“I just read your story and you are one strange fella. I mean that in a good way but, well, you’re strange.”
I get that sometimes.
This time it was my friend Susan who was letting me know that she’d read my story: “A Box Full of Nothing.” (Which can still be read for free at: http://www.anotherealm.com/2007/ar110107.html).
“Your protagonist was so obnoxious I just wanted to smack him.”
I smiled. That’s good cause it meant that, as a writer, I’d done my job – I got her emotionally connected. But how, I wondered, did that make me strange? Well, Susan got distracted and I never did get an answer on that one.
The truth of the matter is that I find that story to be rather mild and tame. So I can only assume that she thought the idea of the story was strange. That would make the person who thought it up (me) a little strange as well.
I get that a lot too.
But in my own defense I tend to think that people in general are strange. As a writer I just write it down. Don’t believe me? Here’s a case in point:
This past weekend I was at a big amusement park. I think you can guess which one. And in this post 9/11 world even a bunch of tourists are required to open their bags in front of security to prove that their only intentions are to spend money and act like kids. No biggie, really, it’s the same wherever you go.
But right behind me were a group of young ladies (16 or 17 years of age) who got rather concerned when they saw the sign that said: “All bags will be checked.”
“Really? I have to open my bag?” The security guard simply pointed at the sign. The girl then handed over a pink, leather, rectangular shoulder bag. It was unusual in that it wasn’t a regular purse. It resembled more like a high-end duffle bag but only smaller – more compact. “This is so embarrassing,” she muttered, and her girlfriends all started to giggle.
The security guard, uncertain what he’d find, opened the bag cautiously. In it was a three-foot tall porcelain doll. Only, this wasn’t your grandmother’s porcelain doll. It was thin, pale white, with platinum hair, and was dressed in black leather Goth clothing. I recognized that it was in the style of Japanese animation so I assumed it was one of the very popular Anime characters the 16 year-olds all seem to love.
The guard took a look at the very realistic face and the cold glass eyes and said: “Whoa, that’s kinda creepy.”
The young lady smiled apologetically and as she took back her bag responded: “Yeah, it must seem like you found a dead body, or something, in my purse.”
BAM! I got a story.
Can you blame me? A pink leather satchel. A creepy human-like doll. A tourist trap filled with happy vacationers. Who couldn’t write a story out of that?
Oddly enough, a friend of mine already has. That’s why I recognized the doll. He describes it in detail in a horror story he wrote called “The Dollfie Murder” for “Strange Mysteries” published by Whortleberry Press (available here: http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/strange-mysteries/6413232) . It has all the same elements except for the tourist trap (and since Mike lives in NJ you can’t fault him for that).
So how strange is that? And I didn’t have a thing to do with it. It really happened and it happened to other people. I just saw the potential in it. So, despite what some of you may think – it’s not me. Other people, they’re strange, and that’s the truth.
