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Fiction

Book Notes on Krisis, Issue #1

December 4, 2016 by krisis

Even more than I enjoy Author’s Notes (and oh boy do I love a good Author’s Note), I love when authors provide behind-the-scenes commentary on their writing. If I’m going to be releasing Krisis out in into the wild, you can better believe I’m going to do a commentary track.

Perhaps three chapters is too small a denomination to dive deeply into, but the entire point of my posting this novel is to expose my process – and this is all process.

Haven’t read any of Krisis yet? No problem – here’s Chapter 1 (pt. 1 & 2), Chapter 2, and Chapter 3 (pt. 1 & 2).

on the “Issues”

The impetus for me to finally write this novel was Eric Smith and his audiobook for Textual Healing. In fact, I was originally writing quite specifically with creating a full-cast audio play in mind as my means of distribution.

That meant I was concerned with having a number of smaller chunks of rising and falling action throughout the plot that could be digested separately from the whole. As I was in the beginnings of my X-Men acquisition quest at the time, I was struck with the idea of “issues” of the novel. Each issue would consist of a trio of chapters, always setting up, rising, and then pushing the narrative forward. While I wouldn’t offer quite as much exposition for new readers as an issue of a comic book, each issue starts relatively cleanly after a point you could easily summarize in a quick “The Story So Far” recap.

krisis-chapter-01b-timothy-krause-flickrIt was as much to keep potential future audio-casts interesting as it was to give me a series of small goals to conquer in the course of my writing. I remain enamored with the issues, since that’s how I’ve been writing it this entire time. We’ll see how they stand up for you, the reader.

on first impressions

Ever since the first day of National Novel Writing Month in 2010 the first line of this book was:

“Nathan wasn’t a man of faith or of ritual, except for on April tenth.”

Then, in a fit of pique just before I posted the chapter, I changed it to:

“Everything felt different on April tenth.”

I changed it for two reasons. First, the “wasn’t a man” version was reliant on playing off of the next line being “He wouldn’t even tell you that he was a man, necessarily.” Having the first two lines of a book tell you all about what a character is not seemed like starting on the wrong foot.

That had bothered me for a while, but the other, more subtle problem was that Nathan is a man of faith or ritual on days other than April 10th! All throughout this chapter he talks about the little rituals he has with Ella. And, saying he had no faith is me being an obstinate agnostic rather than saying something useful about the character.

“Everything felt different on April tenth” is a much more fitting first line, considering everything that occurs to Nathan in the following week.

on white not being the default

It’s obvious (and will become more obvious) that Nathan is based on me and that Martina is based on Gina. The main character of Krisis was always a personal stand-in stretching back to the earliest drafts I wrote in eighth grade.

Relatively late in the editing process (three years in?) I realized that while Nathan started as me, he wasn’t me anymore. In fact, he had became equally connected to E’s little brother in the little details of his backstory that took up residence in the crannies of my brain.

Essential to that, he was no longer a white character, but a mixed-raced character. [Read more…] about Book Notes on Krisis, Issue #1

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Krisis Novel

Krisis, Issue #1, Chapter Three: Dissemblers (pt. 2)

December 2, 2016 by krisis

From last week…

He mounted the stairs, taking them two by two to catch up. “It’s just,” he huffed, “her way.” He rounded the first landing, cradling the bag in both hands. “She just,” he glimpsed Valerie turning the corner to the second flight, “does what she,” again, he came up short for air, “does.”

This is not attractive. Nathan stopped talking and focused on climbing.

He caught up with her on the last half flight before the stairs terminated in the third floor hallway. The front-facing apartment had a door directly adjacent to the stairwell. Nathan knew it was empty because he had helped its former tenants carry their kitchen table down the stairs a few weeks ago. The other side of the hallway terminated at the chipped wooden door to Ella’s apartment.

Nathan gestured to the door at end of the hall. He and Valerie advanced on it as one until they were facing its peephole, standing shoulder-to-shoulder.

He knocked firmly.

.

Krisis, Book 1

Issue #1: Girl Disappearing
Chapter Three: Dissemblers (pt. 1)

 

“Ella, it’s Nate,” he said in what he thought was a booming, masculine voice, though he wasn’t entirely sure for whose benefit. Possibly his own. “Just stopping by with my friend before dinner.”

