who lives in my apartment building asked me to bring some groceries up to her room. Normally, in a situation like this, I would pretend I don’t speak English, or if I suspected she knew I spoke English, I would say I have horrible diarrhea and sprint past her. But I was feeling charitable so I agreed.

Unfortunately, I soon realized this was a ruse. Once I got the grocery bags into my hands, she quickly spun around and opened the stairwell door to let in a younger man holding a pistol. I was being mugged. The old lady dug her hands into my jean pockets and became frustrated when she realized I didn’t have my wallet or a phone. I told her I left my wallet at work and that my therapist suggested I stay away from phones as lately I’d been cold calling my second wife just to hear her voice on the other line. In fact, the only thing she found in my pockets was a $20 off coupon for all D&E purchase orders exceeding $500. She asked what kind of people spend five hundred dollars on books in one go, but I was too scared to say that it was basically her demographic.

I was frozen in a panic. I thought of letting them take the gun I keep in my ankle holster, but worried that if I mentioned I was armed, that might escalate things. With my demise so near the horizon, my whole life flashed before my eyes. Is this how my life ends, I thought to myself? I knew that my realtor suggested this was a possibility before I closed on my apartment, but I never thought it would happen to me. I always figured I would die during a Pulitzer Prize acceptance speech or from a shark attack while Cindy and I made love in the Caribbean.

But it also made me reflect on how to end a story. If someone were writing the story of my life, ending it this way would infuriate the readers. Surely someone as important as me deserved a more satisfying pay off. In today’s video, we’ll look at some common mistakes new and even seasoned writers commit when trying to finish their stories. We’ll think of much better ways for me to die on this edition of Stories’ Matter.

Bad Ending One – An Outside Source Saves the Day

Imagine if someone burst into the stairwell at that moment and took out my assailants in one fell swoop. That would seem cheap and if you knew my neighborhood, it also wouldn’t make sense.  People step over dead and dying bodies the time, and to be fair, I’m guilty of that myself. I stopped trying to help after the time I once gave a neighbor some Narcan when he actually needed the Heimlich because he was choking on a piece of steak. Anyway, I knew at that moment I had only myself to rely on.

This is basically a deus ex machina, which we’ve talked about before. And most readers hate it. In the 1978 film version of Superman, Superman saves Lois by flying so fast around the Earth that he reverses its rotation which somehow causes time to reverse. Anyway, try not to use bullshit ways to resolve your conflict.

Bad Ending Two – The Predictable Ending

The most predictable thing my assailants could’ve done is gun me down. After all, it’s happened two other times in my apartment complex this year. And I was voted by my high school class as most likely to be gunned down. So basically the readers of my life would’ve been expecting this since Chapter Three.

Of course, this is not an easy thing to do as a writer. A story needs to be a surprise, but it has to be something that’s earned. You have to be smarter than your reader, as a man who has met many readers, most of them are smug, self-satisfied nerds always out to prove you wrong.

Bad Ending Three – Unearned Happy Endings

Now, all of my former wives have told me I don’t deserve to die happy. But I have to assume that’s just frustration with how good my divorce lawyer is. Still, imagine if the story I told you ended with me throwing the grocery bags at my assailants, removing the ankle gun from its holster, blasting the old lady and her partner to kingdom come and then, after getting the key to the city from the mayor for ridding my town of its two worst criminals, I get a call from Cindy telling me she’s ready to take me back. Certainly, that was a scenario I was playing in my head while I was at gun point, but readers would’ve felt that cheap and unearned.

Movies like Signs, The Rise of Skywalker and Arthur have all been accused of having unearned happy endings. Your character’s victory, whether it’s something big like saving the galaxy, or something unimportant, like saving the life of a dog, should come at a cost. Maybe, for example, you have to euthanize your cat so you can transplant its liver to the dog.

