Welcome
September 9, 2008
Posted by gznork26 in Uncategorized.
Okay, so here’s the thing: I write subversive short stories. Really. They harbor dangerous ideas, thoughts that could wreck your world.
Welcome to KlurgSheld. Most of what you’ll find here is fiction, even some of the conventional posts. For example, there are a few items here by the ‘Bank Shot Blogger’. These posts were written from the point of view of ‘John Frachetti’, a character in my series about the three-year incarceration of the Fremont-Wayfarer Corporation. You’ll find links to that series in both the Political and the Business sections. I do, however, occasionally lapse into my real voice and write a commentary which didn’t want to be submerged inside a story.
Prowl the categories listed in the “About my Short Stories” tab (above) and pick a few stories at random. Among those stories are some that take place in the worlds I created in the novels on the right. They’re only $2.99 at the Barnes and Noble Nook store. Enjoy!
P. Orin Zack
P.S.: If you find something you like, please tell someone. Stories need to be read, just like cats need to be pet.
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Posted by gznork26 in Short Stories, Fiction, Politics.
Tags: power, occupy-wall-street, OWS, confidence, people's mike, unified protest
What have you meekly acquiesced to, and then regretted it? (This series began with “Crossing the Line“.)
“Representation”
by P. Orin Zack
[4/8/2013]
“And finally,” Sue Winston said, scanning the agenda on her screen, “we have a request for a zoning change. Jones Construction has…”
A sudden movement from the rear of the council chamber stole the sound from her voice. Still jumpy after last week’s face-off with a line of armored riot cops, Sue glanced up, looked past Wendell Jones’ smarmy face, and towards a familiar-looking woman in the last row. Whoever it was held her coat open with one hand, while she reached deep inside with the other. It was the sort of move that having a brother on the riot squad makes you wary of: suspicious behavior, potentially lethal. Just then, the chill holding her spine hostage trembled under the realization that it was Natalie Knox, the city librarian who had triggered the recent confrontation and mass arrests at Jones’ construction site. She’d seemed friendly enough that night, but… (more…)
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Posted by gznork26 in Fiction, Politics, Short Stories.
Tags: confidence, occupy-wall-street, OWS, people's mike, power, unified protest
What have you meekly acquiesced to, and then regretted it? (This series began with “Crossing the Line“.)
“Scaling K2”
(Part 3 of a series)
by P. Orin Zack
[12/11/2012]
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Les said, holding a splayed hand up for respite. “You’ve made your point, Ifan. I agree. Caving to the mayor’s new rule was profoundly stupid. But it’s done. We folded. The General Assembly voted, and that’s that. The question is what do we do now?”
Ifan Davies glanced around the depressingly deserted public square that the capitol city’s Occupy Wall Street community had called home for the past year. The two were sitting on the wood and iron bench from atop of which the GA was usually called into session.
A few days earlier, the police department’s new surveillance drone had monitored a run-through of Les’ latest street-theater project, in which several competing speakers found common cause as their separate contingents of the people’s mike began to synch up. The following morning, the mayor issued a new executive order designed to make the event illegal. In the interest of public safety, he’d said, he was prohibiting groups larger than ten people from saying or doing anything in unison. As Ifan had pointed out during the GA, the rule may have been intended to hobble the people’s mike, but it was so badly conceived that it also applied to everything from high school cheerleaders to the mayor’s favorite church choir. Nevertheless, the GA succumbed to the illogic of it, and voted to acquiesce. The whole thing left a bad taste in Ifan’s mouth, but there it was.
“What we do now, Les,” he said, “is figure out how to turn this turd to our advantage.”
“What, like there’s an upside to having the Occupy bound and gagged?”
“That was how the people’s mike came about in the first place. No bullhorns in Zucotti Park and all that. It was a workaround.”
“Maybe so,” Les said, “but there’s more to it than just parroting the speaker. The mike demands involvement. Even if you aren’t making proposals or running a SIG, you still play a vital role because the people who do speak can’t be heard unless you participate. This abomination is going to eviscerate us!”
