Gaiman #005: Explore a difference

          As I’ve said before, contrast makes writing interesting. But in a longer work of fiction, it’s possible to REVISIT the same contrast in different ways. Here’s how Neil Gaiman does that in The Ocean at the End of the Lane:

1. “Adults follow paths. Children explore. Adults are content to walk the same way, hundreds of times, or thousands; perhaps it never occurs to adults to step off the paths, to creep beneath rhododendrons, to find the spaces between the fences. I was a child, which meant that I knew a dozen different ways of getting out of our property and into the lane, ways that would not involve walking down our drive.” (p. 56)
2. “Grown-ups don’t look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they’re big and thoughtless and they always know what they’re doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age.” (p. 112)
3. “I did not know what to do when adults cried. It was something I had only seen twice before in my life: I had seen my grandparents cry, when my aunt had died, in hospital, and I had seen my mother cry. Adults should not weep, I knew. They did not have mothers who would comfort them.” (p. 123)

There are three instances in the book where Gaiman explores the difference between children and adults, and he does it in three different ways. One shows how children are more curious than adults; another illustrates how adults put on a show for other adults, but are really still children inside; and the third shows how children BELIEVE adults should deal with emotions.

Each time the comparison is made, it adds to, it fleshes out, the contrast. This layering is effective over the course of a longer work of fiction, like a novel, but I think it would work just as well in a short story–once near the beginning, once in the middle, and once near the end.

Try this:

Think of any contrast you can: wise and foolish, experienced and naive, sporty and nerdy–whatever comes to mind. Then think of THREE slightly different ways it could be shown. Imagine those three showing up at different places in a story and write the scenes. Who knows, if you “connect the dots,” you might come up with an entire story this way!

Coming tomorrow: Poetry week is coming. We’ll look at some poetic technique that can add a little extra oomph to your poems, starting with a poem within a poem idea…