Author Archives: Bryan Hilson

Flash Fiction Monday

Photo by Urbaer

Photo by Urbaer

Happy Flash Fiction Monday, everybody!

What? FFM isn’t listed on your calendar? Would you mind penciling it in? I’ll wait.

Great, thank you. Onward.

Flash Fiction Monday is a friendly contest celebrating short short fiction based on a theme. However, where conventional wisdom tells us flash fiction is usually constructed out of 300 to 1,000 words, here on bryanhilson.com we’ll tell our stories in three sentences.

The theme for this month’s FFM is “Happy Returns.” If you’d like to participate leave me a three sentence story based on your interpretation of that theme in the comment box, and I’ll pick a winner from all the entries. Said winner receives a glowing three sentence blog post from yours truly. Better than a kick in the pants, wouldn’t you say?

Here’s an example of what I’m getting at:

The father returned home a year after going out to buy some liquid plumber for the kitchen drain. He started in about a bright light, a ditch, amnesia, but his story was beat out by all the hugs and kisses and laughter. That night while his family slept soundly, the father was in the bathroom having been awakened by a terrible itch along his hairline, and scratching it he peeled off the latex mask disguising a different face.

Or something like that.

I look forward to reading your stories. Have fun and thanks for playing.

My Inner Critic’s Inner Critic

Photo by Matthew Brady

Photo by Matthew Brady

The inner critic, that nagging voice inside the head that consistently ignores the old maxim if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all. Judgmental, cynical, reductive, irrational it can take a yeoman’s effort to keep it at bay, let alone ignore it completely.

The inner critic can be especially debilitating for a writer working on a new project, which is where I’m at the moment. I need to be able to spill my story on the page as messy as it might be and worry later about precision and refinement; those duties await me in the revision process. Ideally, the first draft is a safe place where mistakes are not only allowed they’re highly recommended; a place that should be anathema to the inner critic.

Should be, but oh how many times have I allowed my inner critic too much room at the table and yet it’s still elbowing me in my pride? More than I’d like to admit. However, and mercifully this does happen often enough I don’t have to write home about it, I am able to mute the son of a bitch and move freely through a writing session with nary a negative thought.

And so that provoked me to wondering this: What does my inner critic do when I ignore it? Well, luckily, my inner critic loves an audience, and was more than happy to write a guest blog addressing this very subject.  Please welcome, dear readers, my inner critic.

Yeah hi, I’m Bryan’s inner critic, who the hell do you think you are? Anyway, semi-interesting question he poses, though I definitely would have phrased it better and wouldn’t have spent 300 freaking words on an introduction, and my god, “nary a negative thought” Bryan? Kill me now.

Anyway, what do I do when I’m ignored? Well, think of it like you do your toys when you’re not at home. Yeah, they come to life, right, and have jolly adventures. Okay, except in my case when they come alive I am home and defenseless in bed against a relentless attack of miniature shivs and fire pokers.

That’s right, roughly translated this inner critic’s got its own inner critic to deal with. What’re you doing you lazy piece of subconscious? You just gonna let him ignore you like that? Get back out there, schmuck! Come on, get more aggressive on the sentence structure, he’s practically rubbing your face in it. Aw cripes he just ended another sentence with a preposition! And he’s laughing about it! I knew right away you weren’t gonna cut it. I told your parents, looks more like a salami than a sledgehammer. The kid who never took off his kid gloves! Oh sure have another danish, yep, eat your problems away. Num, num, num, good luck with the diabetes, moron!  

Okay. Yeah. Need to towel off after that one. Don’t feel sorry for me, though, most of the time I am able to mute the son of a bitch and toodle around in my cave with nary a–uh, never mind.

And what happens when I’m able to ignore that voice? What does an inner critic’s inner critic’s inner critic sound like? Man you don’t want to know.

 

Whaat?! You’re just gonna let it end the blog post like that? Disgrace! Last time I send a neuron to do a synapse’s job!

Festival of Books 2013 – What Struck Me Part 2

 

Photo by Carolyn Kraft

Photo by Carolyn Kraft

That’s right, the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is simply too magnanimous to contain itself to one day. Did you go? What struck you about the event? Here’s the writerly wisdom and wit I collected on Day 2, with a few snippets of conversation I couldn’t help but overhear:

“When I get drunk I get more affectionate.”

“Writing is very intuitive. Sometimes we know something’s wrong in a story but not how to fix it.”