“Cut the drama okay? There’s always—.” Ifan was suddenly distracted by the sight of the Occupy’s tech team hurrying towards them with an open netbook in her hands. Angela Scarlotti was left holding the community’s tech bag solo after the others beat shoe leather following yesterday’s GA. As far as Ifan was concerned, their exit spoke more about their value to the community than anything they’d done before adversity had stared them down. He grinned as she slowed to catch her breath. “What’s up Ace?”
“You’ve got… to see this,” she said, dropping to a crouch in front of them so they could both view the small screen. “Early this morning, the rule we’ve been saddled with was also imposed on the downstate Occupy, only for them it was pre-emptive. They hadn’t done or planned anything to scare the power structure like we did. I guess they were ticked off about the rule, because they just about invited the cops to enforce it. Someone called for a mike check to greet the stormtroopers, and they dutifully started making arrests. Started. But then, one of them changed sides, and his buddy shielded him when the CO ordered him taken down. Anyway, they hauled everyone off and rent-a-fenced the site.”
“But if they’ve been shut down, what were you going to show us?” (more…)
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Posted by gznork26 in Fiction, Politics, Short Stories.
Tags: 99%, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, occupy-wall-street, OWS, people's mike, protest, riot police
What does it take to spur you into action? (This series began with “Crossing the Line“.)
“Making it Count”
(Part 2 of a series)
by P. Orin Zack
[9/30/2012]
“Holy crap,” 11-year-old Kendrik Knox whispered excitedly. As his dropped spoon hit the cereal bowl, he reached for the milk-splattered tablet beside it. “That’s Gram!”
K2, as Kendrik preferred to be called, was a news junkie. That was his grandmother Natalie’s doing. She was a librarian, and had shown him how to find out what was really going on in the world. Of course, his folks weren’t too thrilled with that. Especially his dad, who’d pretty much written his own mother off as a lost cause when she announced that she was joining the ninety-nine percent. That’s why she’d gotten him the pad for his birthday — so they could message one another surreptitiously, even when she was minding a bookstand in a vacant downtown building lot.
It was Monday, September 17th, 2012, the first anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, and Kendrik was browsing the OWS livefeeds from around the world to see how the day was being celebrated when the master site suddenly switched to video from his own city. The camera was zoomed in on a woman with a book in her raised hand. The image was pretty shaky, but Kendrik would know his grandmother’s voice anywhere. “Good morning, officers,” she’d said, and the crowd, as the People’s Mike, echoed.
His eyes widened as the camera spun around to show the line of armored police she was addressing. Then it went back to his grandmother. It looked like she was scanning the street for someone. Whoever it was, she must have found them, because she straightened and stood silently for a few seconds. Then, in a loud, clear voice, she said, “We are non-violent.”
The livestreamer was startled by the sound of a police whistle, and spun back towards the cops. They had started to grab people and quickly zip plastic cuffs on them. The camera then turned back towards where his grandmother had been, but she was no longer there. It zoomed out momentarily, and then focused on a cop in the crowd. He was parting the people and leading someone in cuffs towards the street.
“Gram!” Kendrik cried. (more…)
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Posted by gznork26 in Fiction, Politics, Short Stories.
Tags: confidence, control, occupy-wall-street, OWS, people's mike, power, protest
Are you confident enough to speak truth to power? [Note: I blogged the process of developing this story idea.]
“Crossing the Line”
(Part 1 of a series)
by P. Orin Zack
[9/24/2012]
Central District City Councilwoman Sue Winston dropped her ever-present smile and nervously glanced around the shared office before answering. When she did, it was in little more than a whisper, and she’d cupped her free hand over the cell phone.
“You’re sure about this, Peter?” she said. “Mayor Svanstrom’s threatened to cut us out of the loop before, but this would be the first time he’d ever carried it out.”
“Absolutely, sis. My squad’s been issued blanket overtime approval for civilian management duty.”
