Duty (Story Breakdown)
Some reflections on a story with promise and shortcomings.
Last week, I published a story called Duty.
If you haven’t read that one yet, you can find it in the link below:
In summary it’s the story of a son giving medicine to his mum on her death bed. Not until years later does he realize the enormity of what was going on in the background.
This post is going to err on the more technical side, which means if you haven’t read the story it’s referring to, not much of this is going to make sense. So I’d recommend giving it a look.
You may have noticed, Duty was a different type of story to my standard wheelhouse.
I was trying to stretch my wings a bit more into emotional territory, without edging into melodrama.
While the feedback it received was largely1 positive, I’m still not 100% satisfied with how it came out.
Part of this is down to a lack of time spent in the editing room—I had this one bookmarked to go live last week because I’d been sitting on it for a while and in my mind it was “done.” In retrospect I left a bit too much fat on the bone when I pressed publish.
The other question is of technical ability. I was attempting to tackle a premise that pushed me to the edge of my abilities and I found I didn’t quite have the tools to tie it up neatly. (which isn’t a total loss because it’s highlighted some specific elements I need to work on).
The reason I’m shining a light on these shortcomings, isn’t to make excuses for my own failures, but rather to highlight the difference between having an idea for a story, and how to best tell that story.
They are not the same thing.
A brief timeline of “Duty” :
-I wrote the first draft in March when I visited New Zealand for a month.
-It was originally a two section piece comprising of the opening pill by pill build towards the death of the mother (essentially the same as what can be found in the published version above), followed by a post-humous letter to the by that point dead dad. A nice light Thursday morning read.
-I sent it out to a few literary journals, no luck.
-I tinkered with it’s wording here and there, but didn’t tamper with the broad structure in any groundbreaking way for six months.
-Last week when I was preparing to post it here on The Sudden Walk, I gave it a complete overhaul and broke it into the four section version you see today.2
Usually I’m reluctant to make major last minute changes like this. I’m a real sufferer of recency bias and can’t help but assume that the latest flourish I’ve come up with is the best writing I’ve ever produced.
But after sitting on this one for a few days, I couldn’t shake the sense that something wasn’t quite right about it. It all felt too condensed, too abstract and a bit rushed.
I was attempting to invoke a decades long battle between this narrator, their parents and a sacrifice that was made on their behalf without their knowledge or consent through a single voice, and a letter at that. No matter which way I tried to spin it, this method of telling this particular story simply wasn’t capable of doing it justice.
For reference, I’ve included the original condensed letter section from that original draft here. You can see for yourself the heavy load I was asking of this single letter.
Dear Dad,
It’s just like you to die on me.
Just when I feel like I’m starting to figure some of this stuff out: you go ahead and leave.
Why couldn’t you have done this thirty one years ago? Why couldn’t you have allowed me to tie this whole thing up in a neat black bow?
It took till my nineteenth birthday for the loaded up revelation to hit: what father entrusts his eleven year old son to issue medication with potential to cause an overdose rate of phytanyl proportions?
If your dodgy heart (which I suppose I’ve inherited as well—thanks for that) had chosen that moment to self-destruct, it would have been perfect. Right when I thought I’d solved it all, right when all my woe-is-me energy was at it’s peak, why didn’t you allow me that mercy?
I could have unravelled that whole web of speculation without any truth to challenge it. It’s a perfectly Middle-Marchian murder. Allow the incompetent to deliver the morphine, be vague about the dose, “an accident, oh what a terrible accident!” Divert the blame from yourself and even the involuntary murderer.
Me.
Why didn’t you immediately shack up with a young secretary, take up cigar smoking, lump me with the sight of two suitcases in the hallway one school morning?
Shit Dad.
Why’d you have to stay? Why did I have to simultaneously listen to your wails at night, then bear your best efforts at sheltering me from the pain? Why did you work so hard to assure me that it wasn’t my fault?
It would have been so much easier if you’d begun to thrive after her passing. If I’d seen a renewed spark of youth, an exhale, a freedom that you’d been waiting years for. Using the life insurance to buy that bike you’ve always wanted, take that trip that was always in the back of your mind, but were barred from by Mum’s sensible voice, “Dwayne, we’ve got a mortgage, don’t be ridiculous.”
Finding out that my college fees were paid for at age twenty-three did not help me!
And that big talk we finally had years later, once the dust had all settled...Don’t even get me started on that!
I just realized I must have reached the same age you’d been at the time of Mum’s passing when you finally sat me down— an age when you knew I’d likely be able to understand—you expect me to believe that was coincidence as well?
Why did you have to talk me out of the conclusions I’d already made about those pink pills? I was so ready to wallow in my guilt. Had primed myself for the goth-teen scars and everything.
Why’d you have to go ahead and convince me that my desire to up the dose was only natural. If one pill buys you thirty minutes, then two pills?…Mum was leaving, and that only made those moments with her more precious.
That sit down talk we had at Anderson’s Garden Cafe was the first time I even considered the sacrifice you made by staying out of the way during that daily, afternoon ritual. Before that, I didn’t even consider that you might have liked a final chance to say good bye to the beautiful young wife you’d only had the joy of a handful of years with.
