Biff Mitchell's Blog: Writing Hurts Like Hell - Posts Tagged "coffee"

Everyone needs a coffee break. It’s that period of time during the workday when you say to yourself, “If I don’t have a coffee right now, this minute, I’m going to kill somebody.” Not that you particularly want to harm anyone (unless, of course, telemarketers have your work number) but, you know, it might be Monday. It might even be Monday morning. On the other hand, it might not be a weekday. It might be Saturday or Sunday and you’re sitting on the beach under a beautiful blue sky thinking, “Damn, I’m missing my coffee break. Why don’t beaches have coffee?” I do this all the time and I’m sure you do as well.

So, now that we’re thoroughly covered the topic of coffee breaks and their contribution to a healthy (and alive) workforce and their absence from beaches, let’s talk about coffee break activities. Some people read newspapers because they hate trees and want to see every tree in the world turned into a newspaper with stories about the shocking conspiracy to deforest the planet by sending the rain forests off to the printers. Some people like to talk to their co-workers about what they watched on TV the night before. This used to be Game of Thrones episodes. Now, it’s arguments about what happened on old Game of Thrones episodes, especially the finale. Some people like to just sit and stare. I’m seeing this more often and it kind of scares me. But we won’t get into that. Some people like to transport themselves out of the workplace and into another world (not the ones staring…they’ll be doing that all day) through the medium of story.

And that brings us to the coffee break novel. I scoured the internet for over a minute and the only mention I could find was a Kijiji ad posted by me. So…I guess that leaves it up to me to make up…I mean, define the coffee break novel.

Let’s start by listing some characteristics. First, it’s intended to be read during the reader’s coffee break. This can be problematic given that some people might be missing two coffee breaks each week because their employers refuse to let them work seven days a week, forcing them to take weekend coffee breaks at home so that they don’t miss any of the story. This could actually lead to dysfunctional activities like sneaking into work on weekend mornings but I’m sure that most people will opt to create a reproduction of their workplace in their basement or spare room so as not to miss a single episode. Others might do some speed reading Monday morning.

And speaking of episodes…that’s another characteristic of the coffee break novel: It’s parceled out in episodes…each with just enough reading to get you through your morning java fix. The Weekly Man is just right for this. It’s naturally broken into episodes following the lives of seven characters, each with their own day of the week to tell their story. There is one spot where this runs awry and may require a three to four day break before plummeting head first into the dazzling conclusion but that’s a few months away and, by the time it comes, I think all two of my readers will need a short break.

The coffee break novel should be mostly light-hearted as in humorous. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be serious, heart-breaking, soul-blistering, tear-prodding, existential moments, of which there are a few in the novel, but these are introduced for the sole purpose of pacing the story like a roller-coaster. There will be no flat lining in any of my stories. I mean, even Mary Poppins had her down moments. But for the most part, it’s going to be humor and lightness of being because it’s your coffee break and you don’t need to be crying and borrowing tissues from your co-workers on your coffee break. (WARNING: The first episode of The Weekly Man is not humorous. But it has a sort of happy ending.)

There has to be a strong element of weirdness so that the novel is able to compete against the news of the day, which keeps getting weirder by the day. And besides, I’m weird and it’s my invention, so I’m calling for weirdness.

All coffee break novels should have more than one character. This makes it much easier to create things like conversations, conflict, plot, human interaction and all those other elements that might cause a story to become interesting. Plus, there has to be both male and female characters because that’s more like real life and we’re all big fans of real life, aren’t we?

Words. The coffee break novel draws on a list of easily recognizable and commonly used words with careful attention paid to correct spelling and usage. I’m seeing less and less of this in most of the world’s published content, either online or in print and I think this is something we all need to enthusiastically gossip about in all the right places…because we all know that meeting a challenge with gossip is more effective than meeting it with thoughts and prayers. Hopefully, The Weekly Man will lead us out of this barbaric mire of editorial carelessness.

Well, actually, that probably won’t happen, but as long as there are coffee breaks, there will always be a need for something to do during the coffee break…and now the world has one more thing designed specifically for that. It’s called the coffee break novel and The Weekly Man (https://www.theweeklyman.com) is the world’s first free daily serialized coffee break novel.

I’m not sure if I’ve written about how I create characters yet, but here goes for, hopefully, the first time…and maybe the tenth.

I started my first novel with three characters and no story. No plot. No idea where any of it was going because I had nothing that was going. I had two men and one woman. I had a rough idea of what they looked like, though their looks changed a little as their characters evolved.

For months, I did character studies, wrote about their dreams, their likes and dislikes, how they dressed in the morning, what they ate and what would make them vomit. I put them in conversations with the other characters and with people I created just to have conversations with them. I got into showers with them. I had sex with them and became them having sex with others. I had conversations with them on the bus and over coffee. But mostly, I went into their minds and memories and created back stories for them.

Back stories are significant snippets from a person’s past, things the experienced that changed the course of their lives, kept them on course, or changed the lives of the people around them.

Backstories are almost always intense, interesting scenes in which important, character-shaping things happen. For instance, what does the skinny ten year old do when he sees the school bully heading toward him with a malicious smile draped on his jaw?

Does he run? Does he stay? Does he cry? Does he fight back? Does he give up and suffer a few minutes of humiliation?

Whatever he does, it’s going to travel with him. If he runs, he’ll likely run again and again. If he stays and fights, he’ll likely never take shit from others. Back story moments define our lives and make us who we are.

I spent months writing back stories for the three main characters and for the minor characters and, as I wrote them, the plot for the novel unfolded in their stories.

I’ve always respected what my characters have to say about their fates and the paths they take through the novel. I let them lead the way and I never question their decisions.

And this was a long, roundabout way to say that there will be no episode of The Weekly Man this Sunday because that’s not the way the characters told their story. However, Jack will be back on Monday (just as weird as ever) and the story as a whole will be taking a sprint into the world of crazy.

Maybe you could read one of the free short stories here: https://biffmitchell.com/the-weekly-man.

In any event, have a great weekend and may all your coffee breaks be magic.