Read Like A Writer

There are two ways to learn how to write fiction: by reading it and by writing it. Yes, you can learn lots about writing stories in workshops, in writing classes and writing groups, at writers' conferences. You can learn technique and process by reading the dozens of books like this one on fiction writing and by reading articles in writers' magazines. But the best teachers of fiction are the great works of fiction themselves. You can learn more about the structure of a short story by reading Anton Chekhov's 'Heartache' than you can in a semester of Creative Writing 101. If you read like a writer, that is, which means you have to read everything twice, at least. When you read a story or novel the first time, just let it happen. Enjoy the journey. When you've finished, you know where the story took you, and now you can go back and reread, and this time notice how the writer reached that destination. Notice the choices he made at each chapter, each sentence, each word. (Every word is a choice.) You see now how the transitions work, how a character gets across a room. All this time you're learning. You loved the central character in the story, and now you can see how the writer presented the character and rendered her worthy of your love and attention. The first reading is creative—you collaborate with the writer in making the story. The second reading is critical.


John Dufresne, from his book, The Lie That Tells A Truth: A Guide to Writing Fiction

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Showing posts with label David Mason. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Mason. Show all posts

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Something Will Turn Up by David Mason

Transcriber's note.
This etext was produced from Analog February 1963. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the copyright on this publication was renewed.

Something Will Turn Up

Err ... maybe it had to do with this being a non-Parity universe, perhaps?
Some things can't be simply inverted, after all....

by

David Mason

Illustrated by Brotman


"You, Mr. Rapp?"

Stanley Rapp blinked, considering the matter. He always thought over everything very carefully. Of course, some questions were easier to answer than others. This one, for instance. He had very few doubts about his name.

"Uh," Stanley Rapp said. "Yes. Yes."

He stared at the bearded young man. Living in the Village, even on the better side of it, one saw beards every day, all shapes and sizes of beard. This one was not a psychoanalyst beard, or a folk singer beard; not even an actor beard. This was the scraggly variety, almost certainly a poet beard. Mr. Rapp, while holding no particular prejudice against poets, had not sent for one, he was sure of that.









Then he noticed the toolcase in the bearded young man's hand, lettered large LIGHTNING SERVICE, TV, HI-FI.

"Oh," Stanley said, nodding. "You're the man to fix the TV set."

"You know it, Dad," the young man said, coming in. He shut the door behind him, and stared around the apartment. "What a wild pad. Where the idiot box, hey?"

The pleasantly furnished, neat little apartment was not what Mr. Rapp had ever thought of as a "wild pad." But the Village had odd standards, Mr. Rapp knew. Chacun a son gout, he had said, on moving into the apartment ten years ago. Not aloud, of course, because he had only taken one year of French, and would never have trusted his accent. But chacun a son gout, anyway.

"The television set," Mr. Rapp said, translating. "Oh, yes." He went to the closet door and opened it. Reaching inside, he brought out an imposingly large TV set, mounted on a wheeled table. The bearded repairman whistled.

"In the closet," the repairman said, admiringly. "Crazy. You go in there to watch it, or you let it talk to itself?"

"Oh. Well, I don't exactly watch it at all," Mr. Rapp said, a little sadly. "I mean, I can't. That's why I called you."

"Lightning's here, have no fear," the bearded one said, approaching the set with a professional air. "Like, in the closet, hey." He bent over the set, appraisingly. "I thought you were a square, Pops, but I can see you're.... Hey, this is like too much. Man, I don't want to pry, but why is this box upside down?"

"I wish I knew," Mr. Rapp said. He sat down, and leaned back, sighing. This was going to be difficult, he knew. He had already had to explain it to the last three repairmen, and he was getting tired of explaining. Although he thought, somehow, that this young man might understand it a little more quickly than the others had.

"I've had a couple of other repairmen look it over," Mr. Rapp told the bearded one. "They ... well, they gave up."

"Dilettantes," commented the beard.

"Oh, no," Mr. Rapp said. "One of them was from the company that made it. But they couldn't do anything."