Bad Ending Four – The Dragged Out Ending

If you’re still watching this video, you probably wish I’d just shut the fuck up and tell you what happened in the end. You may think this is some trick to get pushed more by YouTube, hoping that if all viewers wait until the end of the video, it will boost visibility. Like maybe I would use this time to go into more detail about what my assailants looked like. Or I might use this time at the end to talk about what was in those grocery bags. Was it prop food? Would that be cheaper than real food? This isn’t a good time to bring that up, we want to know what happened. Why is this story just going on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on…

Bad Ending Five – The Abrupt Ending

I Stopped Self-Censoring And My Writing Has Never Been Better

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Great writing takes big motherfucking risks. Unfortunately, we current world of media expects us to play it safe. Tentpole action films must be for all ages and follow predictable formulas. We need PR firms to run our social media accounts. We can’t give our secretary a back massage because it’s considered a form of sexual harassment and also because her husband has told you explicitly to your face to stop doing it.

In our writing, this takes the shape of self-censorship. We eliminate ideas that are wild and unencumbered. Unfortunately, we soon realize that all of our writing becomes totally cumbered. We don’t let the racists in our story say the n-word. We don’t let the homophobes in our stories say the f-word. We don’t let the Republicans in our stories tell the immigrants to go back to their countries, even though they’ve spent years building concentration camps around the country to do just that.

This is one slippery fucking slope. Of course, it makes sense why we’d want to self-censor. It feels horrible to get bad feedback. A single negative comment is stronger than a dozen positive ones. Nobody wants to be called a racist on Twitter, even if it’s a bot account run from Nigeria that hasn’t even read your book. To give a real world example, today I think less about all of the girls I successfully banged in high school than I do about Jenny Simmons, the popular cheerleader who rejected my advances and said she was worried she’d get herpes just breathing the same air as me.

We often worry about our family, too. You know many of them will read the book and you don’t want to offend them or embarrass yourself. For example, I was mortified when my grandmother confronted me about this line from my early novel Dawson:

“Fuck all the hoes and the bitches and the whores and the sluts and the cunts.”

My grandmother said that she raised me better than that. Luckily, it turned out my “grandmother” was actually a scammer pretending to be my grandmother so she could use my social security number to commit Medicare fraud.

Writing is also a very personal and vulnerable process, and many writers may touch on family traumas or paint certain family members in a bad light. As I’ve said, most of the villains in my fiction represent at least one aspect of my father. But I’m 99% sure the man we buried at sea was him so luckily I don’t have to worry about any awkwardness or retribution. Unfortunately, my brother is still very much alive. He was very angry that the antagonist of my novel, the cult leader Hendrix Branderson in Storming the Gates of Heaven, seemed to be based off him. They both claimed to be descendants of Jesus, they both faked their own deaths and they both were big Arizona Cardinals fans. Had I known my brother was going to get out of prison early, I likely would’ve rewritten the character.

I’m also not saying everything in fiction is worse now than it was thirty or forty years ago. We’re more conscious of diversity and representation. And that’s a good thing. In my early books, all of my female characters were big-titted love interests and my villains were all Arab terrorists. I’m happy to say that the protagonist of one of my most recent books, Game Theory, is a Sunni Muslim female physicist who just happens to have an amazing pair of double d’s.

However, there’s a great danger in letting ourselves be influenced by social media, by book banning conservatives, by self-righteous left-wing Twitter mobs and many imagined groups that we’re worried of offending or weirding out. True art is meant to provoke and get us to rethink our relationship with each other and the world around us. When I wrote the climax of Bride of Prejudice, which depicts a brutal naked fight between two Georgian women in a bog, I wanted to challenge the way we view gender roles. It’s had such a positive impact that the men who come to my book readings request that scene to read more than any other.

So how do we find this balance? How do we write freely while still being marketable and being respectful toward a diverse, pluralistic readership?

Tip 1 – Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Writing

Here’s my advice: Write as if nobody will ever read the words you’re writing. It’s the best way to sidestep self-censorship. And let’s be honest, if you’re watching this channel, it’s also probably true.

Take this line from my novel, Plastered Bastard:

“I don’t trust those people. They’re poor but they wear flashy clothes. They’re naturally violent, but constantly claim to be the victim. They’re loud in movie theaters, too.”