She closed her eyes and fought the sudden chill in the room. So now they’re calling it ‘civilian management’, are they? Ever since Homeland Security began luring Svanstrom’s predecessors into militarizing the city’s police force, more and more managerial doublespeak had been drafted into a growing army of euphemisms. If they’d been on Skype, the dread she harbored would have been obvious. As it was, she was certain that her brother could read it just from the sound of her breathing. But because Peter chose to wait through the uncomfortable silence, rather than prompting her, a ragged semblance of sibling courtesy survived.
“Do you think it might get…” she said weakly, “…that you could get hurt?” (more…)
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Posted by gznork26 in Topicality, Writing.
Tags: Confidence Vampires, current-events, inspiration, occupy-wall-street, OWS, show don't tell, writing
In my last three posts, (Confidence Vampires, Grounding a Vampire, and Death by Inches,) I transformed the idea presented in a recent academic paper — that people become overconfident because social norms of politeness prevent others from giving negative social feedback — into the basis for a short story. Because the pressure of social norms acts on internal decisions, I needed a way to show it, and decided that the consensus-based process of an Occupy’s General Assembly was the way to go. So now it’s time to start laying out the story itself. (more…)
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Posted by gznork26 in Politics, Topicality, Writing.
Tags: Confidence Vampires, crackdown, current-events, damn piece, Occupy, occupy-wall-street, police state, revolt, story idea, unions, writing
If you’ve been following along, you know that the story idea that burrowed into my head a few days ago wants me to show a Confidence Vampire intent on preying upon an Occupy being thwarted. As metaphor, it exposes the internal struggle you’d have between stifling yourself and speaking out (or acting) against a bully. Stifling yourself like that is pernicious, because each time you defer, you relinquish another bit of self-confidence, and the bully grows that much more sure of him or herself. Death by inches. (more…)
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Posted by gznork26 in Politics, Topicality, Writing.
Tags: conflict, intimidation, politeness, show don't tell, story idea, writing
Discovering the idea that wants to bury itself in your next story is one thing. Figuring out how to grow that story around it is something else again. The question this time was how to show the internal conflict between feigning polite acquiescence to an act of intimidation, or standing up to the Confidence Vampire to call its bluff? The answer eluded me, so I slept on the problem, setting it aside to simmer on the back burner of my subconscious.
In the morning, I awoke with some questions to ask that idea, starting with what sort of a situation could show how the vampire would gain strength from a prospective transfer of confidence, and then deprive the creature of it. After all, that is essentially an internal struggle. The questions piled up as I was preparing breakfast, so I ordered the idea to walk the spatula as I reached out to flip the bacon. I dangled it over the sizzling grease in hopes of getting it to confess its secret, but to no avail. Frustrated, I shelved the interrogation for the moment, muttering to myself that this story idea was a tough nut to crack. (more…)
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Posted by gznork26 in Politics, Topicality, Writing.
Tags: inspiration, story idea, vampire, writing
Damn. They always seem so innocent at first, don’t they? Playful, even. But we both know how insidious they can be, and how easily they can turn your world inside-out. It’s not a pretty sight, either. And there’s nowhere to hide. No matter what you do, no matter where you go, they’ll find you. Trust me. They will. They’re everywhere, and they can use just about anything for camouflage.
I got bit by this one a few days back, and it was most of a day before the itch set in. I poked at it a few times, and dug at it a bit, but I couldn’t get it out. It had left its mark, and the damn thing started to grow. Now I suppose I’m going to have to bend to its will, do what it wants. Sigh. (more…)
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Posted by gznork26 in Writing.
Tags: meta, show don't tell, writing
Show. Don’t tell. So much wisdom in so few words. And yet, there’s still more than one way to understand them.
I’d accepted the offer to attend the Pacific Northwest Writers Association Conference last week for the synchronicity of it, not because I had a manuscript to pitch to the assembled agents and editors. My choice of talks to attend was therefore not geared towards that goal, but rather to give me fresh perspective on what I’ve been doing, and how I was doing it.
In a talk about short stories, the presenter enumerated Setting, Characters, Point of view, Plot and Theme, but the way she approached it, the idea was to pick your setting and characters, and then throw a curve ball to instigate the action. The plot then grows naturally from the cascading effects of that action. It all made perfect sense, but as I sat there, something just didn’t feel right.
