It’s the first of the month, writers. Time to begin a new challenge! If you don’t already know all about StoryADay May, check out the challenge description here at Write Words Now. And you can find lots of additional information and resources at the official StoryADay website. What kind of story can you write in only one day? A short one, probably. But I think we will surprise ourselves. I was surprised by how much I was able to write in just 30 minutes when I did the warm-up story prompt last week.
And check out the three tips for success from the most recent StoryADay podcast:
1. Keep a list of “story sparks,” and commit to writing down three new ones each day. These are not fully fleshed out plots, just the sparks of ideas. Here are a few from my list: a dog named Venkman; the safe in the beach house basement; the appointment of Britain’s first loneliness minister; a love story in travel posters.
2. Even if you don’t have time to write in the morning, think about the prompt and launch your idea first thing. Your brain will start working on the problem in the background, giving you insight throughout the day. And if you can write at least a few sentences, you have a solid start that you can pull out in the elevator, on the train, or in line at the store. Those scrawled sentences add up!
3. Finally, since this month is all about training our brains to write stories on demand, let’s conduct a little experiment. Remember Pavlov’s dog? Scientists rang the bell every time they fed the dog and, eventually, the dog would just start salivating when it heard the bell, even if there was no food around. So think of a sensorial trigger, a scent, a sound, a color (something portable so that you don’t have to be at your desk to make it work) and begin each of your writing sessions with that thing. Maybe your notebook is bright red. Maybe you have a little soundtrack that you listen to each time you start to write. Maybe you light a scented candle, chant three ohms, and bow to your creator (this might also clear you some space at that crowded coffee shop).
So, how will this work? I am going to follow the StoryADay prompts, at least at first. My plan is to share the prompt in the morning and then post an update with my story later in the day or the following morning. Good luck writers!
Day 1 Prompt: “Write a story about someone who leaves the house for work, and on the way has some kind of accident.” Write the story in three parts, of about 300 words each. Part 1: from the point of view of someone close to the main character; Part 2: from the point of view of someone who sees the main character only occasionally; Part 3: from the point of view of someone who has only just met the main character.”
[UPDATE]
Ms. Rankins Untimely Demise
Eleanor
I told her those shoes were trouble. Black suede Louboutins with a five-inch heel. You know the ones I’m talking about, with the flash of red soles. Just vulgar. Like a gaping wound. Like giving everyone a look up your dress. Susan loved those shoes. She thought they made her seem formidable. Susan was formidable. But it was important to her that she look the part.
You have to understand how it started, when she made partner at that big wall street firm—you know, the one with six names? Can you imagine answering the phone there? Poor girls. I guess when your former partners include supreme court justices and a vice president, you’re not in a big hurry to change your letterhead. Susan was the first woman to make equity partner at that firm. And, naturally, the guys gave her a hard time. She had to always be one step ahead of them. To start with, Susan was no den mother; she gave her associates hell. And the men respected that. I mean, she’d have you bring her a knife so she could stab you in the back with it. They called her Cutthroat. Behind her back, sure, but then later to her face. She loved that.
But Susan had another side too. Because they were men, after all. Don’t get me wrong. She didn’t lead anyone on. No, but the way she presented herself, the way she came to see herself, was as this perfectly desirable being. Perfectly desirable and perfectly unattainable. They respected her, like some beautiful, poisonous snake. You know the ones I’m talking about? On the Discovery Channel or something? Susan was a black mamba. Slender, powerful, with those big staring eyes. And fast. She would strike at a distance, never content to lie in wait.
In the end, they were scared of her. You notice they didn’t put up much of a fight when she walked out the door one day, taking a third of their clients with her, to some office in an exposed-brick loft in Chelsea. I can hear their little hearts thumping in their chests now. Prey always knows when it’s just escaped by the skin of its teeth.
And the loft! Oh my god Susan loved that old building. She loved how it made her highbrow clients a little uncomfortable. She thought it made them respect her more. She loved how the grit of the old place enhanced her polish. The incongruity of it all; she got off on it.
