"Yesterday's Mashed Potatoes"

Thank you for your comment, Antiquarian. The scene in the end of this piece is an echo of two previous stories in which Arlene is a minor character: [URL="http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31390"]
""]Downhill"
and
"[URL="http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31415"]
"]Amateur Night."


There is another story about her stitching together an economic existence in "Aren't You Glad You're You."
If interested, you can view Arlene in childhood as well in "
"]
Best of the Blest."

http://www.online-literature.com/for...ad.php?t=31849

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AuntShecky

Thank you for your comment, Antiquarian. The scene in the end of this piece is an echo of two previous stories in which Arlene is a minor character....

---

I think that including material that relates to previous stories is a great device, and can make good stories even better. I try to do exactly that in some of my stories.

Of course, for a reader to realize that, he/she has to have seen the previous stories, and has to remember them as well, which doesn't always happen. Still, writing to the most astute readers is probably the best way to go, even if lots of the less meticulous readers find these zingers whizzing over their heads.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Antiquarian

As an editor, what would concern me more is the fact that nothing is at stake for the main character.

---

Another cardinal rule, almost as important as "Show, Don't Tell" is "never apologize, never explain." Instead of being
mealy-mouthed and defensive, the writer is supposed let the story stand or fall on its own merits or lack of them.

But I disagree about your assessment that Arlene has nothing "at stake." A way to assuage loneliness or an deep-seated bitterness over a less-than-fairy tale past or the
unfortunate and random aspect of lost opportunity (shown by the passage about the Adirondack bartender): are none
of these legitimate fodder for fiction? What about
my story's final two words?

I will not comment upon the criteria set up by your editorial board, but the Hollywood dictum (in which the main character has to "want" something) strikes me as a bit formulaic. I'm thinking about some masters of the genre and Joyce in particular. In his story "Clay" you can't really pinpoint what if anything is at stake for Maria, the poor laundress. Robert Scholes adores that story even though as he says, "nothing of any consequence happens." At the end of the story, Maria is the same woman under the same circumstances, but man, it packs a hell of a punch!

That-- not the ante in a literary poker game -- is the standard to which we would be writers should aspire.