“An influential pastor in Princeton, New Jersey circa 1905 once said ‘We do not entertain any new ideas here.'”

“Theodore Roosevelt was often considered a traitor to his class–meaning he wasn’t a bigot.”

“She went to his wedding even while she has having an affair with him.”

“Genre writing is pleasing for a literary writer.”

“Historical fiction is always about the present as well as the past.”

“Literature is a way of evoking sympathy.”

“Writing is crystallized improvisation.”

“When I say books you say books! Books! Books!  Books! Books!”

“It’s important that the reader doesn’t know everything about the character but suspects that the author does.”

“When I say past you say tense. Past! Tense! Past! Tense!

“I’m into being interesting.”

“When I say Voyage of the Dawn Treader you say C.S. Lewis. Voyage of the Dawn Treader!…”

“Kurt Vonnegut is the original YA author.”

“I started writing at 7 or 8 years old and I was awesome. All of my sexy vampire stories were published under the pseudonym ‘Anne Rice.'”

“That sounds like diarrhea.”

“Books on writing make the invisible visible.”

“There’s always more to say about verbs.”

“Bad writing reveals what we don’t know.”

“The way writing is taught in the U.S. is completely wrong-headed.”

“The drama comes from the verb choice.”

“Recognizing your own habits and upending them is very refreshing.”

“As soon as I get comfortable with a draft, I must get suspicious of it.”

Progenitors of the quotes above include: two women sitting behind me in the Bovard Auditorium; woman in the shade near the YA Stage; Joyce Carol Oates; D.C. Pierson; Sean Beaudoin; Elizabeth Eulberg; Amy Spalding; Thomas Curwen; Constance Hale; Ben Yagoda

Festival of Books 2013 – What Struck Me Part 1

 

Photo by Carolyn Kraft

Photo by Carolyn Kraft

The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is always a great time, and this past weekend’s event did not disappoint. And how could it, really, with two full days on the beautiful USC campus where books and authors reigned supreme?

If you were there I’d love to hear about your experience. In the meantime, here’s a sampling of what struck me from Day 1’s author panels and, in a few instances, my own casual eavesdropping on some unsuspecting festival-goers:

“The music of the writing has to marry the story being told.”

“It’s a fun challenge to describe something from another art form.”

“Hell yes it’s an antiwar novel!”

“There’s a reason why 19-year olds are crazy. Whipsawed between raging hormones and the most profound existential questions in life.”

“My process is creative floundering. With this kind of work we have to create our own problems. That’s why writers are crazy.”

“I went nuclear on my publisher not to have a headless woman on the cover.”

“You shouldn’t be taken less seriously as writer because of your gender.”

“Endings are hard. There’s a significant amount of psychological pressure when you don’t know how the novel is going to end. But it’s also thrilling.”

“Flannery O’Connor said that she liked a story that was like a sandwich she eats on a Thursday and makes her sick on a Saturday. It’s got to stay with you.”

“There is no time in the psychological.”

“When you’re looking for feedback on something you need a reader who will accept the story on its own terms, who won’t try to impose on it their idea of what a story should be.”

“Stuff: In the end it doesn’t mean anything.”

“The only you fail to make something better is by not trying.”

“We can’t help but remake ourselves constantly. Have to really work at being stuck.”

“Fortune-telling: Sometimes we want to invest someone with the authority to tell us what we already know.”

“You never know what in your life you’re going to use in a book.”

“Characters who are omnipotent ruin the hell out of your plot.”

“I like to be the writer, the reader, and the character simultaneously.”

“Isabel Allende said writing is lonely; it’s the response that reconnects you to the world.”

“You can visit a country by reading its folktales.”

“Why did they give the new Star Wars movie to J.J. Abrams? I know exactly what that movie is going to be, I don’t need to see it. They should have given it to someone like Eli Roth to direct.”

“The idea that terrifies you the most, that’s the story to write.”

“Writing is not a choice. It’s like I have no choice but to write.”

“Michael Bay is actually our greatest independent director.”

“A writer has to be willing to torture his characters.”

“A story is like a piano: a finite number of keys but an infinite number of melodies.”

“Writer’s block is really just the critical voice overwhelming the creative voice.”

