voices

[JacobF]

Something I wrote this morning; took me about 20 minutes. I'm working on a slew of longer stories at the moment and I'll post them when I'm finished (including the continuation to my sci-fi story).



After Danny said that to Sally a tear dribbled down her cheek, then another, and suddenly she exploded with tears in front of Danny.

Danny scratched his head and wondered if he should tell her to stop – she was his therapist, after all, and he should be doing the crying – and threaten to leave. But even Danny, despite common belief, was not that frigid a human being.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it… in that way,” Danny told her. The tears persisted and Danny squirmed in his seat, looking at his watch. After more crying he looked at the door, which was unprofessionally creaked open, and stood up from the couch to make a stealthy leave. Danny stopped when she finally spoke:

“My husband says the same thing to me,” Sally said softly. Danny gave in and returned; how did I get involved in this? he thought. It was just an innocent little comment. She continued, “Is it the beaded necklace? That’s what my husband tells me. I thought he was crazy, but now…” Sally cried even more.

“Look, Sally, I think you’re beautiful, just forget what I said,” Danny said. Sally looked up at his compassion, her rosy cheeks drenched and her mascara blotted. “Now,” Danny added firmly, “can we move on with my problems?”

“Yes, yes, I’m sorry,” Sally said. She straightened up, sniffled, and wiped the mascara off her face with a tissue. “So, you were saying—“

Danny sighed with relief. “Well, I think he really wants me to go through with it. But I don’t know if I want to. It seems dangerous and, and, and, and—“

“He won’t even make love to me anymore!” Sally whimpered and started crying again, her head lowered and body bumping up and down, up and down with the tears.

“Okay, I’m just gonna leave,” Danny told her. In the doorway he was stopped by her voice again:

“Don’t go! I need your help—“

“I need your help too, but you can’t sit for a second without crying your eyes out. Nothing personal, I won’t be coming back.”

“Only you can help me,” she said softly, her cries duller now. Danny sighed and returned, knowing it was a mistake, but the session still had ten minutes and Sally seemed truly helpless to him. He spoke right away:

“All right, so your husband, er, he doesn’t wanna sleep with you no more,” Danny said. Sally nodded. “Well, from what you’ve told me earlier, and from your reaction to my comment, you oughta treat him nice instead of waiting for him to treat you. Y’know? Guys don’t always go out of their way for wives sometimes, especially when they’re burnt out with work and kids. That’s just a fact. Now, when you treat him nice he’ll respond to that and definitely he’ll realize that you deserve better.”

Sally looked at Danny, astonished that she just received advice from the likes of him. “Does that help?” Danny asked.

“Yes, oh my god, thank you,” Sally said, crying no more. After a pause, she asked, “Where did you get such wisdom?”

Danny grinned. “The voices in my head.”

[free]

A very well-written anti-psyciatric story. Only, what didn't quite fit in, from my point of view, was the patient's coldness in front of the therapist's desperation. But, if I give it a second thought, maybe that is the story's point?

[JacobF]

A very well-written anti-psyciatric story. Only, what didn't quite fit in, from my point of view, was the patient's coldness in front of the therapist's desperation. But, if I give it a second thought, maybe that is the story's point?

Well I tried to make Danny seem cold and bitter -- to imply that he's been to therapy for most of his life and in general he is an irritable person -- but also human, which is why he "broke out of his shell" so to speak toward the end and gave the therapist some advice (cue irony alarm).

I didn't have much direction with this story. As you could probably tell, it was more of a marble painting than a multi-layered, carefully composed work.

[AuntShecky]

Two things early in the piece showed me that Danny was not a real therapist.

First, if a therapist says anything at all, it's usually like a Jeopardy!-style response (in the form of a question.) When Danny tells Sally "Sorry, I didn't mean it," that was a dead giveaway that he was an imposter.

Also, if a doctor ever spoke to me with Danny's semi-literature, ungrammatical diction, I'd demand to see his medical license!

Finally, I suppose it's possible to dash off an effective story in twenty minutes (if you're Sherwood Anderson, perhaps), but as a general rule, fiction takes time. For what my advice is worth, the next time you get an idea for a piece,
before you write it down, let it roll around in your mind for at least twenty-four hours.

Keep reading and keep writing!

[billl]

Another smart technique might be to go ahead and write it down, but then look at it again later, with the expectation that there will be some gold in there along with a lot of other stuff that was just filler, necessarily laid out as you were racing to get it all down. When the muse hits, type away, I say, and save the analysis and editing for later. Chances are there'll be something well worth cleaning up--and, if there is, it'd be a shame not to do the cleaning.

I think that the unprofessional therapist is a good idea, but it might be fun to think of subtler ways to convey it than full-on crying. You got the concept down, but here's a place where the implemantation could be worked on maybe. Maybe, in her counseling, she returns a couple times to a certain theme that doesn't apply to her patient, and keeps staring at a family photo on the desk, fiddling with her ring... Or something less cliched than my example. I know it'd be a challenge in such a brief story, but it'd be cool if it worked.