In another talk, the presenter spoke about showing rather than telling the hidden parts of a story, such as people’s emotions, or the things that a reader might be able to deduce from what you show them. But as valuable as what he said was, he was specifically talking about the mechanics of presenting the story in words, which is the surface level of the process. Something seemed to be missing.
Afterwards, when I sat down to thank my benefactor, I realized what had been bothering me: I don’t write that sort of fiction. My stories are not simple vignettes about a character in some random situation facing adversity. Such stories are pleasant as far as they go, but I find them pointless. I’m far more interested in showing, through a story, an idea, or a way of seeing the world. That’s probably what the first presenter meant by Theme, but in her schema, it was anything but the starting point for crafting a story. Instead, the discussion about theme was focused on boiling down what the story was about, as an analysis of what had been crafted.
What I do is start with the idea I want to explore. From there, I play around with possible ways that the idea could be realized in a series of events, and craft a situation that shows the idea in the form of how that situation unfolds. That gets me to the setting and initial circumstances. From there, I doodle with what sort of character might be in the situation I’ve postulated, and why he or she is there. With a setting and a main character, I ask myself what happens from there, to set up the immediate actions that we open on, and then flesh out who the character is, finishing with his or her name. At this point, the ‘reality’ of the character’s world starts to jell, and I sketch the very beginning of the event cascade I’m about to unleash. That’s when I start writing the story, and I let the world create itself as I go.
So it’s not just a matter of showing. It’s what you’re showing. And there are deeper things than emotions that can be shown in the form of stories. There are ideas.
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Posted by gznork26 in Writing.
Tags: pitch, PNWA, writing
People blog for lots of reasons. Mine was to set my subversive short stories free so they could find whatever readers needed the ideas peeking out from behind those streams of words. It was a conscious decision. I could either tuck my stories away while pitching them, one by one, to editors intent on finding killer content for their publications, or I could forget about trying to earn a few cents for each word, set them on my virtual Internet windowsill to cool, and move on to the next project. After all, most of my stories are triggered by something that happened in the world, making them a product of the moment. That’s why I include with the by-line the date I started writing each one.
But then, something strange happened. A few of the stories that I thought I’d finished came back to haunt me, and demanded that they be turned into a series. This made my decision to offer the stories for free even more interesting, because I pursued the idea purely out of curiosity, with no thought of whether they fit the needs of whatever publication might have purchased the first one. One series was even based on some minor characters in my second novel, “Burnout Fever”, which I’ve self-published as a Nook ePub at Barnes and Nobel.
As you might imagine, going to a writers conference, where I could attend seminars and pitch a manuscript at agents and editors, was the furthest thing from my mind. I’d even passed on attending the Westercon 65, the roving western-US regional science fiction convention, which was held earlier this month near where I live, because it didn’t pique my interest, even though I’d been the Director of Programming at Westercon 50 in 1997, and crafted the time-travel theme of that event.
So naturally, I got a phone call from my doctor one night last week, and it wasn’t about my health. She’d bought a membership to the conference before becoming disillusioned with the project she was working on, and decided not to go. It was too late to get a refund, so she asked if I’d be interested in going instead. Much to my surprise, I said yes.
One of the events I attended on the first day of the conference was about how to write a pitch. It was intended to help those interested in presenting their ideas to agents and editors during the conference, and included time to write and try pitches with whoever was sitting nearby. I knew I wasn’t going to make a pitch, but took out pad and pen anyway, just to play with the idea. Here’s what I came up with:
Barry Lieber watched helplessly when his wife Melanie’s mind slipped a cog and trapped her in a mental hall of mirrors, where every conversation had to be about angels. In “Burnout Fever”, Barry resolves to move Heaven and Earth to find a cure, or at least an explanation. But Melanie wasn’t the only victim, and the key to the salvation of both Heaven and Earth lay in the reason why the angels in her sketchbook were rapidly going to hell.
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