"Let's try it," the repairman said, plugging the cord into a wall socket. He returned to the set, and switched it on, without changing its upside down position. The big screen lit almost at once; a pained face appeared, with a large silhouetted hammer striking the image's forehead in a rhythmic beat.

"... Immediate relief from headache," a bland voice said, as the pictured face broke into a broad smile. The repairman shuddered, and turned down the sound, staring at the image with widened eyes as he did so.

"Dad, I don't want to bug you," the repairman said, his eyes still on the screen, "only, look. The set is upside down, right?"

"Right," said Mr. Rapp.

"Only the picture—" the repairman paused, trying to find the right phrase. "I mean, the picture's flipped. Like, it's wrong side up, too. Only, right side up, now."

"Exactly," said Mr. Rapp. "You see, that's the trouble. I put the set upside down because of that."

"Cool," the repairman said, watching the picture. "I mean, so why worry? You got a picture, right? You want me to turn the picture around? I can do that with a little fiddling around inside the set ... uh-oh. Dad, something's happening."


The repairman bent closer, staring at the picture. It was now showing a busty young woman singer, her mouth opened, but silent, since the sound was turned down. She was slowly rotating as Rapp and the bearded repairman watched, turning until her face, still mouthing silent song, hung upside down on the screen.

"It always does that," Rapp said. "No matter which way I put the set, the picture's always upside down."

"No, man," the repairman said, pleadingly. "Look, I took a course. I mean, the best school, you dig? It don't work that way. It just can't."

"It does, though," Rapp pointed out. "And that's what the other repair people said, too. They took it out, and brought it back, and it still did it. Not when they had it in their shops, but the minute it came back here, the picture went upside down again."

"Wow," the repairman said, backing slowly away from the set, but watching it with the tense gaze of a man who expected trouble. After a minute he moved toward it again, and took hold of the cabinet sides, lifting.

"I don't want to put you down, Pops," he said, grunting. "Only, I got to see this. Over she goes." He set it down again, right side up. The picture, still the singer's face, remained in a relatively upright position for another moment, and then slowly rolled over, upside down again.

"You see," Mr. Rapp said, shrugging. "I guess I'll have to buy another set. Except I'd hate to have it happen again, and this one did cost quite a lot."

"You couldn't trade it in, either," the repairman agreed. "Not to me, anyway." Suddenly he snapped his fingers. "Hey now. Sideways?"

"You mean on its side?"

"Just for kicks...." the repairman gripped the set again. "On the side...." He set the cabinet down, on one side, and stepped back, to regard the picture again.

Slowly, the picture turned once more, and once again, relative to the usual directions of up and down, the picture was stubbornly, completely inverted.

"It's onto that, too," the repairman said, gloomily. He sat down on the floor, and assumed a kind of Yoga posture, peering between his legs. "You could try it this way, Pops."

"I'm pretty stiff," Mr. Rapp told him, shaking his head.

"Yeah," the repairman said, reinverting himself. For a long while he sat, pulling his beard thoughtfully, a look of deep thought on his face. The reversed singer faded out, to give place to an earnestly grinning announcer who pointed emphatically to a large, upside down sign bearing the name of a product.

"Watching it this way could get to be a fad," the repairman said, at last, almost inaudibly. He fell silent again, and Mr. Rapp, sadly, began to realize that even this bearded and confident young man had apparently been stopped, like the others.

"The way I look at it, like, there's a place where science hangs up," the bearded one spoke, finally.

"Like, I don't want to put down my old Guru at the Second Avenue School of Electronics," he added, solemnly. "But you got to admit that there are things not dreamed of in your philosophy, Horatio. You dig?"

"My name isn't Horatio," Mr. Rapp objected.

"I was quoting," the repairman told him. "I mean, this is a thing like, outside material means. Supernatural, sort of. Did you cross up any witches lately, Pops?"