Even that shitty elevator! Especially that shitty elevator. I’ll never forget this one time, when opposing counsel was late for a deposition—very unlike him—Susan marched down six flights of stairs to the security office to speak to the guy through the intercom. She told him to quit being such a baby, that he would be out in a minute. Then she slipped the security guard a twenty, telling him to take his time calling the fire department.
I always thought the elevator was dangerous. But this … I mean, my god, this was criminal. The news said “severe mutilation.” Those words. A direct quote from one of the first responders. There’s going to be a huge lawsuit over this. Mark my words, Jeffrey and the twins will be set for life. And, I guess now they don’t have to put up with any more of Susan’s shit.
Manny
THE COURT: Raise your right hand, please.
(Witness sworn.)
MANUEL ORTIZ,
called as a witness herein, having been first duly sworn, was examined and testified as follows:
DIRECT EXAMINATION
BY MS. MESSING:
Q. Mr. Ortiz, could you please introduce yourself and spell your name.
A. I’m Manuel Ortiz—M-A-N-U-E-L—O-R-T-I-Z. You can call me Manny. I work front desk security at The Commons.
Q. Did you know the deceased?
A. Oh yes, everyone knew Ms. Rankin. She had her office on the top floor of the building. I knew her for about three years, ever since I started working there.
Q. And did Ms. Rankin typically take the elevator to her office?
A. Yes.
Q. Manny, were you working the front desk at The Commons on the morning of June 11, 2008?
A. Yes, I was.
Q. Can you tell us, in your own words, what you saw that morning?
A. Sure. Okay, so it was a Monday. A little after nine o’clock. I remember that because it was unusual for Ms. Rankin to arrive at work so late on a Monday. But you know, she had been working day and night on a big case. When she did that, she might work all weekend and then come in late on Monday.
Q. Did Ms. Rankin seem to be in a hurry?
BY MR. CARTER: Objection. Why is that relevant?
THE COURT: Overruled. Ms. Messing, you asked him to tell it in his own words. Are you going to let him?
BY MS. MESSING: I am, your honor.
THE COURT: Mr. Ortiz, you can answer.
A. Yeah, she was in a hurry. But Ms. Rankin was one of those people, she was always in a hurry. She came through the door and said hello—Ms. Rankin always said “Good Morning Manny. She’d ask about my wife, my kids. She was always real nice to us who worked in the building. But that day, she came through the door and she saw that the elevator door was open. There were two people in there already, a man and a woman. And Ms. Rankin …
Q. Manny, can I just interrupt you for a second. The man and woman in the elevator, were they Mark Felter and Elise Paige?
A. Yes. I learned later that’s who they were. I didn’t know their names then.
Q. But you recognized them from the building?
A. Mr. Felter I did. I think the woman was not from the building.
Q. Thank you. Please continue.
A. So Ms. Rankin yells out for them to hold the elevator. And they did. Mr. Felter put his arm across the doors so they wouldn’t shut. After a few seconds the doors would try to shut anyway, but then the sensor opens them again. With that elevator, you could do it three times, I think, before a little buzzer went off.
Q. Then what would happen?
A. Nothing. The doors would still open if something triggered the sensor. The buzzer was just like, telling the people to hurry up, you know, they can’t hold the elevator all day. So the buzzer went off, but Mr. Felter was still holding the door open. Ms. Rankin stepped into the elevator. She had, like, one foot through the door, and Mr. Felter stepped back, to let her in. And then, the elevator, it just shot up, straight up, with no warning.
Q. What did you do?
A. It took me a second to realize what happened. I mean, Ms. Rankin didn’t cry out or anything. There was just this crack, and this horrible grinding noise, as the elevator tried to keep rising up. But then I heard Mr. Felter yelling, he was just saying “Oh my god, Oh my god!” And the woman, Ms. Paige, she started screaming. Screaming and crying and pushing down the emergency call button.
