{"id":108,"date":"2013-10-08T15:15:02","date_gmt":"2013-10-08T15:15:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?p=108"},"modified":"2016-03-25T02:50:52","modified_gmt":"2016-03-25T02:50:52","slug":"behind-short-story-dark-days-professor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?p=108","title":{"rendered":"Behind: “Dark Days for the Professor”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"51mTezsunJL__SY346_\"<\/a>Southern lit.<\/a> Family conflict. Race and social issues. Push-pull of tradition. Sense of belonging to place, like it or not.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t write it.<\/p>\n

Or at least I hadn\u2019t until earlier this year<\/a>. So it\u2019s a thrill that\u00a0my \u201cDark Days for the Professor\u201d has been included in NWMG<\/a>\u2019s Southern lit anthology Not So Fast<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n

So I don\u2019t write Southern–themes generally or voice specifically–but I\u2019m immersed in\u00a0the South. And oddball humor? I am to oddball humor what cats are to my couch: hairy and all over it.<\/p>\n

Game on.<\/p>\n

I thought about this one a long while.<\/a> For me, good Southern lit says<\/i> something. Stuff gets real. Real<\/i> real, no magic wind or giant bateau mouche. My first challenge was a\u00a0real<\/em> real\u00a0premise. Funny sure, but recognizably here and now.<\/p>\n

Pretty quickly I settled on a theme that jived with Lily Wilson\u2019s overall intent: present a contemporary and more complex South than often portrayed. I had in my head a kind of post-New South South I wanted:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. to show the South at its fault lines, with irresistible change and modernity scraping against long-held traditions.\u00a0Small towns and county seats in the path of urban sprawl feel the tectonics most.<\/li>\n
  2. to explore and differentiate between traditions, with some worth protecting (family)\u00a0and others (racism) that demand rejecting finally and forever.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So those are the big words and backdrop. What I really needed was a great character to build a story around.<\/p>\n

    I had the Professor cola idea first–pure inspiration, no shareable logic–and studied up on North Carolina\u2019s Cheerwine. Southern? Check. Local tradition with much history? Check. Adapting and expanding profitably? Check. To jack up story conflict, I went the other direction, a rural-turned-exurban business getting soundly outcompeted. The Professor\u2019s troubles aren\u2019t all fifth-generation Ty Augur\u2019s fault, but his self-indulgence and lack of commitment hasten the reckoning.<\/p>\n

    So next Ty needed a voice.\u00a0A Southern voice, authentic and not\u00a0ridicule–redneck jokes aren\u2019t fiction. Usually they’re not even funny.<\/p>\n

    It took me multiple tries to find Ty, and when I did, he became a blast to write. He\u2019s garrulous, the folksy sort you\u00a0actually encounter down here, and at his wits end. When he calls in his last lifeline,\u00a0semi-shady and unrooted investment banker Amanda, the Southern-Cool-meets-Gonzo hijinks ensue.<\/p>\n

    Writers have characters they feel blessed to find. Amanda is one of those for me. I envisioned a character at home in a Hunter S. Thompson romp, and out she came, exploding on the page from the get-go. Early drafts had Ty continuing to pitch Amanda while she kicked off a crime spree. It stung a bit toning her down so Ty could have his story back, but the Amanda rampaging through “The Professor” is a stronger and more full\u00a0character.<\/p>\n

    I struggled most over the story’s\u00a0racial conflict. Time and again I\u2019d get to where racial injustice invaded, and time and again I\u2019d take a path around it. Even with the obvious message–racism is ignorance and malice that holds the South back–the topic demands sensitivity and weight. But who else are the bad guys holding back Rasping Creek? Not the average good old boy. I know good old boys by the bushel — the operative descriptor is good<\/i>. And how does the intended\u00a0theme hold up if racial injustice gets papered over? So I stopped resisting it. How well I dealt with lingering\u00a0silent and not-so-silent hate? That is up to the reader.<\/p>\n

    I won\u2019t say fictional Rasping Creek isn\u2019t rife with comedic liberties–it is–or that the hijinks aren\u2019t over the top–they are–but “The Professor”\u00a0makes for a fun ride with some depth. That was the plan, anyway.<\/p>\n

