Frame It Up: Experiments in Short Story Structure

 

By Shelley Burbank

Cliff overhanging Gun Beach, Tumon Bay, Guam

I drafted a short story last summer when I was in Maine. I wanted to write a short crime narrative about my female private investigator character, Olivia Lively. Because I was visiting at a home with no internet, I drafted the story by hand on yellow paper. The solstice inspired me to use June's full moon as part of the setting, and the title Strawberry Moon Mystery seemed perfect.

It took me three tries over the course of a day and night, but I finished the draft at 3 a.m. A few days later, I went back to California where I began to transcribe it into a Google doc. However, I failed to get it all typed up before I came back to Maine and then on to Guam. I figured once I got settled, I'd finish typing it and then work on revising and polishing and maybe even submit it somewhere. (Or offer it as a lead magnet to find new readers for my two books.)

I'm excited about this one because I wrote Strawberry Moon as a frame story. 

***

When taking photos, it's sometimes fun to create a "frame" in the foreground in order to highlight something in the background. This creates interest in the whole, as in the above photo I took on Gun Beach. The overhanging cliff hovers over the dimpled sand while framing the blue-green seawater and dark rocks beyond. 

Stories are structured in many different ways, and we writers like to experiment with various plot devices and structures. One of my favorites is the "frame narrative." 

You are probably most familiar with frame narratives in classic literature. The Canterbury Tales collects 24 different stories under one umbrella, or frame, story: Travelling companions amusing each other by telling stories along the way. The Thousand and One Nights is another collection set in one frame. 

Sometimes the frame contains just one story, or perhaps even a story that frames a third story. (I'm giddy just thinking about it!) 

I've experimented with frame stories a few times. Once, I wrote a lengthy short story for a class I was auditing at the University of Maine. The class was Native American & Immigrant Literature and was taught by Rhea Cote Robbins. I wrote about a modern-day character who is told a story by an elder. Within that story was another story. It was complex and probably a little clunky, but I received positive comments from the instructor and like to think there's some good material in there. I'll revisit it someday as I think it would make a good "novel in stories" like Alice Hoffman's The Red Garden.

A second frame-writing adventure wasn't planned. I inadvertently used a frame when I drafted a novel with a very dramatic opening scene which set up the conflict for the main character. I then decided the events leading up to that moment were important enough to include in the narrative. I had a choice: weave in backstory in dribs and drabs or, in the next chapter, go back in time to tell the story chronologically until the events led up to the original scene--which really was the inciting incident for my character's developmental arc and thus the best place to start--and then continue on to the end. 

I did it, but I was never totally happy with it. 

On a second draft, I tried writing the book beginning to end chronologically, but it transformed the story into a different genre, from women's fiction to romance. That's not what I wanted. I wanted the story to be about my heroine's journey, her challenges and growth, not focused on the romantic relationship even though that relationship incited the change she was forced to make in order to thrive. 

No one ever said writing was easy. Stories are puzzles. All the pieces have to fit, and fitting works best when you build in the right order. Figuring out the right order, now, that's the real challenge. 

***

This brings me to the drafting of Strawberry Moon Mystery, the short story I wrote on yellow paper in Maine. Here, Liv goes to a party to celebrate the publication of her client's latest novel and the successful defense of her authorship following a plagiarism claim. Trouble is, Liv felt something was off even though she investigated for the defense. The end brings the missing pieces to light. In the middle, though, I tell the story of her investigation in chronological order from initial client meeting to final report and settling of the claim. 

Now, I could revise and start at that beginning when Liv is approached to do background investigation for the client, make my way to the night of the party, and get to that ending payout scene. But I kind of like the frame. The opening scene of the party being held at a Victorian "cottage" on the coast of Maine, a full Strawberry Moon rising over the sea, and Liv's queasy feeling that something isn't quite right makes me happy. 

I'm hoping it piques the reader's interest, as well. 

However--plot twist--somewhere in between San Diego and Maine and Guam I've misplaced my handwritten draft! Remember, I never did get the whole thing transcribed. I can sort of remember the basics, but I've lost the details. 

Will this author be able to finish her piece? Stay tuned for updates. 

Finding the Backstory

As I read the posts from Rick and Barbara this week, I was breathing much easier. I had finally finished that short story I mentioned I was working on. The short story for an anthology with all of the contributors writing about the hero of three "B" westerns. According to the guidelines we were given, genre-blending was permitted. As you might expect, my story involved a murder. But it took me forever and a day to get to that murder. Halfway through, I had to change directions and rethink the plot.

I know I've written before about sagging middles and endings that won't gel, and the agony of getting through a first draft. But I'm not a pantser. I usually know more or less where I'm headed. I'm that hybrid that Barbara discussed. But with this short story, knowing where I wanted to go and getting there was not happening.

One of the problems was that I was writing about a character that I had not created. He stood there before me, an adult, fully formed. He had done things and had cowpoke buddies that I needed to take into account. In addition, the publisher had provided some guidelines about this character's behavior (i.e., good guy hero). I started writing with those guidelines in mind. I wrote and wrote and the character never came to life. It was only when I took the working title that the publisher had provided seriously that I begin to see how much room I had to write the story I wanted to write. The title was "the birth of" -- as in origins, roots, what is this character's backstory?  Why did Batman become a vigilante superhero? Why had my cowboy from Texas become a man who would do the right thing, who would be on the side of law and justice? That was my entry point into my story.

Realizing this stopped me dead in my rewrite. I needed to think about not only where this character had been born but the family he had been born into. I needed to think about why he would understand the reaction of another character to the murder of a family member. I needed to dig deeper and think about what "my" protagonist felt and cared about -- not just how he looked and rode his horse.

This was my mini version of what Reed Farrel Coleman talked about in his weekend guest post a couple of weeks ago. Coleman needed to figure out how to write about Robert B.Parker's protagonist in a way that was true to Parker's vision but drew on Coleman's own strengths as a writer. I needed to do that for my short story. But that wasn't the end of the process. Once I had a grip on my character, I need to claim my setting. I needed to stop playing western movies in my head and draw on the research I had done.

I'm not sure what the editor of the anthology is going to say about the story that I ended up writing. It's true to the spirit of the character, but I turned at least one convention on its head. Within the context of my story, it makes sense and had to happen that way. And contributors were given some leeway to write grittier than movie-version stories.

Meanwhile, I am now back to the countdown to pub date for my March mystery (What the Fly Saw). I'm on a virtual book tour and writing guest posts. The challenge is to make each one unique and targeted to the audience of the website. I have a list of book-related ideas, and I'm telling myself that if I could write that short story, guests posts should be easy. They're not. But I'm getting them done.

Will let you know what happens with the short story and how the virtual book tours goes.