"Oh, dear," Mr. Rapp said sadly. He shook his head. "No, I haven't ... er, offended any witches. Not that I know of." He regarded the inverted picture for a moment. Then, as the repairman's words began to sink in, Mr. Rapp looked at him apprehensively.

"Witches?" Mr. Rapp asked. "But ... I mean, that's all superstition, isn't it? And anyway ... well, television sets!"

"They used to dry up cows, but who keeps cows?" the bearded one said ominously. "Why not television sets? Like, I happen to be personally acquainted with several witches and like that. The Village is full of them. However—" He rose, and stalked toward the set, his eyes glittering in a peculiar way. "You're a lucky one, Daddyo. Back in my square days, I did some reading up on the hookups between poetry and magic. Now, I'm a poet. Therefore, and to wit, I'm also a magician. On this hangup, I'm going to try magic. Electronics won't work, that's for sure."


"But...." Mr. Rapp was not quite sure why he disapproved, but he did. On the other hand, the repairman appeared to be very definitely sure of what he was doing, as he peered into the back of the television set.

"Have you ever tried ... ah, this method before?"

"Never ran into any hexed TV sets before," the repairman said, straightening up. "Don't worry, though. I got the touch, like with poetry. Same thing, in fact. All magic spells rhyme, see? Well, I used to rhyme, back before I really started swinging. Anybody can rhyme. And the rest is just instinct."

He had been scribbling something on a notepad, as he spoke. Now he bent down, to take another look at the back of the set, and nodded with an air of assurance.

"The tube layout," the repairman told Mr. Rapp, exhibiting his notebook. "That, and Ohm's Law, and a couple of Hindu bits I picked up listening to the UN on the radio ... makes a first-class spell."

Mr. Rapp backed away, nervously. "Look, if it's all the same to you...."

"Don't flip." The repairman consulted his notebook, and moved to stand in front of the screen. The picture showed a smiling newscaster, pointing to a map which indicated something ominous.

"Cool, man," the repairman said. "Here we go." He lifted his hands in an ecclesiastical gesture, and his voice became a deep boom.

"6SN7, 6ac5, six and seven millivolts are running down the line, E equals R times A, that's the way it goes, go round the other way, Subhas Chandra BOSE!"

Afterward, Mr. Rapp was never quite sure exactly what happened. He had an impression of a flash of light, and an odd, indefinite sound rather like the dropping of a cosmic garbage can lid. But possibly neither the light nor the sound actually happened; at any rate, there were no complaints from the neighbors later on. However, the lighted screen was certainly doing something.

"Crazy!" the repairman said, in awed tones.

Mr. Rapp, his view partly blocked by the repairman, could not see exactly what was happening on the screen. However, he caught a brief glimpse of the newscaster's face. It was right side up, but no longer smiling. Instead, the pictured face wore a look of profound alarm, and the newsman was apparently leaning far forward, his face almost out of focus because of its nearness to the lens. Just for a moment, Mr. Rapp could have sworn he saw a chair floating up, past the agonized expression on the screen.

Then the screen want gray, and a panel of lettering appeared, shaking slightly.

OUR PICTURE HAS BEEN TEMPORARILY INTERRUPTED. NORMAL SERVICE WILL BE RESTORED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. PLEASE STAND BY.

"I was going to give you a bill," the repairman said. "Only maybe we better just charge it up to customer relations."

The letters remained steady on the screen, and Mr. Rapp studied them. They were right side up.

"You fixed it," Mr. Rapp said, a little uncertainly. "I mean, it's working. I ought to pay...."

"I goofed," the repairman said. He picked up his tools, and moved toward the door. "Like, I won't mention it to anybody if you won't. But I goofed, all right. Didn't you see the picture?"

"But whatever you did ... it worked," Mr. Rapp said. "The picture's right side up."

"I know," the repairman said. "Only somewhere ... there's a studio that's upside down. I just goofed, Pops, that's all."

He closed the door behind him, leaving Mr. Rapp still staring at the immobile, right-side-up message on the glowing screen.

The End.