There was no sound from within the apartment.

krisis-chapter-01aNathan again withdrew the ring of keys from his pocket with one hand, plucking one of a pair of smaller keys to open the first of two locks on the door, and then the other smaller key for the deadbolt.

He pocketed the keys and spoke again in his chesty voice, “Ella, I’m coming in now.”

He considered for a moment, and then added, “Don’t be naked.”

Nathan pushed the door open.

The lights in the living room were off, and he reached out blindly for the switch on the wall to his left. He caught the edge of it with his fingertips and the ceiling light winked on, bathing the room in light.

Nathan set down the bag of pie and yarn as he glanced around the room.

Something strange…

The green couch was clear of all the debris that surrounded Ella when he visited, and her textbooks were neatly piled on the end table, next to her half-melted candles. The sink in Ella’s tiny kitchen was clear of the plates and dishes from their dinner together. Martina’s old guitar sat on its stand, a capo clipped across the third fret.

It’s too tidy.
[Read more…] about Krisis, Issue #1, Chapter Three: Dissemblers (pt. 2)

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Fiction, Krisis Novel

Krisis, Issue #1, Chapter Three: Dissemblers (pt. 1)

November 25, 2016 by krisis

From last week…

“What if we stopped by to check on her?” Valerie said.

Suddenly, Danny’s face leaned into the picture. He had practically climbed across the table to insert himself between Nathan and Valerie.

“I’m sorry, did you say ‘we’?”

“Yes, Danny.” She said his name pointedly as though she was addressing a small child, “Nathan and I. I get to try a restaurant, he gets to say he was headed out to dinner with a work friend and decided to stop by.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Nathan said, feeling he ought to mount at least a weak protest.

“It doesn’t sound like Ella has any adults present in her life other than you, Nate.” Valarie uncrossed her arms and placed one hand on top of Nathan’s. This was shocking to him, as he had temporarily forgotten he had hands. “I know what it’s like to lose a family member when you’re young. If she got upset in front of you, maybe she’s too afraid, or embarrassed, or whatever to talk. But, you have to know if she’s okay. ”

Now it was Nathan’s turn to blush – not at her hand (still touching his!), or her offer to visit Ella with him (and the dinner date she effectively demanded), but at her calling him “Nate.” Nathan had always been impervious to nicknames – Martina’s family were the only people in the world to call him Nate. Or, at least, the only ones he appreciated.

.

Krisis, Book 1

Issue #1: Girl Disappearing
Chapter Three: Dissemblers (pt. 1)

To say it had been a long afternoon at work would be a vast understatement. After his lunch with Danny and Valerie, the end of the day seemed to recede to a vanishing point in the far flung future while Nathan worried himself to complete distraction.

Most of his worry was about Ella. She had been on his mind since the tenth, but unloading his concerns onto Danny proved to be the utter opposite of helpful. Now he was just more concerned. Had he been wrong to leave her alone in her apartment? He texted Ella to say he would drop by later with a friend in tow, but she sent no reply.

The remainder of his worry was about the dropping by.

With Valerie.

Nathan could still hardly believe that she had taken an interest in his life long enough to actually propose they go on a date.

Not really a date. An intervention, possibly followed by dinner.

Amidst his worrying, Nathan tried to convince himself that their unexpected arrangement was far better than an actual date, because it was real – not some manufactured situation meant to keep two people in close proximity for the evening. They were getting together to discuss a common interest.

Dead family members and the resulting emotional trauma. Much more romantic than an actual date. [Read more…] about Krisis, Issue #1, Chapter Three: Dissemblers (pt. 1)

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Krisis Novel

Krisis, Issue #1, Chapter Two: Unintended

November 18, 2016 by krisis

From last week…

krisis-chapter-01b-timothy-krause-flickrNathan put his hand on Ella’s shoulder and spun her body around towards his. “Ella, you have to calm down. What’s wrong? Just tell me what’s…”

Their eyes met and now he realized what seemed so strange about them on the couch. Ella’s gaze was fixed on his face, but her pupils were completed dilated – huge black discs with just a tiny ring of hazel around the outside. Nathan recoiled slightly at the sight. Both her hands were clenched tightly into fists, pressed close to her chest, knuckles white.