I only had the bravery to write this because I wrote it in a secluded cabin in Vermont, though I was mostly there to avoid my former agent who was trying to serve me legal papers. In any case, it’s an uncomfortable thought that challenges the reader, and while it doesn’t actually reflect my true feelings on teenagers, it is true to the protagonist of my story.

Worrying too much about the opinions of others also makes your narrative choices boring. If The French Connection were written today, for example, not only would Popeye Doyle not use the n-word, the movie would’ve ended with him getting the bad guy and with Serpico appearing in the post credits scene to invite him to join the Good Cops initiative.

Tip 2 – Think of Trigger Warnings As a Recipe List

Despite what you may think, I’m actually a big fan of trigger warnings. And this is one thing fans of dark romance and erotica have over all other readers. Those people go into books hoping to read some messed up stuff. The author and the reader make an agreement: “You will be entertained and you won’t punish me for entertaining you. The only punishment, if any, will be you shelling out 24.95 for a hardcover.”

Don’t think of it, “Oh, I’m sorry, but this book has sexual assault and foul language and animal-human hybrids.” Think of it as “Hell yeah, this fucking book has sexual assault and foul language and animal-human hybrids that completely redefine what it means to give consent.”

Tip 3 – Use a Pseudonym (And Get Them A Passport and a Social Security Number if possible)

Having said all of this, it’s still hard to shut off the noise. Vladimir Nabokov had to contend with constant allegations that he was pedophile after writing Lolita, when in reality, Nabokov was only ever shitty to adult women.

Fans of the channel will know that John Lazarus is a pseudonym for personal protection, and also because my legal name is the same as one of the most prolific serial killers in American history. But a pseudonym can also free you, if only subconsciously. JK Rowling for example, is able to write all the anti-trans stuff she wants under her Robert Gailbraith pseudonym.

How to Write Man vs Technology Conflicts

Daniel MadisonLeave a comment

Technology shapes our lives perhaps more than any other force. Technology is what’s allowing you to hear this right now… unless you’re my neighbor who had a bunch of glass cups sitting near our shared wall that time I went to borrow some sugar. And even then, you could argue the glasses he uses to spy on me still counts as technology.

But what happens when that technology goes bad? What happens when that artificial intelligence makes our jobs obsolete? Or what happens when a government computer has an error that incorrectly labels you a sex offender, even though that other John Lazarus lives in the Denver area and John Lazarus isn’t even your real name and the swat team that comes after you doesn’t realize that authors often use pseudonyms?

Today’s video is the fifth installment in our six-part series about the main conflicts in fiction. So far we’ve looked at why self-loathing and fighting with service staff can be good for your writing, and why stranding your employees in the wilderness and sending threatening letters to city council members can backfire on you.

As I was saying, technology conflicts are relatable. Think of the last time your power went out. If it happens when my children are doing their visitation, not only do I dread having to entertain them and not screw up the pronunciation of their names, I also worry that the roving street gangs in my neighborhood will use this opportunity to break into my home and start looting.

~

Tip One – Show the Pros and Cons of Your Technology

All technology exists for a good reason. Sometimes that’s a noble reason like curing polio or making the shareholders a lot of money. Sometimes it’s simple curiosity. But if your technology gone wrong seems only to exist to provide your characters with a challenge, the reader won’t buy it.

And our interactions with technology bring good and bad. I’ll never forget the first computer I ever had. It was a Hewlett Packard running Windows 95. It was the device on which I wrote my first published story and it was the device where I first met my first wife in an online chatroom. Well, not so much met as saw an advertisement for a strip club where I became her loyal patron.

But that same computer was also where I got catfished in AOL chatrooms by scammers looking for credit card numbers, and also by a group of local eighth graders who were just doing it for fun. Plus, that first published story actually lost me money and my first wife turned out to be a serial bigamist. So anyway, the cons should be pretty easy to think of.