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Garrity's Annuities by David Mason


Garrity's Annuities

By DAVID MASON

Illustrated by RAY

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction April 1956.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


Every planet is badly in need of family men,
naturally—but the same one on all of them?


You might say Garrity brought it on himself. The way I put it, Garrity was the architect of his own disasters. It's a nicely put phrase, I think. Anyway, a lot of people tried to tell him what might happen. I did, for one, though I'd never have thought it would happen in just that way. What I would have predicted for Garrity would be trouble, but just ordinary trouble: jail, or getting his Space Engineer's ticket suspended, or something like that. Not the kind of trouble he's got.

I remember distinctly the first time I heard Garrity explaining his theory. It wasn't a new theory, but the way Garrity talked about it, you'd think he'd invented it personally. We were sitting in the messroom in the Aloha—that was the old Aloha, the one that belonged to the Muller Space Lines. Talking about women—trip like that.

Neither Garrity nor I had ever touched down on Seranis, which was where we'd be in another week or so. The other off-watch man, Gloster, had been there several times and liked the place.

"A lot of Earthside Oriental in 'em," Gloster said. "They're little brown characters, real obliging. The girls especially. You just treat 'em polite and they'll treat you right back."

"Uh-huh," I said, considering the idea.


Garrity curled his long lip. "It'll cost you just as much in the end. Women are always looking for something."

"Not this kind on Seranis," Gloster said. "Best port I've ever been in. I'm staying on the Aloha till I get to putting curtains on my cabin port."

Garrity shook his head. He looked as cynical as he could, for his age, which was twenty-four. We were all of us fresh out of Lunar, with the ink hardly dry on our Engineer tickets.

"I'll tell you," said Garrity. "I haven't seen a woman yet that wouldn't cost you more than she was worth in the long run."

"Long run?" I asked him. "We don't spend more than a few days down on Seranis. Isn't going to be any long run. If she runs, let her to catch her before takeoff time."

Gloster chuckled, but Garrity just looked righteous.

"You'll see what I mean," he told us.

"Yeah," Gloster said. "I guess you and me will go downtown and pick up a couple girls and take in some high-priced amusements, like listening to records at the Spaceman's Union Lounge. After which we hurl our hard-earned cash away on a quart of pink arrack and we take the girls home with it. In the morning, we haven't got a credit left, so we blast off with nothing but a set of beautiful memories." Gloster crowed. "What's the matter, anyway, Garrity? The Union gets us the best wage scale in any space fleet and you still think girls cost too much? Even the Seranese?"

Garrity kept on looking wise. "I'm not kidding. I've seen a lot of men come up to retirement without a credit put away. Half-pay and nothing else, all because they spent everything having a good time."

"You can do without women, maybe?" I asked.

"No," Garrity admitted. "I'm a normal man."

"Yeah," said Gloster, very flat.

Garrity looked peeved. "Well, I am. But I'm careful, too. I figured it all out a long time back. I aim to have everything you guys look for and not go to half the trouble and expense."

"What did you figure out?"

"I'm going to get married."

Gloster and I just sat there, looking at each other. After a while, Gloster finished his coffee in silence. He got up, looked at Garrity, shook his head sadly, and went out.


It took me a while to finish looking Garrity over, myself. When I managed to get my voice under control, I asked him what he was talking about.

"I saw what happened to my old man," Garrity told me. "When he came up for retirement, he was broke. He doesn't complain, but he never has anything left out of his retirement pay. Spends his time loafing around and writing his memoirs. It was women, mostly; after he lost my mother—she died when I was born—he went off to space again. Sent back enough to keep me, spent the rest in one port or another."

I didn't say anything, but it was beginning to add up. I don't know anything about psychology, but I thought there might be something like a reason in what Garrity was telling me for the way Garrity was. Somewhere he'd got the idea that his old man wasn't happy. I doubted it, because I've seen and talked to lots of old retired hands. Most of them had a good life behind them and they were still enjoying the taste of it.