“Mom knew, Nathan, and now you know and he’s going to come. But I see now that you find her. You find her, you find her, but I can’t see…” She paused, gasping for air, as if she had ran down and back up her twisting stairwell.

“Ella, your eyes…” Nathan faltered for words. “Please, I don’t understand. Did you…did you do some kind of drugs? Just slow down and talk to me.”

He awkwardly held her, not knowing how close he should be. It was their first hug.

“You finally find her,” she breathed into his chest. He looked down at her face to see her pupils begin to contract, the hazel of her eyes expanding until the black was just a pin point in the middle of a sea of gray and green. She looked down at her hands as if they didn’t belong to her, still clenched tightly against her chest between them, still heaving as if she had ran a mile.

Krisis, Book 1

Issue #1: Girl Disappearing
Chapter Two: Unintended

“And you let her stay there by herself?”

Danny regarded Nathan incredulously and sunk his teeth deep into the skin of a bright red apple, snapping another crunchy mouthful out of the fruit.

“You don’t know how Ella gets. She’s so stubborn.” Nathan felt exasperated just thinking about it. “She insisted she was just freaking out about me saying Martina’s name, and the potatoes, and the potatoes maybe not being as good as Martina’s potatoes, or possibly being better than Martina’s potatoes, and not knowing which would be worse.”

Danny spoke through his mouthful of apple, “v’at es ucked up, ‘an.”

Nathan sat across an orange Formica-topped table from Danny in the bustling cafeteria at Khep Right Industrial’s Philadelphia campus.

The cafeteria was located in Nathan’s building, the taller of the two on campus. It was a cavernous, multi-level space furnished in an unfortunate pastiche of kitschy retro diner and corporate industrial. The result was something like eating dinner in a subway car – lots of cheerful, brightly colored plastic surfaces complemented by stainless steel. Utterly cacophonous and all very easy to hose down.

That was Khep Right Industrial to a tee: efficient, functional, and maybe slightly discomforting.

Danny finished chewing his bite of apple and set the fruit down on his plastic tray, reaching for a carton of milk. “Do you believe her?” Danny asked before taking a chug of his milk. “About the potato business, I mean.”

“I don’t know, Danny. It was scary. She was scary. It didn’t seem like she was in control of what she was doing or saying. One minute she was speaking gibberish, the next minute she was fine, munching on pizza.”

“And you don’t think she’s on drugs?” Danny asked, before taking another chug from his milk carton.

Nathan sighed. “I did think that, at first. Now I’m not sure. I mean, I went to college, I’ve seen people on just about everything. Nutmeg, even. But the whole episode only lasted for a minute or two, and I had been with her for a little while at that point. I guess she could have taken something before I got there…”

Nathan’s rambling was interrupted by Danny tossing his now-empty milk carton onto the table.

“You know what I think?”

“No, but I’m about to.” [Read more…] about Krisis, Issue #1, Chapter Two: Unintended

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Krisis Novel

Krisis, Issue #1, Chapter One: April Tenth (pt. 2)

November 11, 2016 by krisis

krisis-chapter-01aFrom last week…

It was awkward those first few years. Martina had been Nathan’s best friend and Ella’s role model. Without her, their lives felt empty. Neither one of them seemed to be able to fill the chasm that was left in the wake of Martina’s disappearance. After a while they stopped trying, and from there they found their connection.

Nathan wondered about their April ritual as he trudged around another corner of the stairwell, cast in a dull yellow by a series of sconces on the walls. He knew why they spent time with each other the rest of the year, but he was never sure what Ella marked with these visits. He was marking his hope – hope held out that one day Martina might join them for dinner. It would definitely fit her dramatic sense of occasion to show up to celebrate the anniversary of her own death.

Five years is a pretty dramatic interval, Nathan mused as he reached the top of the stairs. Maybe this is her year.

.