Those quoted above include: a group of gently snarky USC students; Janet Fitch; Ben Fountain; Lauren Groff; Elizabeth Berg; Amity Gaige; Nalo Hopkinson; Gennifer Albin; Mark Frost; Cornelia Funke; Lauren Oliver; Lissa Price; Veronica Roth; Victoria Schwab

 

Interview With My Doppelganger

Photo by Psychopoesie

Photo by Psychopoesie

So I’m writing this YA novel that’s heavy on the supernatural, and I’ve had doppelgangers on the brain lately because my main character’s double plays a significant role in the story. Well, I must have been putting more than just mental power behind it because a few days ago I was in the grocery store checkout line and suddenly there “I” was at the same time jamming a hand up the Redbox dispenser trying to steal DVDs.

The resemblance between us is pretty uncanny, although the DG doesn’t chew his fingernails and my eyes don’t go dark and dead like a shark’s when I feel threatened.

Anyway, there was the store manager calling the cops and I felt this intense, familial obligation to save “myself” from the police. And so while we hid inside a burned-out car in the alley I had a chance to ask my doppelganger a few questions. Here’s the transcript from our interview:

Me:  What movie were you trying to steal?

My Doppelganger: laets ot gniyrt ouy erew eivom tahw?

Me: Wait, that’s my question repeated to me backwards. Is that how doppelgangers really talk?

My Doppelganger: No, I’m just messing with you. Next question.

Me: Do you know how or why doppelgangers exist in the first place?

My Doppelganger: Hmmm…well, I don’t know how to put this delicately, but basically you get a man and a woman and you connect them via their sexual organs and then–

Me: Never mind, I got it.

My Doppelganger: You sure? Want me to draw you a picture? I’m getting pretty good.

Me: So you’re like my evil twin, is that it?

My Doppelganger: Evil? You tell me, bro. I pretty much do all the things that you secretly want to do.

Me: I don’t secretly want to molest Redbox machines.

My Doppelganger: Fine, but what about the Fifty Shades of Grey fan fiction? The PB and whipped-cream sandwiches for breakfast?

Me: Oh, that’s a great idea! Christian and Anastasia would love PB and whipped-cream sand–I mean, that doesn’t…none of that…are you sure you’re my doppelganger?

My Doppelganger: Come on, dude.

Me: Yeah…

My Doppelganger: And you know exactly what movie I was going for in there.

Me: Crazy Enough.

My Doppelganger: Starring Chris Kattan–

Me: –and Chris Kattan.

Me and My Doppelganger: “It’s Twin-sanity!”

My Doppelganger: Hey man that could be us. We could be Twin-sanity every day.

Me: Um…yeah. Every day.

My Doppelganger: Yeah man, bring me home, introduce me to your wife, let me sleep on your couch. We’ll make matchstick sculptures of your favorite escalators and sell them at county fairs. Don’t keep it a secret anymore!

Me: Uh-huh, excuse me a second. Officer! Officer! The man you’re looking for is right here! Here he is!

Becoming A Literary Character

SlaughterHouse5, Dresden, Photo by Keith Gard

SlaughterHouse5, Dresden, Photo by Keith Gard

The occasion: A good friend and fellow book-lover is turning 40 next weekend and he and his wife are hosting a birthday party wherein the guests are required to come dressed as their favorite literary characters. My first thought was, well, I’ll just come as myself because aren’t we all as we are just characters acting in our own private narratives? But this overcooked philosophy might be seen as a narcissistic cop out and I’ve already pledged to my doctors I’d keep those to a minimum this year.

So who should I turn into this weekend?

Maybe Tom Ripley, nattily dressed in stolen clothes, carrying a bloody broken oar and convincing everyone that Dickie Greenleaf is still alive, he just can’t bear to see anyone right now? Or what about Olympia Binewski, the albino hunchbacked dwarf from Geek Love, scheming to protect her daughter from the exploitative Miss Mary Lick?

No, it’s got to be Billy Pilgrim from Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. But how to convey the sense that I’ve come unstuck in time? Basically, the novel jumps around in Billy’s life as a prisoner of war in WWII, an optometrist in Ilium, New York, and a human creature on display in a zoo on the planet Tralfamadore. The trick is to find articles of clothing or other elements representative of these moments and then find a way (with either duct tape or Velcro) to stick them on and tear off at random times during the party.

Potential roadblock: Billy Pilgrim is naked while on Tralfamadore. Would my being true to the book break the hosts’ no gift rule?

