Literally Reruns, Short Fiction

Literally Reruns – Douglas Hawley

ireneallison12

Doug Hawley has been busy publishing work online for the past few years, including, happily with us. We are happy to share his often curmudgeonly POV, which is always tempered with amusement and is never caustic; he also presents his own original point of view that sometimes irks those who demand conventional writing. So it goes with Doug’s The Assistant.

Within the original comments were interesting ones about what stories should and shouldn’t have. In my opinion, people who tell writers what they should and shouldn’t do are the same people who have a strange attraction to getting punched in the face; they just keep begging for it.

It’s great that Doug’s story is far from a paint by numbers piece. It relates to aging and takes down the specious assumption that getting older requires a loss of intimacy, or that it comes with added wisdom, for that matter

Lucky for us we can hear all about it from Doug himself.

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The Story Behind The Assistant

I am reverse engineering this in the sense that I don’t know exactly why I wrote that story, but I’ll make some logical assumptions.

The topic interested me because I like to write in all genres and a romance appealed to me at the time.  It was also a chance for me to ignore the command to have conflict.  There isn’t always conflict in real life, fiction should mirror that.

I frequently call the male main character Duke after the name my father wanted to name me.  Lead women’s name frequently start with S same as editor Sharon.  The characters have little resemblance to their namesakes other than my incompetence.  Life reflected fiction in that Sharon had a mild case of covid after this was written.

Sharon is almost certain to outlive me, but what if she didn’t?  That’s where the story originated.  I couldn’t see the much older Duke as a long-term match for Sally, but he served the purpose of restoring Sally’s faith in men after some bad experiences.  Brian needed to be a quality human to be a match for Sally.

With the two men and the one woman there was an opportunity for conflict which I deliberately avoided.  Brian and Sally got the ever after, but posthumously Duke got a son.  

Doug Hawley

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Published by ireneallison12

9 thoughts on “Literally Reruns – Douglas Hawley”

  1. Shocked to discover that I’d commented on Doug’s piece just last year, but had no recollection of having previously read it. Nevertheless, comforted that, at least , I still very much enjoyed it, especially the dry laid-back narrative style. Just shows that these LS re-runs are a good idea, especially for those of your readership that are slightly dottled.

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  2. I agree with the comment about “rules” in writing. A few years ago I discovered a young writer from Scotland named Malcolm Mackay, He wrote a crime trilogy and I though he was one of the best new writers I’d read in a whiile. Beautiful prose. I read one review online that said “he didn’t know the rules,” which I thought was hilarious. In one or two scenes he excellently changed POV, and it worked wonderfully. I think there are no “rules” in writing except what works and what doesn’t,.

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  3. Hi Mr. Mirth

    I really enjoyed this story! It does an excellent job of subverting the expectations that fiction needs to have conflict. I was impressed with the way you handled killing off one of the main characters, too. He goes just as casually as everything else that happens in the narrative. That was a masterful stroke in this piece.

    The characters are really likeable in this! The prose is clean, clear, distinct, and it flows; the narrative flow in this is nearly (or is) flawless.

    I also liked, in technical terms, how you handled the POVs of the characters. This story has an omniscient narrator but that is kept under wraps, too. Great effects!

    Finally, I enjoyed seeing the lack of possessive jealousy in these characters.

    I’ve known women who were so jealous it sometimes threw them into what amounted to a murderous rage (but I’m good at escaping out the back door). Even when there was nothing going on on the other side except friendship, which is almost always the case (but not in their paranoid mind/s). It’s good to see characters who are beyond that. And it all goes back to that thing about subverting the expectations regarding conflict.

    This story’s reason for being is actually a (silent) message to the world, i.e. an important theme!

    Dale

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  7. Hi Doug,

    It’s always a pleasure to see you get another day in the sun.

    I think that the information regarding a writers thought process only ehnances the piece.

    All the very best my interesting friend. Say ‘Hello’ to Sharon for me!

    Hugh

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