Krisis, Book 1

Issue #1: Girl Disappearing
Chapter One: April Tenth (pt. 2)

 

Ahead of him, Ella pushed open the chipped wooden door of her apartment and walked directly to her bright green couch. Nathan suspected she chose it just for the contrast with her hair. He followed her through the door into a bright single room with weathered wooden floorboards. It was half living space and half efficiency kitchen. The two sides were divided by a long, low table to the right of the door, which bore Ella’s computer and piles of textbooks. A wall on their left framed the bathroom, weirdly shoehorned into the middle of what would otherwise be a studio apartment, likely due to the placement of old water pipes directly below it. On the other side of it was an alcove barely big enough for a bed.

Nathan swung the door closed behind him while Ella situated herself in the middle of the couch. Across its cushions she had strewn several textbooks, a sheath of sheet music, one large knitting needle with accompanying yarn, and Martina’s old guitar. The battered end table beside the couch held another pile of text books, plus a small stand of candles. He smelled familiar, savory scent waft across the room from the kitchen.

“I ordered pizza from that place you like and always ask me if I order from,” she said, as if it was Nathan’s offense for ever suggesting such a thing to begin with. “Then I got it in my head to make those potatoes. You know, bake them first and then mash them, and then bake them again?”

krisis-chapter-01b-timothy-krause-flickr

Adapted from “Woman with red hair of which I am jealous” – Timothy Krause, Some Rights Reserved.

Nathan smiled in anticipation. “Like Martina’s from Thanksgiving? I love those.”

Ella’s face turned stony and he knew immediately had had erred by mentioning her name so early in the event. Their April ritual had evolved a set of rules to observe. Priorities. Awkward small talk, food, less-awkward catching up, then talk about Martina. No acknowledgment of the occasion at any time prior to the plates being cleared.

It’s Ella fault for making the potatoes, Nathan thought. They practically scream Martina’s name. Ella drew the first blood. Still, it was his job to steer them clear of these little entanglements.

“Anyway, potatoes don’t especially go with pizza, Ella, do they?”

She shrugged and let her stoic face slip, but he knew she was still silently accusing him of breaking their pact. She picked up the guitar, and began to idly sketch scales up and down its neck. She made no motion to clear any of her other debris from the couch cushions, so Nathan settled in the middle of the floor, legs crossed Indian style, his messenger bag beside him.

“The books are for school?”

“Mmm hmm,” she studied her fingers carefully as they walked up the neck of the guitar.

“Anything interesting?”

“Not terribly, no,” she said, not pausing from her E flat diminished seventh scale.

Clearly he would have to try a different tack.

“I was on the news. Playing a show. I emailed you about it, but I know you only read my emails if I call you and ask you to – which sort of defeats the point of email, yes? And I didn’t call, so you probably haven’t seen it yet.”

“Nope.” Ella put a heavy plosive on her “p” so it echoed out against the bare wooden floors of her apartment. She was now playing in the key of F.

“Well, I brought my laptop so you could see. Or, more accurately, so I could compel you to watch.”

Ella studiously ignored his proposition, in favor of her scales.

Nathan sometimes wondered if he was the only person who asked her questions anymore. Not the sort of perfunctory questions she’d hear from a cashier or a bus driver (not unreasonably, she refused to acquire a driver’s license), but the questions of a friend.

Ella had kept to herself ever since Martina’s accident. The friends she had at high school lost a war of attrition against her, and as far as he could tell she hadn’t found any new ones at college. It was like her social existence withered away from that day forward.

Another anniversary to celebrate on April tenth, he mused.

Nathan remembered that night and the days that followed with terrible clarity – Ella’s mother’s call to his phone the next day when Martina never showed up for their family dinner. Had he heard from her since the show? Did he have any idea of where she’d be other than her apartment?

He wound up riding shotgun with Lilly, their mother, first to Martina’s apartment, then tracing their way back to the club. He remembered all too clearly the broken side rail on the bridge, the police tape and the boat below. They hadn’t pulled up the car yet, so had no way of knowing its owner. Yet, Lilly had a deadly certainty about her from the moment she stopped her car along the side of the bridge.

Ella had nothing but silence for him (and everyone else) in the following days of police reports and interviews and the terrible waiting for divers to find a body.

No body was there to be found. Just one car window, wound down, and Martina’s purse, entangled in the gear shift. Martina wasn’t officially dead, but she was decidedly missing without a trace.

