Friday 3 June 2016

“The Waiter” (Preface)


It’s been a while since I posted a serial. Seems like forever since I finished a story short enough to be posted in eight segments or less. (I tried twelve, once, but it went on too long.) Thanks to my older older brother, who expressed some interest with an exercise I posted in 2013, “The Waiter” starts tomorrow and runs to the last Saturday in June.

Endings are not my strength. I can’t even say good bye to my co-workers when I leave for the day; I quietly shut my door and slip away when no one is looking. No wonder I have so many half-finished projects. At some point in our relationship, I quietly shut the door and slip away.

A good story, however, and/or a strong character will insist that I complete a piece—and that’s what happened with tomorrow’s offering. When I wrote both the initial exercise and its follow up, I approached it through the heroine’s eyes. Like her, I disregarded the boy who fell in love as a lightweight, sweet enough but lacking the depth that makes a hero interesting.

Wrong-o. Turns out that he has as much or more depth than any of my more compelling heroes. I am learning that a short story is but a few scenes from a character’s life. The time that François spent with Odette was a turning point in his existence. He has no desire to tell any more than that, and so I wished him well and let him go … but not before he insisted on having his say.

Enjoy.

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