the Wakefield Doctrine

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

Those of you following our serial story, the Hobbomock Chronicles, may be aware we’ve written a new Episode, Episode Seventeen.

Thanks out to Denise and Mimi and Robert and the others who went and read this, the newest installment in our serial story. Mimi expressed, as have others, that the by-installment style of story-telling is inherently frustrating. My rogerian aspect, urged by my scottian secondary, will take this as a compliment, as the more exciting the forward-momentum of the narrative, the greater the desire to read ‘what happens next?!!’

As my buddy Bill would say, ‘Aye, there’s the rub.’ The thing about serial story writing for us, here at the Wakefield Doctrine, is we don’t know what happens next until we write it. This, I suspect is not so uncommon to those of us unable to write by outline. When you think about it, that should be no surprise. Lets consider the background we bring to this effort:

• • my interest in writing fiction is an offshoot of starting this blog
  • the Wakefield Doctrine is and remains not only the driving force behind my virtual persona, the original mission: write a Wakefield Doctrine post that a person could read once and be able to apply its principles in their own lives and enjoy the benefits of our little personality theory.
  • being in a world of letters, i.e. not only the blogosphere but the more general internet environment of the Facebook and other platforms, skill with the written word is a good thing,
  • of course, it didn’t take long before I realized that the price I paid for ignoring English class (in all levels of formal education) had finally come due.
  • the coolest thing about how the Wakefield Doctrine benefits me personally, is that, somehow, the inclinations of my predominant clarklike worldview have, in matters concerning the blog, been over-ridden; I realized that if I want to get better at this writing thing, I’d better spend as much time as possible with them what writes better’n I do
  • hence my participation in bloghops like Finish the Sentence Friday and Ten Things of Thankful and the eponymous Six Sentence Story. Them folks be quite good at the wordifying.
  • Finally, at some point in time, I stumbled upon the notion that, if you have characters that are engaging (and therefore real), they are more than happy to tell you the story.

Well… given how exciting Episode Seventeen was, I know I need to get on with the story, or Mimi will kill me.

The thing of it is, I don’t seem to be able to write unless I’m on a blog. No, seriously! I know many people who can whip out their Word and hammer out a story, like they was ringing a bell, (as Chuck Berry would say).

Alas, I cannot. If it don’t got a Save Draft/Preview/Publish button, then the keys don’t clack. So, since the initial impulse for writing this morning was to start a conversation with my characters, I thought I’d invite you along.

The room in which the characters had gathered was down the hall from the Library of Imagination, just two doors beyond the Great Room of Questionably-Repressed Memories. The latter, being more a series of alcoves than a single large room, for reasons obvious to most of us.

Standing next to a pair of leather wing-back chairs, Allyson Ross was pretending to be about to sit down. She wore a physician’s white coat and fishnet stockings that would be in style in the mid-1960s. Appropriately, as this was the fashion of her youth. The stockings, not the lab coat.

Micheal Stone was diligently acquiring a small group of supporting characters, very much like nacre, as a salve to his abrasive soul. He pretended to be listening to a barely-dressed Native American man by the name of Meklendou. Meklendou’s eyes were was greedy as Michael’s.

Perhaps most surprising, as we enter the room, was to see the real estate broker, standing in the geo-social center of the gathering. His eyes, clouded behind the lens of his reading glasses, were alive with interest at the voices of all the groups around him. Despite his enthusiasm, he was uncertain as to his welcome at any of them.

“Allyson!” the incorporeal narrator called, “You’re one of the most dynamic of the characters of Volume One, at least as of recent Episodes. Do you have a moment?”

Moved by an impulse she did not understand, (but feared was a new quality that the author had not deigned to let her know she possessed), touched the brass-nail edge of the chair next to her. Sitting, fighting a blush that grew from a visual from an old movie starring Sharon Stone, smiled, “By all means. Come. Join me.”

(to be continued)

the obvious musical selection*:

* ‘course, this is the Wakefield Doctrine