But I didn't argue with Garrity about it. I've got more sense. When a man's got a pet notion, leave it alone. You won't pry him off it and you might get him mad at you. A spaceship's too small to make enemies in.

"Suppose you get married," I asked him. "So you have a place to go, and a girl in it, in one port. How about all the others? Going to take a permanent port watch instead of seeing a little fun?"

"Easy," Garrity said. "I'll just get married in all of them."

"All of them?"

"Well, the ones I'm in most often. Terra City, Chafanor, some other places. I'm thinking of homesteading on one line as soon as I pad on a little seniority."

The notion did have a certain cold practicality about it. I didn't like it, but as far as getting away with it went, he could.

Garrity went on to explain a bit more; his system seemed to have been worked out to the last detail. He'd set up two, three, maybe four or five happy little households, spend his end-of-run leave in each, dividing up his time nice and even. All of them together wouldn't cost him what a night or two on the town might.


To add to that, he'd pick out his wives with care. They'd all be different in a lot of ways, for the sake of variety, but they'd all be affectionate, home-loving girls, and careful with money. They'd save his credits for him. And when he retired, he could keep active and happy visiting them and his various families, which he expected to include a real lot of kids and grandchildren.

"I don't believe in small families," he explained.


At the time, I never thought he'd try to carry it through. I've heard wild ideas in messrooms before, particularly halfway through a long trip. They usually fade out when a man gets his feet down on gravity again. This one didn't.

But it might have worked out, at that. It was just Garrity's luck that he signed on the Brooklyn.

The Brooklyn carried ore from Serco to Terra, and Terran machinery back to Serco, a regular, steady run. When I bumped into Garrity in the hiring hall, he told me he'd just signed on her, and I told him I had, too. Naturally, I asked him how the Garrity old-age-insurance system was working out.

"Well," he confessed, "I'm not married yet. But I've got a likely girl here in Terra City. All I've got to do is ask her. Now if I can line one up in Serco—"

"In Serco?" I turned a little pale, I think. "Listen, Garrity, have you ever been in Serco?"

"No. Why? Aren't they humanoids?"

"Oh, sure." I was trying to think just how you'd describe Serco and its peculiar people. "Only different."

"How're they different?"

Looking at that stubborn mug of his, I knew I wasn't going to be able to explain this in a million years. It was just no use. Garrity had everything all figured out. But I took one try.

"They've never been much of a mechanical culture; they buy all their stuff from outside, in exchange for ore and timber. But they're one of the oldest civilizations in the Galaxy. They've spent a million years learning about minds and thoughts, all that philosophy sort of thing. I don't mean they aren't perfectly all right. They're human, but they know a lot. It wouldn't pay to fool around with them."

Garrity laughed. "Maybe they might read my mind?"

I knew it was no use. I just shrugged, bought Garrity a beer to celebrate, and we headed for the spaceport.

No, the Sercoans don't read minds. At least, I don't think they do, though there are times when they're that clever at adding you up that you'd think they were looking at your thoughts.

Garrity didn't get caught that way. He got caught because he couldn't keep from telling the rest of us about his great idea. One of the navigators, a man named Lane, was the one who told Katha about it.


Lane was in love with Katha, naturally. Everybody was. She worked in the port medical office and she was one of the reasons why it took a high-seniority card to sign on a ship for Serco. There were a lot of men who'd take an extra set of immune shots just to have Katha give it to them. And it isn't a bit easy to figure out why.

She wasn't any beauty. Good-looking, sort of, but not especially so; a tallish girl, with gray eyes and a long, narrow, sensitive face. Browny-red hair that always looked a little carelessly cut. As I said, nothing at all special. It was just something about her. She could have had her pick and she picked Garrity. And only Lane broke the rules and told her. Trouble is, he told her a couple of weeks too late.

It was because Lane had never thought that Katha would fall for Garrity that he hadn't told her before. But when he touched down at Serco port and heard that Katha and Garrity had gotten married the week before, he didn't waste any more time. He called Katha up from the spaceport, and told her all about the Garrity plan, and how she was only the first, but definitely not the last.