That’s the first time I considered that she might have had more of a hand in the end than I’d assumed as well.
To think the extra pills she began to take weren’t so much out of pressure from my end, but rather a recognition that she was deteriorating, and that these windows of the past might not be around forever. That it was worth cutting the final days short, if it meant she may be able to cling to the extra time with me.
It’s the first time I considered that I might not have manipulated her into that. That instead of her falling victim to my eleven year old level genius, there might have been some back room conversations between you two, where you decided what was best for me. Not best for her. She never talked about fear in the final days. It was all positive, all about my bright future.
Neither did you.
You never said anything, to quell my building anger in defense of yourself. Some might judge you for that part. But, I guess you sensed anger at least has an energy to it. Better than the alternative. And if it had to be aimed at you? So be it.
Shit Dad, why’d you have to go! Why’d you have to leave me here. Once again, not allowing the truth to spoil the illusion. This is just like you.
You and I will never get the proper goodbye that Mum and I had. But I suppose I need it less now that I’m an adult. Shit I’m an adult? Who would have guessed I’d last this long?
Silly question. You did, and it wasn’t a guess.
Do you see what I mean by too rushed?
I’ve skipped right to the revelation without giving the reader any type of journey. A reader doesn’t get to see the character’s gradual perspective shift, therefore they don’t feel what he’s been through.
By keeping it limited to one voice without an secondary character to add richer context it also became a bit one note for me and forced the voice into a real “woe is me,” whine.
It skips right to the reaction and robs the reader of the opportunity to consider what conclusion they might come to if put in those shoes.
This structure also forced me to rely on a flashback rather than live out the scene in real time. While it might not seem like much, this distinction is crucial in making a story engaging. It’s the difference between witnessing a fight play out in real time and hearing about it later.
While I’m obviously unable to transport a reader to physically live out this event that never happened, the next best thing I can do is at least give you a play by play. By reverting to a retelling, I’m inserting an extra remove from events. That’s one additional layer that keeps the reader from getting close to the character’s perspective.
This is an exaggerated example, but you can see my point here:
Today a homeless man attacked me with an axe.
vs
What’s that in his hand? Jesus that’s not a—
“Hey don’t get any closer!” I warn.
Where did he get that? Sure he’s got the lumberjack image down, but they’d never let him into a Mitre Ten with those dirty toenails exposed for the world to see.
I put up my hands, but he’s not slowing down. I start to walk backwards, not wanting to turn my back on him. But my foot slides on something. I’m falling.
“Geddoff my corner!” he yells.
I’m dragging myself backwards now. He’s raising the weapon as if about to split some kindling.
Clunk, the axe lands heavy between my legs sending a lump of concrete flying, and a chalkboard shiver through me. He growls inaudible street words and yanks at the handle like a wannabe king Arthur.
A surge of hope warms me. It’s not moving.
It moves.
I clamber to my feet. It’s just the handle in his dirty fingers now. He’s donated the axe head to stay a new ornament to this footpath.
I turn and run faster than I’ve done since high school.
Present tense vs past tense
Sure there is a time and a place for using a retelling to frame an event (i.e. It’s great if you’re trying to paint the picture of an unreliable narrator, perhaps twisting the truth through their retelling) it also gives you the freedom to refer to events that occurred in the aftermath of the story you’re describing.
Neither tense is superior to the other, but it’s important to recognize when you’re falling into one of them by default and haven’t taken the time to consider which would best serve the story.
In this case I’d fallen into that exact trap, so I added the Anderson’s Garden scene which gave me a chance to infuse the father character with a bit more sympathy. To this point he’s been absent and all we know about him is the dark backstory that the narrator has provided. This scene allows us to see him as someone to be pitied and perhaps may even bring into question the narrator’s certainty about his dark motives.
Another limitation of the single letter format, was its inability to effectively depict the passing of time. It moved straight from the pill section to an info dump, leaving the reader scrambling to catch up. How much time has passed? Why has this kid taken such a one-eighty turn? I feel my four part version did a much better job of letting the reader settle in the pause following each section and signal the time jumps in a more natural way.
On Technical Limitations
The main lesson I took through writing this story, was its humbling effect.
Back in March when I scrawled out my first draft of Duty, I didn’t have the experience to recognize or make the changes that I’ve outlined above.
But as I’ve already mentioned, even this version for all it’s adjustments, doesn’t quite hit home in the way I’d like it to.
I don’t know what those changes are. All I know is, I’m not quite ready to take on a premise this big at this point. But I will be once I’ve put in the time. My progression from March to now shows an upward trajectory, so that part is just a case of keeping my eyes open and pushing ahead.
It’s also a good lesson in maintaining a healthy understanding of where I am positioned technically. I’ll for sure keep biting off ambitious premises because those are the ideas that engage me. But if I’m making plans for a competition entry or am writing with the intention to submit to a literary journal, it might be worth keeping things simple and write my within the bounds of what I know I’m capable of.
The best version of a simple story is going to land more soundly than one I’m stretching to pull off.
But then again, this is all just a work in progress.
One particular reader who has suffered through multiple drafts acknowledged a big improvement (though this surrender could well be a tactic to avoid having any further revisions being sent her way)
Which interestingly made the word count lower.