Tip Two – Hold Up a Mirror to Society

Here’s a good writing prompt. Find a device in your house. And try to think about what it says about society. On my desk right now, I have a pair of Bluetooth headphones. That mostly says that people would rather live in their inner worlds that have to deal with the bullshit of strangers. It’s a symbol for how fragmented and isolated our society has become. I mean, nowadays, message boards and comment sections are just filled with bots who won’t even invite you to the forest behind the school to catfish you and then throw rocks and make rude comments about the dick picks you sent.

Sometimes you can start with a societal problem that persists today and then think of a technology that will highlight it. If you want to highlight societal problems with racism, how about your society has a machine that can tell if someone is black or not, and then forces them to get worse mortgages or something. If you want to highlight societal problems relating to income inequality, how about you write a story about an AI that distributes wealth evenly and the lazy lower classes get to sit on their ass and not even work for healthcare?

Tip Three – And Never Forget the Human Element

Like nature, technology on its own has no motive. What it can do in literature is highlight the underlying virtues and evils of our psyche. Without technology, my father would’ve just been a man who drank all the time and beat me a lot. But with technology, those “beatings” took on whole new psychological dimensions. For example, I remember one time he called me and disguised his voice using a voice modulator, and said kidnappers were holding him ransom. I pawned several of his things and brought the six thousand dollars to the dropoff only to find my father waiting in his Oldsmobile. He said it was a test and that he wanted to see if I would pawn my things or his to pay for the “ransom.” Since I had mostly pawned his possessions, he said I failed and also said he’d garnish my salary once I got a job in high school to pay him back. Anyway, try to think of ways people can use new technologies for the worse like this.

Yet your story can also be about how human virtue can overcome the dehumanizing effect of a technology. When a car breaks down in somewhere dangerous like the middle of a desert or a street in Louisiana, it’s often through the kindness of strangers that your characters make it out alive. Genetic engineering and cloning might seem to make the perfect humans, but your characters may realize there’s also grace in our flaws and in our ability to produce life through blasting raunchy rawdog loads.

Blood Shot: Chapter 4 (Traveling)

Daniel MadisonLeave a comment

My flight was uneventful. The twenty-two hours flew by in no time.
I slept well, enjoyed a few drinks and caught up on my reading. I
never really understood people’s problems with flying. Perhaps it was
because commercially I always flew ABL Air, an obscure airline
known for its passenger restrictions preventing the obese, infants,
Muslims and women from booking flights.


The in-flight entertainment was strippers and prostitutes, but I
put on my Sony noise-cancellation headphones and took a nap. I had
the feeling I’d get my fill with Fran soon enough.
Thoughts of past loves sprung forth as I drifted in and out of
sleep. I had loved three women in my life.


The first was a childhood romance, my next door neighbor Sally
Ription. We used to pick strawberries in her parent’s garden and
push each other on the tire swing in the local playground. We’d
spend cool summer nights catching fireflies in her front yard. We
were seventeen.


She was the first girl to take my virginity. Unfortunately, a few
months later while looking into her bedroom window from mine, I
saw her cheating on me with a boy who looked suspiciously like her
older brother. The next day it was a man who looked like our
postman. Another day, a guy with the same hairline as our high
school principal. After a week of this, I decided to end it.

My second love was Dakota Jean, the mother of my two
children. We had met during the early part of my NBA career. My
agent introduced her as a “woman who can really flush the stress of
this lifestyle right out of you.” We hit it off immediately. It was
always a roller coaster ride with her, peaks of ecstasy and nadirs of
despair. Our kids helped settle things down for a while, but
eventually our lifestyles became too incompatible. She seemed upset
every moment we spent together, perhaps because, for some reason,
she only had time off work when she was menstruating.
The third, well, was Jennifer. Was it over now? Was this flight
the final nail in the coffin? Maybe. But maybe things weren’t that
simple.


“Would you care for a beverage?” the flight attendant asked me.
Then, raising her eyebrows, “Or anything else?”
I’m not much of a drinker, but I asked for a shot of absinthe.
Carter’s drink. I needed something to numb me a little. I downed the
shot and shut my eyes again.