Lane told me afterward what Katha had said.

"I am not jealous," she'd answered. "If he had wanted others when he was away, he could have done as he wished, as a man might. But he has spoken to you as a child, not a man. I do not like that."

She didn't sound terribly angry. It was the way she phrased it that bothered Lane.

"But he is not a bad man," she said thoughtfully to Lane. "And he is a good lover and makes a fine husband. I will not hurt him, but I think I will give him something which will teach him, if he wants to learn. And when he has learned, I will take it away again and he may be as free as he can ... as free as any of you of the outside ever are."

I can't tell you what it was she did. Neither can Garrity. Hell, he didn't even know she'd done anything! He kissed her good-by at the port gates and went on his way, and she went back to work in the port medical office. As far as any of us could see, the Garrity plan was well under way.


It wasn't six months before I saw the thing starting off. That was when I was invited to Garrity's second wedding. It was in Terra City, and when he asked me to come down with him for a witness, I assumed it would be the girl he had been busily courting before he went to Serco. But when I walked into the marriage registry office and took a look at the girl, I got a clear, horrific idea of just what Katha had done to Garrity.

He didn't think anything had been done to him. He was all smiles. He brought the girl toward me, proud and possessive, grinning all over his face.

"This is Mary Collins," he told me, and I kept on looking, not saying anything. She smiled, and shook hands, and I could tell by her expression that she knew exactly what I was thinking.

Unfortunately, I couldn't say a word about it to Garrity. There was always the faint possibility that I might be wrong, in which case I could make a lot of trouble by saying a few words. The words were there, though, straining to get out. When he said, "Mary Collins," what I wanted to say was, "No, it isn't. It's Katha."

Because it was. After I watched the girl long enough, all the way through the marriage ceremony, then down in the elevator and out into the street, I became dead certain.

There was a brown mole on Katha's arm. Mary had it, too. And there was a look about the eyes—well, there could only be one Katha.

What I could not understand was why Garrity didn't see it. After all, he'd been married to Katha.

But when I tried to say something to him, he brushed it off.

"Sure, Mary looks a little like Katha," he agreed with me. "But there are all kinds of small differences. Things a man finds out as he goes along. Look, I'm very fond of both of them. I know the difference. You're just confused by the slight resemblance."

The clincher was the problem of how Katha had reached Terra City ahead of Garrity, to begin with, and whether there was still a Katha in Serco. I asked a man off a ship fresh from Serco and he told me Katha hadn't been there for some time. No one knew where she'd gone, but she had said she'd be back.

So Mary could be Katha, given a fast passenger ship.

And Arnel could be Katha, too. Arnel had a mole in the right place. So did Lillian. And Ruth. And Virginia.


Yes, Garrity married every one of them. Six girls, six planets. It took him a while, and by the time he got as far as Ruth, he was going to a lot of trouble to arrange his shipping runs so he could make the full circuit. But every so often I'd hear from him, or run into him, and there would always be a new one.

The Garrity plan was going fine, but it lacked that one ingredient he had counted on—variety. Every one of those girls was Katha.

He didn't think so. He could call off the differences between them by the hour. To listen to him, if you hadn't actually seen them, you'd have believed every word he said.

Each one of them gets a share of Garrity's pay—a big share, from the looks of it. Each one of them keeps a nice place for Garrity and, when he comes into port, he eats and sleeps as well as any honest groundwalker. And each one of them has a small fat baby boy, of whose exact age Garrity never seems to be quite sure. Two or three of the kids seem extremely advanced for their ages and they were all born fairly close together, which was enough to make Garrity as proud as a rooster.

And Garrity seems to be the only one who can't tell.

Thinking about it might make a man want to rush off to Serco and find a girl like Katha ... and Serco is full of them. I'd like having a girl like Katha. I'd like having six Kathas even better.

But I'm not going to.

I won't drive myself batty trying to figure out how she'd be keeping me fooled.

And especially why.