thinking about storiesMeanwhile, read all

thinking about stories

Meanwhile, read all the Sarah Caudwell mysteries, a book called "California: Past, Present, Future", researched a bunch of genealogy, read "The Hunger Fighters" for the nth time, idly noodled about in "In the Language of Kings: An Anthology of Mesoamerican Literature Precolumbian to the Present", read a bunch of a version of The Pancatantra translated by Arthur W. Rider, re-read "Miss Pat and Her Sisters".

Miss Pat is a very odd book because it has all these plot elements that are either dropped or skimmed over -- as if the author had made a plot outline trying to include every possible romantic event and by romantic I mean: runaway carriage/car/horse, unexpected inheritance, twin gone missing in infancy, secret rooms, locked rooms, valuable heirloom jewels... orphans trying to survive in the big world... You know? But they're stuck into the book every which way like a junkyard of rusty, disconnected plot elements. Half the important events happen "offstage". And where is the camping trip, and where are the gypsies, crusty old caretakers, the circus, Daddy Bobbsey and the stand of tempting lumber in a remote place they can only get to by riding some picturesque ponies?

To my eternal shame I have nothing much to say about the Pancatantra but could write volumes of insightful wit on Miss Pat.

Excuse me, I must go read Trixie Belden....

Way back when, the plan was for me to write some more modern version of these books, and I tried a little bit, but it did not take off. I couldn't really come up with the core of good characters nor could I translate the virtues and adventures of yesterday into the virtues and adventures of today. The plot would all have to hinge on some arcane bit of mall trivia knowledge or how to play some video game.

[I forgot to tell the funny story about Jo and the "Classic Corner" of the arcade on our bad ass mama's club trip to the beach boardwalk. She gazed around with a goofy grin and sighed "Ahhhh! Robotron!!!!!" You would never know to look at her. "I turned the game over once. ON MUSHROOMS." Did I mention that I love my friends?]

It seems like more fun to write the "Hiptameron" or maybe it should be the "Sextameron", that would be sixty stories? And woudl have "Sex" in the title which would fool people into reading it. My plan is for jhk to help me come up with the 10 characters, because that is his particular area of storytelling brilliance -- making small groups of tightly knit characters who you can instantly "get" and who can be easily told apart. It's funny because as far as I can tell he doesn't spend any time in real life analyzing people's social relationships, but for a game or a story he is a fabulous genius at it.