Q. Did you call the fire department?
A. I ran over to the elevator first. Then I radioed my partner to call the fire department, paramedics, all that.
Q. What did you see, Manny?
A. Oh … I don’t even know how to describe it. Ms. Rankin’s leg was … was separated from her body. I don’t know how else to put it. I could see the heel of her shoe was stuck in the little groove that the elevator doors slide back and forth in. There was blood everywhere, and just, well, there were pieces of Ms. Rankin on the doors of the elevator and on the bricks of the elevator shaft going down. The car had gone up almost one floor, and it was stuck there. I could see Mr. Felter and the woman, Ms. Paige, through a little crack though. About six inches.
Q. So the elevator was stopped there?
A. Well, it was still trying to go up. I think Ms. Rankin’s body was stuck in the shaft and was keeping it from going. I really didn’t know what to do. This is not the kind of thing we are trained for, you know? I was trying to talk to Mr. Felter. I could see he was trying to calm Ms. Paige down. And then, pretty soon, everyone arrived, the fire department and everyone. It was just, chaotic after that.
MS. MESSING: Thank you, Manny.
Elise
Even now, let me tell you, not a day goes by that I don’t think abut it. I’m serious. Something like that, it changes you forever. I’ll be in line at the grocery store, and suddenly I’m back there, and its happening all over again. One moment this glamorous woman is storming across the lobby, yelling for us to hold the elevator, and the next … oh God. Do you know it ripped her apart!? Right in front of our eyes. I can see her face now. Shock, then panic, then … nothing. She was gone, just like that. Someone’s wife. Someone’s mother.
“Susan Rankin. Beloved wife of Jeffrey, loving mother of Liam and Connor.” She was a lawyer, I guess. She worked in that building. All of that was in the obituary. But it took them a while to post it. I checked every day. There was an autopsy, naturally, a big investigation.
When they finally let me go home that day, when the paramedics and the police were done—do you know they even made me talk to a shrink?—I came home to my empty apartment and just cried. But at some point, I’m not sure exactly when, I realized that the bag they’d pressed into my hands as I was leaving was not mine. It was hers.
I knew I needed to return it, to get it to her family. I left messages with the police, but I guess recovering dead people’s misplaced belongings is not a high priority for them. So finally, I looked in the bag. I thought probably her wallet would be in there, with an I.D. It was. But there was something else. Just a sheet of paper, folded in half, with the words “I’m sorry” on the front. I remember the handwriting was very neat. Ha, I don’t know why I remember that.
It was a suicide note, dated the same day as the accident. There was hardly anything to it. Don’t blame yourself, this was my fault—really vague stuff. But, you know, I think she really meant to kill herself. There were bottles of prescription pills in the bag too. And on her tablet—yeah, I looked at that eventually too—her e-mails made it sound like she was in some serious trouble. A client had done something illegal and she’d covered for it. I’m not a lawyer, I didn’t really understand all of it, but I could tell she wasn’t just being paranoid. She was going to be disbarred I think, where they tell you you can’t be a lawyer anymore? Maybe arrested too.
Really, I had just one thought. I could not give this to her family. But then I had doubts. I drove by the address on her driver’s license a half a dozen times, having convinced myself that her husband, at the very least, deserved to know. But I chickened out every time. That bag haunted me. I moved it from closet to closet. I couldn’t sleep.
Some time passed, and I read in the paper that the lawsuit, against the elevator company, I guess, had gone to trial. There was a statement on the news, from the husband. He was indignant, was devoting his life to making buildings safer or something. I sort of stopped hearing his words. I was fixated on his face, all that righteous anger. That was how he was coping. I studied his grainy photo in the paper for days, begging him to give me a clue. But in the end, I knew, I just needed to get rid of that bag.
I drove out of town, farther than necessary, I’m sure, and tossed it in a dumpster. I cried all the way home. You have no idea. I was just so glad to be rid of it.
[Day 1: 2097 words]