I've had a peculiar experience this past week. I decided I wanted to write some short stories, for writing practice. I also decided to get some tutoring on the concept by reading some short stories by a master. I've done this in the past, where I've read several works by a specific author and then written a tale using their tone. This time I chose the writings of Richard Matheson. Stephen King recommended him as a significant inspiration for him.

Granted, I'm not really a Stephen King fan, as I'm not that into horror, but I know him to be extremely successful which means he has an opinion that is at least worth listening to. I've now read a couple compilation books of Matheson's short stories.

Some of them were a really fun read, particularly because I enjoyed watched "The Twilight Zone" many years ago, and several episodes were based on his short stories, such as the classic, "Terror at 20,000 Feet" starring William Shatner (which, BTW, I read while flying back from Oklahoma). Then there's "Mad House" in which everything in a guy's house becomes animated and hostile, including his electric razor which comes at him like a cobra.

Fun stuff, although there began to be a noticeable trend: the hero/heroine always ended up either dead or insane. At first it was a fun twist to find out that the hero didn't survive to fight another day, but when every story seemed to leave the protagonist in the grave, it became increasingly difficult to root for him or her. It had about the same satisfaction of watching "Episode III" of Star Wars in which you knew Anakin would give into the Dark Side, you just didn't know all of the details. Did ANYONE find themselves rooting for Anakin? It's just awkward.

But, the stories themselves are great tools for showing how to pace and orchestrate a short story. They illustrate key nuances, such as how much detail to provide vs. how much innuendo. For example, if the characters experience a recurring event, it's simply not necessary to restate each detail of that event repeatedly. A simple, brief reference to the repeating - so long as it's essentially the same event again without a key step forward in the plot - can suffice.

Sunday morning, I woke up and continued to lay there debating whether or not to actually get up, or take an early Sunday nap. While I lay there, the opening lines to a short story began to dictate themselves to me. The character's name (E. B. Samuelson), the tone and pace of the writing, the words themselves were coming to mind very clearly.

I had the first two paragraphs running through my mind, as well as the final sentence. As these wouldn't leave me, I decided to get up and write them down. I had the beginnings of a short story in the tone of Richard Matheson - sort of.

The odd thing for me was that my typing was more a matter of uncovering text that seemed to already exist. It was like using a coin to scratch off the silver bar on a coupon to see if it included a winning number. The more I typed, the more of the story I was able to see. Perhaps oddest of all was that I had know idea what was going to happen next.

The final sentence had very little to do with the opening paragraphs. They seemed to indicate a tremendous change in the mindset of the character, and I had no idea what would occur to cause that change to take place.

The more I wrote, the more I would guess at what was coming up. I began to have a feeling that I knew what Mr. E. B. Samuelson was up to, or going to experience next, or what the point of his story was, and then the topic would take an unexpected shift and another aspect of the story would present itself in a way I hadn't predicted. Small things became significant, and obvious plot lines faded to the background.

My goal was to write only a ten-page short story, not a novel. I was growing fearful when I was on the 10th page last night, and it appeared from the direction of the story that it would go on for at least 24. Then some more scratching away at the words revealed that it was actually only a couple of paragraphs away from being completed. Things that I thought had to be said, or were going to be said, needed no saying at all. The story climaxed and ended with the very appropriate final line that had been written long before the story itself had formed.

I read through the thing from start to finish and am surprised that it works. I'm not saying it's the greatest short story ever written, far from it, but it works.

There is much about it (the tone, the verbiage, the characters, the topic, even the plot) that is something I would not generally care to read, much less write, but somehow, working together, they form an experience that is worth reading. I found that the tone became an essential defining aspect of the main character's character, as clearly, or perhaps moreso, than a written description of his physical persona.

I also enjoyed the twist that the story is timeless in that the reader is left to wonder if the story takes place today, or in the 1950's. Either would work. Likewise, the location is left to the imagination. It could take place as easily in London as it could in New York City, or any of a dozen other cities. Those aspects are not critical. What is critical are the degrees of change the character undergoes as he tries to maintain his rigid life. The tagline for the story also dictated itself to me: "A punctual salesman discovers that there is more to life than selling shoes."

I enjoyed the writing being an act of discovery as much as creation. For example, while I often have trouble coming up names for characters, these names seemed to come pre-written. As each character introduced itself to the page, it arrived fully named and depicted.

I'm sharing this little experience for the benefit of those who have had other similar experiences, or as an encouragement to those who are becoming interested in writing and might want to get a feel for what it can be like.

Read the original "Lines of our Times" post here.