Potential solution: Represent the planet Tralfamadore by recreating a Tralfamadorian, described in the book as: “…two feet high and green and shaped like plumber’s friends. Their suction cups were on the ground, and their shafts…were usually pointed to the sky. At the top of each shaft was a little hand with a green eye in its palm.”

I believe you can buy a Tralfamordian at any Walmart. KV would be so proud.

Okay, so while I put together my outfit let’s pretend you’re going to this party. Who among your favorite literary characters would you go as and how would you dress?

Build A Story With Bryan 2013 – Story in Verse Continues

Photo by Voskos

Photo by Voskos

Hello fellow story-builders! Hope the week is treating you well so far, but not too well that you can’t still raise your spirits with a rhyming line or two. As you can see our story’s grown since the last post, but this tale is still in its infancy. Give it a read and then add your own verses, let’s collectively rear this thing into a fine upstanding literary citizen.  Okay? Okay. Thanks for reading, thanks for playing.

Here’s what we have so far:

The old man who smelled of memory loss leaned in

He said “Pull my finger” then grinned.

It felt cold and omniscient as a skeleton key

And once tugged a door did fall open before me. 

The past lay before me, all musty and grim

My hope for some cheer grew depressingly slim.

I first saw my teacher, from elementary school

Who said I was foolish, as well as a fool.

No fool I am, said I, proudly

It is you, I proclaimed loudly

Oh really? he mused with his dogcatcher’s sneer

Wasn’t me who sunk the spelling bee in a puddle of fear.

The old man at my side flicked his tongue, then his finger

And the teacher quickly vanished, not a trace of him lingered.

Replaced by another, a familiar face less unfriendly

A girl whose smile and whose spine were quite plastic and bendy.

Build A Story With Bryan 2013 – Story in Verse

Photo by Green Lane

Photo by Green Lane

Build A Story continues this week and what do you know, our story in verse has grown by four lines. Give us a read and add your own line or two or three or maybe even four. Begin your rhyming legacy today!

As always thanks for reading and thanks for playing. Here’s what we have so far.

The old man who smelled of memory loss leaned in

He said “Pull my finger” then grinned

It felt cold and omniscient as a skeleton key

And once tugged a door did fall open before me. 

The past lay before me, all musty and grim.

My hope for some cheer grew depressingly slim.

I first saw my teacher, from elementary school,

Who said I was foolish, as well as a fool.

Build A Story With Bryan 2013

Illustration by W.W. Denslow

Illustration by W.W. Denslow

It’s time once again for Build A Story With Bryan! Our first round is a story in verse that be rhymin’. I’ve started us out with the first four lines, and you adding on to them is the whole design. Two lines per builder are preferred but one line will do, any participation at all in this madness will be a major coup.

Below’s how we start, in 36 words I’m relaying, and thank you as always for reading and playing.

The old man who smelled of memory loss leaned in

He said “Pull my finger” then grinned

It felt cold and omniscient as a skeleton key

And once tugged a door did fall open before me.   

False Starts, Fresh Starts

Cathar Fortress, by Duncan Harris

Cathar Fortress, by Duncan Harris

Today I’m starting over.

Again.

For the third time, actually. To try and scale the fortress walls and rescue the prisoner that is my YA supernatural novel The Shaded.

Yes, the first two attempts stalled, and the thousands of words left behind on those 100+ pages often felt like they were being squeezed from a brain that had turned into stone.

And yet after several months of distance and maybe a little amnesia, newfound enthusiasm for the project has inspired me to pull it all apart and put it back together in an exceptional way to make it finally come alive.  

I’m scared, sure, but still tenacious, and today I gird myself for battle by looking to Liam Neeson’s character in the movie “The Grey,” (a surprisingly poignant film that I highly recommend) for inspiration:

“Once more into the fray. Into the last good fight I’ll ever know. Live and die on this day. Live and die on this day.”

Okay, it might be a bit overwrought to compare the plight of the last survivor of a plane crash about to fight an Alpha male wolf with a writer in insulated booties tackling the blank page, but hey, when we writers aren’t busy being neurotic we’re playing dress-up in our melodrama. Or something like that.

But hey, self-doubt and fear can be just a vicious to a writer as a pack of hungry wolves, and where old Liam had a knife and his Irish grit, I’ve got my imagination and bullheadedness. Will it carry me through?

I’m an optimist, so yes, I believe it will.

But I could still use some help, fellow creators out there. Tell me about the projects that kicked you to the curb a few times before you ultimately struck back and conquered. Share your hard fought success stories.