So, you may be asking, what of Fran Blauchamp? The woman I
was on my way to see.
With Fran, it was pure, unadulterated lust. There were no
romantic, candlelit dinners, though we did discover a few other uses
for candles during our time together, if you catch my drift. I, for
example, learned that if your aglet – the plastic tip of a shoelace – falls
off, you can replace it by dipping the end of the lace in hot candle
wax.


Fran was too much of an enigma to fall for. She built up this
hard, steely exterior, which probably explains why she was such a
successful TV chef. When we met, her career was just taking off at
the Food Network. But she mysteriously quit six years ago, and has
been something of a recluse ever since.
Now she was back.


The plane landed, gingerly navigating the heavy fog covering the
runway. The exhilaration of entering a foreign land began to set in. I
snatched my carry-on and rushed to beat the crowd. The flight
attendants made their way through the rows, wiping down all the
seats and windows.


I got in line and waited to pass immigration inspection. I have to
admit the whole process has always confused me. Words like
“naturalization” and “visa” and “queue” have never made any sense.
And isn’t “foreign-born” an oxymoron? I looked at the nearest visa

agent and tried to put on the charm, smiling and doing my best to
remember the little Chinese I’d learned:
The woman spit on the floor and wiped it with her feet.
I was afraid I’d offended her. But before I had time to reply,
another man walked up to me, official-looking but not uniformed
like the rest of the immigration staff.


“Please come with me,” the man said in excellent English.
I followed him into a small, windowless room. The room was
host to two junior visa officers and a small inspection table. It
seemed completely normal, aside from the chair I was asked to sit in
that had the seat bottom cut out of it. The men asked me to open my
carry-on. They rummaged through the contents: my clothes, a
laptop, Where Da Ass At 3 (Carter’s gift), the bird feathers I’d bought
for Fran, the dozens of packets of fruit and vegetable seeds. They
also made me empty my pockets.


“Close your eyes, please,” the head officer said.
“Why?”
“It would be best for everyone if you just follow along. Close
your eyes. And no peeking.”
I thought the whole thing was silly, but was in no mood to start
trouble. I closed my eyes. I then heard a sharp, metallic clicking.
“Okay, you can open your eyes now.”
“Can I go?”
“A few more questions, if you please.”
“Okay.”
“What brings you to Wuhan, Mr. Anderken?”
“What brings anyone?”
“Yes, the residents of Fuck Town take pride in their reputation.
Where do you plan on staying?” I showed him the address of the
hotel Fran had given me. He glanced over it quickly, not seeming to
pay it much mind.
“Are you staying alone?”


I explained about my situation with Fran. The two junior
officers paged through an unfinished manuscript of a novel I had
written. They raised their eyebrows and looked at me.
“What, athletes can’t be literary?” I said. It always annoyed me
when people looked at my 6’10” frame and sculpted thighs and
assumed intellectual endeavors were beyond my grasp. I had a
communications major from Ohio State, damnit!


“You’re that Kable Anderken?” the head officer said.
“And your name?” I asked.
“You can call me Michael Scofield.” The officers all shared a
laugh. They looked at me expectantly.
“I don’t… is that something I should know?”
“Prison Break. The main character. The most famous and best
American television show ever made.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Well, in any case, everything seems to be in order. We wish you
a pleasant stay.” Michael said something to the junior officers in
Chinese and walked out.


“Can we see your passport, Mr. Anderken?” one of the officers
said. I handed it over. I fidgeted in my bottomless chair, ready to
leave – it would’ve been worse had I not been used to sitting in a
similar one at Carter’s penthouse.


“Where’s your visa?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m sorry. I came here in a hurry. I didn’t have time
to get a visa. I’ll just do one here.”
“You can’t just do that. China doesn’t have on-arrival visa
processing.”


“Fine, then. I’ll just pay the fine or whatever. How much is it?”
The two visa agents looked at each other.
“Ten thousand US dollars?”
“Yeah, sure.” I grabbed the twenty grand I always keep in my
backpack and handed them ten each. And I was on my way.