I love weird, Twilight Zone type suspense stories. I love reading those types of stories and writing them. Not sure that I really associated my writing with The Twilight Zone that much until I wrote the story, “Myra’s Wedding,” which is included in my book, Esmirana’s Trunk: Tales of Mystery and Suspense. Now, the book really has a wide variety of stories in it, quite a few of which I had written several years back. Off the top of my head, “Clackers,” “Myra’s Wedding,” and “Footprints,” were the only stories written specifically for this book. “Myra’s Wedding” was nowhere on the radar when I was putting this book together. I forget what story I was in the middle of writing (maybe “Clackers”), when I stopped long enough to go take a shower. It was late, and sometimes I’ll take five minutes or so just to lay down after I’ve been writing for an extended time. Often times, just after finishing a scene, before moving on to the next one, I’ll do this. This gives me a chance to sort of come up out of the “Zone” (the writing zone, not the twilight one) and to clear my head, before moving on. I don’t remember which story I was in the middle of writing at the time. In any case, as I lay there, thoughts started creeping into my mind, hints of another story. Just a couple of scenes. I thought, well, this seems like it might be a pretty good story, so let me put off the shower long enough to make notes. I went back down and hopped on the laptop again, just to type out a few lines . . . well, next thing I knew it was an hour or two later and I had written the whole story. Right then, right there. This story just hit me and rolled straight out, right in the middle of my writing something else. It is weird when that happens, but weird in a good way. And the story “Myra’s Wedding” did appear to be a Twilight Zone type story. I almost stopped at what would be the normal TZ type ending, but didn’t; that seemed a little too mundane, and, well . . . the words just kept coming–so I took it a bit further. Not too much, just a few steps of shading things, or sketching out things, searching for the end. The story came to be a little more than just the standard twist, or the usual end. It then became something a little more. It became a story about a character’s escape, and about how she was going to manage it without getting found out. Eventually, the whole of things would be discovered by the other characters (which was beyond the scope of the story), but the overall escape became that character’s target, or goal and the end of the story. Hope that makes sense. I’m just trying to give a sense of the story, without revealing too much of anything. Though a lot of my stories do have a twist at the end, or something unexpected, that was probably the most like a Twilight Zone episode type of story I have ever written. I could, in fact, see it playing out as an episode of the show (in my mind).
I had sort of forgotten all of this, until the other day when I was on Amazon looking at books and a suggestion popped up of a Rod Serling biography. Do I want to buy it? I thought. It was tempting. Rod Serling was very prolific, and wrote almost all (or a good many) of the episodes for the show. He had written a lot of other television scripts, stories, etc. for a lot of other shows, quite a few of which are lost to us. The “Golden Age” of television was sort of looked at at the time as though it was just a passing thing. Not television itself, of course, but the episodes of weekly shows, etc. Write something for the show the next week, or whatever, and then move on to the next episode. Each teleplay was sort of a “throw away.” I’m kind of rambling here, just giving background, and there is no real tie-in to what I am getting at. What I was thinking was that if I get the biography and read it, would it change my perspective, or how I felt about the show itself? In most cases, probably not. Sometimes, however, not knowing about the creator, or author, is better. Sometimes it is just fun, or interesting to let the material speak for itself; to let the stories stand as individual entities. Even collectively. It is sometimes more fun to keep the author’s life, etc. hidden behind the curtain. You’re curious, but that is part of the mystery . . . would it all be ruined if you looked behind the curtain? Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. In Serling’s case, it probably wouldn’t make too much difference, and I get the impression that he was an interesting man, who had a very full life . . . So who knows? Maybe I’ll buy the biography (there are several, including one by his daughter).
In writing this, I feel as though I’m coming close to a point, but not exactly making it. Let’s just say, I feel as though I’ve got a handful of marbles in my hand, and I’ve pulled them all out of the same bag, but each one is different, of course. Each one of these marbles looks different, and each one reflects the light a bit differently . . . Is this all seeming too esoteric?
I’m trying to bring it back around to writing . . .
Let me state here for the record that I would probably make a very bad magician. I would have to know the secret to perform the magic trick. The trick excites me and, well . . . seems magical, right up until I know the secret. I would lose interest if I knew the secret; perhaps not completely, but you get my point. Some of the luster or shine would be gone. The trick would be very difficult for me to perform. I would be afraid of giving away, in some manner, or by some hint or gesture, the trick.
And with regard to writing (which I love talking about as well as doing) it is the same . . .
If I know the ending of the story, novel, etc. then it sort of ruins things. I might have a bit of dialogue or a scene or two in mind when I start out, but I seldom know where I’m going to end up. I’m thankful that I almost always end up in a better place than I expected. Hopefully that is also the way the reader feels upon finishing one of my stories. You might just, in that case, consider me a reader also–just the first one.
I believe it was E. L. Doctorow who said (at least according to James Scott Bell, in the Great Courses lecture How to write Bestselling Fiction), something to the effect that he (E.L.D.) could never see very far ahead as he was writing. He equated it to driving an automobile down a road in the dark of night. He could only observe what was in the headlights just in front of him. Then, as he moved farther along, more was revealed.
Does it all make sense now? I hope so, though I had to do a little side-stepping to get from the thoughts on my story being similar to a Twilight Zone episode, to the Serling bio. and then to the writing. As I said, it was all sort of like holding a handful of marbles and observing them in the light. Whichever one caught the light was the one that caught my attention. Each marble being its own entity and not exactly related to the others, . . .but I held them all in my hand at the same time and observed each in turn, rambling though it all was, or is.