Eccentric Flower:199810/nothing ever happens at the diner

seven october ninety eight ten a m

nothing ever happens at the diner

Al is talking this morning about telling stories. I don't tell stories much anymore. Oh, I know this stuff counts - and I'm not trying to disparage it - but what I mean is stories about events that didn't actually happen.

I have a lot of them, as ever. I spend my whole day thinking up stories; it's what my mind does when it's idle. But they don't ever seem to make it onto paper, for a variety of reasons - either they've got fatal flaws, or I figure they're so weird that no one would want to read them, or they only make sense to me, or because of sheer inertia.

A lot of times I have what Diane would call a "notion" - not a plot, nor a hook for a plot, but a conceit that might be a good setting for some hook some day. A most ephemeral thing.

The Diner stories are like that. Here's the problem: I have tried to write about the Limbo Diner three or four times, and so far only one vignette has seen the light of day. I have a long project in the someday file - has about five thousand words written, or chapter 1 and part of chapter 2, plus an outline. It's about a woman who for various reasons has to make a trip to hell, and what she finds there. Chapter 2 used to be finished too. I had to rip the limbo portion out.

The problem with the diner setting is that all the characters can do there is eat, drink, and talk. It makes it the perfect setting for a surreal, limbolike place, where the pacing is slow and deliberate - it makes it lousy for conventional setup-resolution, and the over-before-you-know-it speed that a short story demands.

Instead, you get something that sounds like The Dumb-Waiter, which, in case you don't know it, is one of these damned absurdist plays that some of us were forced to read in high school (at the same time that we were learning the allegory of the cave).

It's a pity. I had a cast of characters all mapped out, and some of them are really fun characters to write, but I'm having a hard time thinking of things for them to do. The current story - the one I've discarded three times - is supposed to introduce Luxine, the angel character. Luxine speaks with a Nashville drawl and dresses like something from a Pigeon Forge tourist trap. She has a heart of gold and a short fuse. She and Henna don't like each other much, which is a problem since they habitually eat in the same joint.

The story should also involve the three recurring characters, Cassie, Mme S, and a waitress (Ruby or Pearl). Cassie isn't secure enough yet about who she is or what's weird about her that she can hold a story without Mme S. That only makes sense to me, because of course I know all the good stuff, but I can't give in and tell you all about the characters at once - I wouldn't have any cards left.

Now if I can just think of a plot. With Henna it was easy, because diabolical characters are out to get people's souls. But people whose jobs are saving souls - that's not as interesting somehow. Even with Dante, the Inferno is a hoot and the other two books are tedious as all get-out.

Oh, if you want to read the Diner story that's been written so you'll understand what I'm fussing about, you'll find it in the story area. But that's not a plug, just a public service announcement.

And here I thought I was going to write about ATM's today ....

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