The Plot Sickens: Free-write & Reflection.

            It was Christmas Eve. Fog stuck to the tarmac at Lindbergh Field. Inside San Diego International Airport a high pitched beep sounded, signaling the use of the intercom. “Due to the poor visibility, the air traffic control had decided to delay flight 654 from San Diego to London”.

            At this announcement, the waiting room erupted into a rumble of groans. The once silent families, deeply immersed in their own lives, had seemingly awoken into a burst of discussion and indecipherable noises. One woman had completely forgotten about entertaining the young boy accompanying her, and quickly turned to her husband and becoming consumed in a rapid and intense conversation. On the opposite side of the room, A middle aged man, dressed in a charcoal grey suit, was engaged in a thundering argument with an attendant working at the airport. Towards the middle of the room, a man, wearing a San Diego state t-shirt and cargo shorts, was having a heated conversation with the cell phone pressed tightly to his cheek.

            Across the airport in an air-conditioned office a man sat on a beat up chair barely supporting his weight. He was observing the whole situation over the grainy television set placed on his desk.. His radio began to emit the crinkly sound of static, followed by a deep voice. He gathered his radio, gun, and San Diego Airport badge, strolled to the other side of his meager office, turned the metallic door handle and strolled down one of the long hallways of San Diego International Airport.

            The article The Plot Sickens, written by Fanny Howe, discusses the flaws pertaining to the writing styles of young authors. The article states that “All the others concluded with extraordinary violence.” referring to the fifteen out of twenty stories that did not include a happy ending after being assigned to the 100 college students taking the course The Craft of Fiction. I can confidently say that the outcome of my free-write neither substantiates nor deviates from the author’s claim while at the same time does both. The Plot Sickens describes how in students responses to the free write “terrible things would happen to their protagonist” and this is one area in which my story differs. Although my incorporates an amount of verbal violence, these do not happen to the protagonist since the main character is simply another point of view used to narrate the story. One way that my story relates to the “flaws of young writers” which are stated by Fanny Howe, is the lack of a happy ending. There is no problem being solved. There is no problem for the protagonist to conquer. It is just a story. I’m not saying that there are no conflicts in my story, but they do not affect the well being of my main character. They may have as the plot progresses, but as of right now, the narrator is simply there to tell a story.

Open Ended Prompt

           It was Christmas Eve. Fog stuck to the tarmac at Lindbergh Field. Inside San Diego International Airport a high pitched beep sounded, signaling the use of the intercom. “Due to the poor visibility, the air traffic control had decided to delay flight 654 from San Diego to London”.
At this announcement, the waiting room erupted into a rumble of groans mixed. The once silent families, immersed in their own lives, had seemingly awoken in a burst of discussion and indecipherable noises. One woman had completely forgotten about entertaining the young boy accompanying her, and quickly turned to her husband and became quickly consumed in a fast-spoken and intense conversation. On the opposite side of the room, A middle aged man, dressed in a charcoal grey suit, was engaged in a thundering argument with an attendant working at the airport. The apologetic, powerless employee was doing a poor job at deflecting the insults slung his was by the man in the suit, and was displayed by his wavering voice and the timid expression that was frozen on his face.


            “It’s amazing how quickly the demeanor of so many people can change so rapidly over just a few words” John said as he watched the grainy feed over his small television set placed on his desk. His radio began to emit the crinkly sound of static, followed by a deep voice. John gathered his radio, gun, and San Diego Airport badge, strolled to the other side of his meager office, opened the beat up door and strolled down one of the long hallways of San Diego International Airport.

Self Deprecation

            When two people meet for the first time, they form a preconceived judgement of one another from the impression they are left with after the first couple seconds of dialogue, and often generalize that person based on the traits they perceive the other to have. The first impression is often formed from the others appearance physically, and by the confidence emanating off of them. With this knowledge I can only assume that I haven't left many great first impressions. The first thing that people will detect about me is how I am generally very shy at first. I generally will not initiate a conversation with someone that I am unfamiliar with and definitely do not ooze any confidence. I would rather sit in silence, than try to start up some small talk with people who I do not feel confident talking too. Even if a conversation is miraculously established, the task of getting more than a couple words to escape out of my mouth begins, and is just as troublesome.

            On the other end of the spectrum, given a comfortable environment, and moment of silence, the words seem to erupt from my mouth, spewing everywhere. Its as if the words and phrases were dammed up inside of my vocal cords and finally break through, eager to escape. Requests quickly change from “speak up” to “quiet down”, begging that I “participate more” to pleading with me to “stop conversing”, or to at least tone down my voice to a reasonable murmur. It’s remarkable how quickly I can transform from the quiet kid sitting in the back of the room, to the main source of noise in the room. Synonymously to an oxymoron, my name contradicts itself, implying both silence and commotion. It is difficult to determine the lesser of two evils. You can have an awkward silence, lacking any communication, or you can have the eardrum shattering words spilling out steadily, and seemingly never ending. But I’ll leave that decision up to my peers. The same people who are burdened with sitting in a room with me for an hour and a half at a time.