    — let the BSP begin —<\/p>\n

    I want to thank Lily Wilson for her hard work on–and faith in–the Professor. A terrific editorial eye, she has, and she deserves credit for putting out this labor of love. Check out\u00a0the anthology at Amazon paperback<\/a>, Kindle<\/a>, or\u00a0CreateSpace<\/a>.\u00a0Sure, I’m not objective, but I’m still a fan of good writing. A few bucks\u00a0bought me\u00a0a terrific\u00a0Southern read\u00a0and a\u00a0heap\u00a0of laughs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Southern lit. Family conflict. Race and social issues. Push-pull of tradition. Sense of belonging to place, like it or not. I don\u2019t write it. Or at least I hadn\u2019t until earlier this year. So it\u2019s a thrill that\u00a0my \u201cDark Days for the Professor\u201d has been included in NWMG\u2019s Southern lit anthology Not So Fast. So… Continue reading Behind: “Dark Days for the Professor”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,92,93,6],"tags":[94,3,4,61,5],"class_list":["post-108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humor","category-short-stories","category-southern-fiction","category-this-whole-writing-thing","tag-humor","tag-short-stories","tag-southern-fiction","tag-the-professor","tag-writing","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3CG0W-1K","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":998,"url":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?p=998","url_meta":{"origin":108,"position":0},"title":"Old Time Religion: Behind “Let It Burn”","author":"rtmcontrol","date":"June 16, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"First, a numbness. A chill that says you shouldn't have gone and bit in, that something wicked this way comes. The heat does not flood in, yet. It builds. The nose starts to run, and your voice catches. Your body knows only to sweat. Because it\u2019s too late to run.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Crime, Mystery & Suspense"","block_context":{"text":"Crime, Mystery & Suspense","link":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?cat=10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/robertmangeot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Princes_hot_chicken-from-Wikipedia-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":594,"url":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?p=594","url_meta":{"origin":108,"position":1},"title":"Behind: “First Rodeo”","author":"rtmcontrol","date":"May 2, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"If you were around a century or so ago, and you\u00a0knew him well, you might call him Bill. On a legal document, William Sidney Porter. If you read any of his 300+ published stories, you knew him by his pen name:\u00a0O. Henry.\u00a0The name now commands a prestigious\u00a0short story\u00a0award, but more\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Short Stories"","block_context":{"text":"Short Stories","link":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?cat=92"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":94,"url":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?p=94","url_meta":{"origin":108,"position":2},"title":"The Fall and Rise of Draft One","author":"rtmcontrol","date":"October 8, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Day One \u201cWe\u2019re putting together an anthology,\u201d they say. They have an email to prove it. Very few combinations\u00a0of five words so excite The Short Story Guy. Maybe \u201cshort stories turn me on,\u201d or \u201csure, we\u2019re a paying market.\u201d It is not\u00a0a literary style I\u2019ve written in. Despite that, perhaps\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Humor"","block_context":{"text":"Humor","link":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?cat=8"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2545,"url":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?p=2545","url_meta":{"origin":108,"position":3},"title":"2023, A Funny Sort of Year","author":"rtmcontrol","date":"December 27, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"We all beat our drums about what's important to us. Humor is important to me, in life and in writing. Not surprisingly then, a drum I beat when talking writing is the serious business of humor. 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Summer 2011: it was that purplish state of dawn.\u00a0My eyes flew open.\u00a0My breath caught in my throat. Inspiration had come. It was ready to bubble out, like it or not. And I liked it.\u00a0In\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Crime, Mystery & Suspense"","block_context":{"text":"Crime, Mystery & Suspense","link":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?cat=10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":635,"url":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?p=635","url_meta":{"origin":108,"position":5},"title":"Caught on Podcast! Methodically Musing","author":"rtmcontrol","date":"June 17, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"It was my great honor last night to talk fiction with the wonderful Sherry Welton Wilds as she debuts her new show The Method and the Muse. What a great (and short!) session, and I hope those who listen get value for their time. 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