{"id":54,"date":"2013-10-08T01:37:43","date_gmt":"2013-10-08T01:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?p=54"},"modified":"2016-03-25T03:08:54","modified_gmt":"2016-03-25T03:08:54","slug":"behind-short-story-la-upsell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?p=54","title":{"rendered":"Behind: “La Upsell”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Intrepid<\/a>Here, in honor of <\/em>its recent republication<\/i><\/a>, is a “Behind The Short Story”\u00a0I wrote for “La Upsell.” <\/em><\/p>\n

The short story is its own literary animal, a wholeness experienced in few words and on small bones. Some writers get a sunbeam and angel choir moment of inspiration. Others grit it out, go find the story. I\u2019m somewhere\u00a0in between those extremes.<\/p>\n

For \u201cLa Upsell,\u201d <\/a>I was\u00a0deep in a story groove, having worked up momentum <\/a>on several other shorts.\u00a0A rare place for me, to be fully inspired. It\u2019s a hell of a feeling.<\/p>\n

Inspiration went something like this:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I was writing a collection stories based in various French cities. I needed one for Paris.<\/li>\n
  2. Hmmm<\/em>, I think.\u00a0I remembered our first Paris trip, in 2007, when my wife talked me into a bateau mouche <\/a>ride. It was a bright spring day, and the scenery lived up to its reputation, as spectacular as I hope the story conveys.<\/li>\n
  3. But that\u2019s backdrop and travelogue. To make a story, I needed a human moment, and I found it in my wife getting shoved off the rail by an old Chinese woman so her tour guide could get a clear picture.\u00a0Our bateau\u00a0was so crowded up top that I wondered how might a boat company entice its riders into ever more comfortable (and pricey)\u00a0seating. Just how absurd,\u00a0I wondered, could I make it.<\/li>\n
  4. Pace: it\u2019s a river cruise. It needs to flow, to show accurately\u00a0what\u2019s out the window, and to turn as the boat does. The pace must roll with the Seine.<\/li>\n
  5. So now I need a point of view (what became Will) and a character arc to fit the world of an impossible river cruise.\n
      \n
    1. The bateau being an absurdity, the point of view had to be an everyman. Humor is conflict too, generated by tectonic movements between the unlikely and the normal.<\/li>\n
    2. Paris being for lovers, having him loveable but unloved provided better fodder than a couple. He became a father who lost his French wife (his past), presumptively to his career.<\/li>\n
    3. Bateau rides being for tourists, I needed a reason for a guy alone to get on the boat (his re-discovery of Paris tracks the rebirth of his stagnated life).<\/li>\n
    4. Paris being a world city, who else would be there other than locals or tourists? Businessmen.<\/li>\n
    5. I needed an ending. And like always, I lacked a complete idea. I only had Will on a bateau.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      ENTER THE TICKET BOOTH GUY (TBG)<\/h6>\n

      TGB came to me simultaneously with the boat ride idea. Someone after all needed to do the upselling. Short stories don\u2019t stick long with the reader, but in my experience the great characters live on in the writer\u2019s head. And he\u2019s still in mine when I think about this story. He is Paris, occupationally and metaphorically, and\u00a0a great antagonist in the Greek sense, not evil but working an agenda contrary to our hero.<\/p>\n

      Still, I struggled to put words to his motive. I could have him sell Will into ever more exclusive seating ad infinitum, and the result would have been crap. Better to limit the pitches to three or four, with escalating conflict each time. I wrote the first 1,500 words on a TGV from Avignon to Paris, using a guy across the aisle as a loose model for TBG, with one guy selling another guy. And there I froze again.<\/p>\n

      For two months.<\/p>\n

      I\u2019m not sure what broke the logjam. I was chasing other bubbles of inspiration, letting this simmer and reduce my thoughts to good options. At some point I realized Will\u2019s arc would only bend to a happy ending if TBG bent it. So I spent time in TGB\u2019s head, revisiting what made him want what he wants. And it was the same thing as Will \u2013 he was alone in a city famed for romance, every day selling someone else the slice of fulfillment he wanted most. At his core, TGB was selling Will not on Paris but on TGB.<\/p>\n

      So I put\u00a0opposing goals in\u00a0play for both TGB and Will. In the Europop club of Will\u2019s private seating, I plopped Camille the Provencal beauty (renewed love) that Will could have only by shaking free of the sales pitches. Camille is never fleshed out, but then that\u2019s not why she\u2019s at window staring out at Paris. She\u2019s the future, not the present, and only thanks to TBG, he grabs it.<\/p>\n