I also like the way that Danny 'triumphs' over a flawed therapeutic process, and fixes himself. However, and this is just my opinion, I think it's strange to point to 'voices in the head' being his guide out of the situation, because it just seems to be one, standard internal voice doing the thinking during the narration of the story. If there are other voices, I don't think they'd really deserve any credit ;) . Maybe it's a joke? It could be a good gotcha-horror type ending though, if the narration avoided Danny's thought processes, and the character was revealed solely through movement and dialogue....

I liked the story, and I was able to 'buy into' the emotional/irresponsible therapist--and the fact that you wrote it so quickly did maybe contribute to a less-than-ponderous pace :). I think it was a pretty good job, and very inspired, but like Aunt Shecky says, it could also be improved (even a more beautiful marble painting!).

[JacobF]

Two things early in the piece showed me that Danny was not a real therapist.

First, if a therapist says anything at all, it's usually like a Jeopardy!-style response (in the form of a question.) When Danny tells Sally "Sorry, I didn't mean it," that was a dead giveaway that he was an imposter.

Also, if a doctor ever spoke to me with Danny's semi-literature, ungrammatical diction, I'd demand to see his medical license!

Finally, I suppose it's possible to dash off an effective story in twenty minutes (if you're Sherwood Anderson, perhaps), but as a general rule, fiction takes time. For what my advice is worth, the next time you get an idea for a piece,
before you write it down, let it roll around in your mind for at least twenty-four hours.

Keep reading and keep writing!


I might be misunderstanding the first part of your advice, but I didn't intend to make the reader believe that Danny was a real therapist. Yes, he certainly took the role of one as the real therapist, Sally, was in shambles (cue forced-irony alarm again), but the main "point" of the story (at least as I intended) was to show how insanity does not always deteriorate someone's wisdom and personality. In other words, I didn't intend to make it a real surprise when the reader discovered that Danny wasn't a therapist. I suppose that's just bad character development, then (which has always been my weak point).

As for your second point, I certainly agree. I don't often try to "speed write" but this was an idea that was so vivid in my mind that I felt like I had to write it immediately. Many of my stories -- at least, the few I'm currently writing (and the many I have yet to write) -- have been thought out over the span of a week or so, and in some cases have been caged in the back of my mind for months. This one was a special case, not only in the amount of time it took me to write and the amount of time I actually thought about it, but the short length too.

Reading and writing -- that's the plan :). Thanks for the advice again, Auntie.



Another smart technique might be to go ahead and write it down, but then look at it again later, with the expectation that there will be some gold in there along with a lot of other stuff that was just filler, necessarily laid out as you were racing to get it all down. When the muse hits, type away, I say, and save the analysis and editing for later. Chances are there'll be something well worth cleaning up--and, if there is, it'd be a shame not to do the cleaning.

I think that the unprofessional therapist is a good idea, but it might be fun to think of subtler ways to convey it than full-on crying. You got the concept down, but here's a place where the implemantation could be worked on maybe. Maybe, in her counseling, she returns a couple times to a certain theme that doesn't apply to her patient, and keeps staring at a family photo on the desk, fiddling with her ring... Or something less cliched than my example. I know it'd be a challenge in such a brief story, but it'd be cool if it worked.

I also like the way that Danny 'triumphs' over a flawed therapeutic process, and fixes himself. However, and this is just my opinion, I think it's strange to point to 'voices in the head' being his guide out of the situation, because it just seems to be one, standard internal voice doing the thinking during the narration of the story. If there are other voices, I don't think they'd really deserve any credit . Maybe it's a joke? It could be a good gotcha-horror type ending though, if the narration avoided Danny's thought processes, and the character was revealed solely through movement and dialogue....

I liked the story, and I was able to 'buy into' the emotional/irresponsible therapist--and the fact that you wrote it so quickly did maybe contribute to a less-than-ponderous pace . I think it was a pretty good job, and very inspired, but like Aunt Shecky says, it could also be improved (even a more beautiful marble painting!).

Yeah, writing the idea down and a few details may have been a better idea. But for some reason I had the urge to just write the whole story out (maybe because I knew I was going to be out that whole day), and I was surprised that it turned out a little better than I expected.

As for the crying, if I was going to develop this story more I would probably, like you said, create a gradual lead-up to the crying, or just have no crying at all and show the therapist's distress in a subtler way. The 'voices in my head' thing you are right about -- it was sort of a joke on his part. As I told Free above, I wanted to portray Danny as a bitter, semi-sarcastic person who happens to have mental issues.

Thanks billl.

[krispykritta]

i liked it, i like it when the roles are reversed in a story