The Seven Things Challenge

Anyone can say, “this is great!” (or, “this is terrible!”), but it’s not useful.

“I loved it!” makes the writer feel good and “I hated it!” makes the writer feel bad, but as a critique these declarative statements are useless and as a review they are unhelpful.

While it’s easy to express a simplistic personal emotional reaction to a work, it’s much more beneficial to everyone to challenge yourself to unpack what is powerful and effective — and what isn’t — and then take it a step further and deconstruct how the author did it and why it does or doesn’t crackle and resonate.

As writers, we learn as much (or more) from seeing it done badly as we do from seeing done well. But in any case, to get the full benefit, we need to break it down, analyze it, and give the text the passionate attention it deserves.

As an example, I am going to take a story and pick seven things that I think stand out as particularly strong elements. I call this the Seven Things Challenge. It's not enough to spotlight them; you also must discuss the how and the why.

The story is “Jimmy” by Erika Lance and it’s from an anthology called Into the Abyss that contains an assemblage of short pieces from her writing collective, the Ink Slingers Guild.

(Tangent: I love the ISG. Not only is everyone in it extremely cool, not only is it a wonderful case of building a positive, supportive community of friends around a shared interest in creative writing, but also it’s a perfect illustration of the power of the democratization of publishing made possible by the Internet. The World Wide Web and social media, combined with independent printing and binding platforms, now make it possible for people with common tastes in fiction to unite and release their own work in their own way, on their own terms. I raise a toast to them for that.)

But back to the story. Seven things I particularly liked:

1. “His bed didn’t have a railing.” (page 79)

This power of this line comes from its simplicity. Mike wakes up and discovers that he is restrained in a strange bed. First he notices the padded cuff on his wrist, strapped to the bed railing. Then it registers (via the narration) that this is clearly not his bed. It’s a terrifying realization, expressed concisely.

2. The teddy bear. (page 81)

This is a nice detail because it helps to establish Mike’s social isolation. It must have come from his family, he assumes, because he doesn’t have any friends.

3. “’Wondering how I tried to do it?’” Jimmy asked . . .” (page 83)

Jimmy and Mike are talking about attempted suicide, and I love the understated casualness of this line of dialogue, as if they were talking about something inconsequential. It highlights the barrier of awkwardness that exists when we try to talk about things for which we have no comfortable common vernacular.

4. “He could see trees out of the small rectangular window at the end of the hall.” (page 85)

I talked in this blog post about the importance of finding clever, subtle ways to reveal details to the reader instead of just blurting things out. This sentence serves as a perfect example. Let’s say all you read was this sentence, nothing else. What could you guess? He’s inside, obviously, and near the ground floor. But also, there is a trapped, repressive feeling conveyed here. The window is small. The trees outside represent freedom. He can see them, the author whispers to us, but the implication is that he cannot reach them.

5. “’Mike, I know you don’t like therapy. Your parents told me that you didn’t think it helped.’” (page 86)

One of the trickiest challenges a writer must navigate is disclosing facts and details through dialogue. This is a fine example of how it should be done. First of all, it’s completely natural. This is something a doctor really would say to a patient. It doesn’t feel forced or stilted. But just as importantly, it simultaneously reveals that Mike has a long history of mental health issues and that his parents have been talking to his doctor about it. The writer doesn’t have to tell us this, because it’s apparent based on the doctor’s remark.

6. “The new drugs made him tired.” (page 89)

Again — simple (not “the drugs that they were giving him for his various depressive symptoms caused him to feel lethargic and groggy all the time”), active (not “the new drugs were making him tired”) and revelatory (the fact that the drugs are “new” gives us a sense of his prior experience being medicated).

7. The discontinuity in the dates. (page 98)

This device is an interesting and effective way to get across that Jimmy’s sense of who he is does not align with reality, and this correlates in a creepy and disconcerting way with Mike’s discoveries as he glances through his own medical files in Doctor Epeton’s desk.

One finishes the story with the vague sense of unease that Lance intended, knowing that something vast and sinister is going on, although the purpose and scope of the experiments remain murky. The reader understands only that the experience of the individual was meaningless in the world that Jimmy and Mike shared, and that the only escape was the annihilation of self, the erasure of identity.

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My author page:
www.AustinScottCollins.com

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