      WRITING IS REWRITING<\/h6>\n

      Like all first drafts, it stunk. I wrote it again. And again. And again. And when the prose matched the idea, I had Writer\u2019s Digest<\/em> critique it. They gave me gold, and I rewrote some more. And more still.<\/p>\n

      I include this last part not to scare aspiring writers. But the picture would be woefully incomplete without also admitting stories and characters are realized only\u00a0through damn hard work. Will didn\u2019t get his voice on Draft Two. The TBG didn\u2019t foreshadow his intentions on Draft Four. Paris didn\u2019t have the river details right on Draft Six. I didn\u2019t start to hate it \u2013 the sign of being close \u2013 until many drafts thereafter.<\/p>\n

      So “La Upsell,” from personal image to broader tale of redemption. For anybody out there, I hope\u00a0this helps\u00a0your own inspirations and ideas. Trust me:\u00a0writing is\u00a0so worth the ride.<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Here, in honor of its recent republication, is a “Behind The Short Story”\u00a0I wrote for “La Upsell.” The short story is its own literary animal, a wholeness experienced in few words and on small bones. Some writers get a sunbeam and angel choir moment of inspiration. Others grit it out, go find the story. I\u2019m… Continue reading Behind: “La Upsell”<\/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_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13,92,6],"tags":[97,3,5],"class_list":["post-54","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-france","category-short-stories","category-this-whole-writing-thing","tag-france","tag-short-stories","tag-writing","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3CG0W-S","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":247,"url":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?p=247","url_meta":{"origin":54,"position":0},"title":"Behind: “Uprisings at Cap d’Antibes”","author":"rtmcontrol","date":"March 1, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"There\u2019s nothing like a good, old-school\u00a0revolution to get a story going. Great or small, a lightning coup or decades in the making, needed change or epic tragedy. Revolution, for better\u00a0or worse,\u00a0is essentially human. The idea of a revolution wriggled into my brain some time back. In my fiction usually a\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":383,"url":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?p=383","url_meta":{"origin":54,"position":1},"title":"Behind The Short Story: “Aix to Grind”","author":"rtmcontrol","date":"June 7, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes, I was in Aix-en-Provence, and sure, I was studying a\u00a0Picasso in\u00a0a museum's\u00a0first room, only a token velvet rope between me and it, and okay, I even thought, \u201cman, this is how many million euro hanging how many steps from the door?\u201d But no, I wasn\u2019t casing the joint. I\u2019m\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\/2013\/10\/AHMSEPT2014web.jpg?fit=300%2C439&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":72,"url":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?p=72","url_meta":{"origin":54,"position":2},"title":"Behind: “The Carcassonne Dream”","author":"rtmcontrol","date":"October 8, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"It is winter. Christmas Eve 2011, and Writer Guy rides the train to Arles. Second class. The South of France trundles by outside, salt flats and olive\u00a0trees,\u00a0the mountainside and harbor towns of the Mediterranean coast. I sip my Coca-Cola Lite and return to my laptop. For in France the writing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "France"","block_context":{"text":"France","link":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?cat=13"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2043,"url":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?p=2043","url_meta":{"origin":54,"position":3},"title":"2022: 10 Years of Writing Stories","author":"rtmcontrol","date":"January 26, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"2022 marks ten years since I tried writing short stories. Technically, I wrote my first one--that I acknowledge--in 2010, but that was dabbling and na\u00efve ambition. 2011 was learning, and January 2012 brought my first short story acceptance: \"The Food Acquisition Breakdown,\" in wonderful but fledgling Canadian lit e-journal. There\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Short Stories"","block_context":{"text":"Short Stories","link":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?cat=92"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/robertmangeot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/AHMM-MarApr19-1-700x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":245,"url":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?p=245","url_meta":{"origin":54,"position":4},"title":"Behind the Short Story: “Whorling”","author":"rtmcontrol","date":"February 14, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Albert Einstein--you know,\u00a0he of\u00a0the supercomputer brain--once dished out this observation on the universe: \"Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.\" Well said, but only half said.\u00a0Sure, gravity doesn't make people weak-kneed in love, but some force does, internal or external.\u00a0Einstein didn't\u00a0name the cause\u00a0because he didn't know it. No\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cathcart"","block_context":{"text":"Cathcart","link":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?cat=99"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":94,"url":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?p=94","url_meta":{"origin":54,"position":5},"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. 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