It was a year later that Lilly proclaimed they had waited long enough, and preemptively scheduled a funeral. Or, whatever that was without a body or an official death or any kind of religion to steer the proceedings. That was Lilly’s way. If she was done hoping and ready to begin grieving, everyone else would simply have to follow suit as efficiently as possible.

The whole thing felt eerily like a graduation ceremony free of any graduates. Certainly not the raucous rock and roll wake Martina would sometimes describe to Nathan on long car treks to far-flung gigs. No, this was Lilly’s version of Martina’s funeral, and Lilly had always been private about the family. It had been years before she even acknowledged Nathan as one of Martina’s friends, let alone her best. The brief service was just Lilly and her husband, Edward, some of Lilly’s friends from work, Nathan, and Ella. None of Martina’s friends from high school or college. No other family – as far as Nathan ever knew, Martina had none.

True to form, Ella remained sullen and wordless through the event, a brief, joyless affair held around a wreath of flowers (lilies, of course) framing a smiling photo of Martina. Afterward Lilly asked if Nathan would drive Ella home while she said goodbye to her coworkers.

Alone together in his car, Ella finally spoke. It was the first time he had heard her say a word since Martina disappeared, other than curt replies to her parents.

“You were the last person to see her.”

It was not a question.

“I suppose I was,” he admitted, though they both already knew it to be true.

“What did she say?” [Read more…] about Krisis, Issue #1, Chapter One: April Tenth (pt. 2)

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Fiction, Krisis Novel

Krisis, Issue #1, Chapter One: April Tenth (pt. 1)

November 4, 2016 by krisis

Krisis, Book 1

Issue #1: Girl Disappearing
Chapter One: April Tenth (pt. 1)

 

Everything felt different on April tenth.

Though he never looked any different than he had on the ninth, on April tenth Nathan Padell felt more a man than on any other day – felt the weight of the world settling down upon him. It was a day to reflect, to shed a tear, and to have some small inkling of hope.

krisis-chapter-01aHe did not even consider himself a man, necessarily. He had boyish looks that refused to mature into something more credibly grown up and a boyish enthusiasm for everything – even utterly unexciting drudgery at the office. At least, that’s what he was told. He was slimmer than average, but not taller, and given the opportunity he would live his entire life in blue jeans and t-shirts. Even at twenty-seven years old with a corporate job and his own apartment he felt like he was still not quite an adult.

Except for on April tenth.

It was a day he visited Ella, without fail.

Nathan stood on a cracked slab of West Philadelphia sidewalk, prepared to mount the steps to the porch of Ella’s apartment building. Actually, it was a just a house – one of the booming, three-story, faux Victorians common in West Philly. This block of them had long since been carved into duplexes and triplexes to accommodate the swell of students from several nearby colleges, which earned the area the nickname “University City.”

The sagging porch roof smiled a lopsided grin at Nathan, the heavy molding on the trim like a set of scuffed wooden teeth. Ella’s side street was typically shrouded in quiet, broken by occasional blasts of noise – car stereos passing on the adjacent streets, distant dog barks, and the hollow sound of a basketball bouncing somewhere out of sight.

Nathan smiled back at the roof and took the stairs two at a time. He crossed the groaning floorboards of the porch and rang Ella’s buzzer with one hand as he jiggled the handle of the front door with the other. It popped open, as it always did. He let himself in to the dim vestibule, separated from the foyer beyond by a heavier metal door with double-paned security glass window. It screamed in dissonance against its warm wooden surroundings.

He felt annoyed with her, despite himself. I turned down a gig for this, he thought. A good one. As if he would miss this night, any more than she would.

Ella probably would have come to the gig, if he had asked. That was their arrangement with each other, unspoken these five years. They watched each other. Nathan watched over Ella, trying to navigate around the empty spaces in her life. Ella was Nathan’s audience, listening to his worries and validating him in times of doubt.

Neither of them truly made up for the thing they both lacked, but at least they found something to share in its absence.

Her absence. [Read more…] about Krisis, Issue #1, Chapter One: April Tenth (pt. 1)

Filed Under: Fiction, Year 17 Tagged With: Fiction, Krisis Novel

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