Creative writing - Mike Sanders 2014

Connections between characters
Plot/story, struggle, and connections
Character, setting, and types of stories

As you’ve seen, nearly every story presents some sort of journey—literal or psychological or both—that results in a change in the central character. Every narrative shows a pattern of conflict between approximately equal forces, which leads to a crisis and a resolution (even if that resolution also poses more questions). These dynamics turn on the fact that a pattern of connection and disconnection exists between human beings, which is the primary source of meaning and significance in most any narrative.

Although they could be considered in tandem, let’s examine connection first. While connecting carries a positive connotation, even something negative like conflict proves sterile unless it’s given human dimension through the connections between characters.

In narratives where connection is front and center, there’s usually an element of comedy that informs the connection following a conflict. Take, for example, the creative nonfiction piece “Home Court Advantage,” in which two young basketball players have been ejected from a game and sent to the locker room:

Banished derelict pair, the two of us, slumped on a bench in the locker room, listening to the faint sounds of the game which has degenerated into a route.

Tye, looking over at me. “U, don’t take me wrong, you cool and all, but I don’t think you should be captain no more. You don’t even give a damn if we win or lose.”

Me, shrugging, not wanting to explain, changing the subject. “Do you ever remember your dreams, Tye?”

Tye, stumped, uncertain, then forming a sly grin. “Yea, I dream of pom-pom b----es doin pyramids on top of me.”

Answering smile from me. “Who doesn’t? I mean other dreams.”

Tye, thinking hard. Then, “Naw.”

“Well imagine you did dream and that you remembered your dreams, and that what you dreamed about were people and places that you knew, except that they might appear very old or very new sometimes.”

Tye. “That what you dream about?”

“It is.”

“What happens in them dreams?”

“It depends on the people and the places, but sometimes they tell me things about people and places. When I wake up, I know more about them and it’s true.”

Tye, quiet, thinking. “Ever seen me in one of them dreams?”

Then it is my turn to think, to try and remember. “I did one time, but you were far away—very hard to see.”

“What was I doin?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. I think you must have been waiting or something.”

“Chillin, huh? But I was OK and all.”

Me, lying. “Yea, you were OK.” Then, trying to explain. “Stuff happens in life that pulls people away, Tye—like you and me waiting in here now, apart from the team. Life is very powerful—I can feel it all around us—and it can be very sad because it pushes people apart.”

Tye. “Man, don’t nobody push me and get away with it.”

“That’s right. Just because life’s so strong doesn’t mean we should give up—that we have to lose everything.”

Tye, growing irritated. “Man, talkin to you gives me a headache. What be the point, U?”

“Life is going to push us apart.”

Tye, silent.

I look at his torn up hand and feel the soreness in my own. “But memory will keep us friends.”

Tye, squinting as though thinking hard, as if about to say something profound, but then laughing instead, head thrown back. “S---, what the f--- you talkin bout? You crazy, U. A crazy motherf----er. There ain’t nobody like you.”

And Me laughing with him, thinking he may be right, voices echoing off the ceramic tile and steel lockers of this empty place where girls our age we’ll never meet change clothes every day, mirth drowning out the faint whisper of the final buzzer sounding.

As the content of the dialogue demonstrates, these characters are very different from each other yet are attempting to connect across a rather large educational and cultural chasm. Near the end, they come close to making a profound connection—an epiphany—yet ultimately fail to do so. However, because this form of connection proves impossible, they’re left with laughter instead—a form of fellowship that does not require the intellectual understanding of what they’d been discussing.

DEFINITION

An epiphany is a sudden realization in which someone or something is seen in a new light.